sysrq

Could there be a possibility to come up with your own if nobody makes them (probably haven't done enough digging on the internet to find any DIY projects)? Need the display to be in the centre and close to the phone holder. Shifter with integrated optical indicator would be pointless due to swept back handlebars and 60° stem making everything too much out of the line of sight. As far as I know only Shimano flight deck which is obsolete now was a solution back in the old days.

Iride01 

Get a Di2 bike and a Garmin Edge computer. Then you can display what gear you are in it by ratio, the tooth combo or several other methods including a graphic. If your Di2 is 11 speed or less you'll have to get the d-fly unit which isn't that much in the grand scheme.

BTinNYC 

Wahoo elemnt bolt also shows 12 speed Di2 gear selection.

TiHabanero

What's the draw to having a gear indicator on the bike?

Steve B.

If you’ve lost track of what gear you are in and what’s left for the upcoming hill, it’s useful to see on screen, rather than having to glance back at the cassette. Safer as well. It’s one of the more useful features on my Garmin.

As well, Shimano used to make a bar mounted display, 800 something, for the mt. bike groups, that was a combined gear display, battery indicator, BT unit, as well as A junction replacement and charging port. It worked with all the 11 spd. Di2 systems. Only gripe I have with it, is it will show you what gear you are in when you shift, then turns off the gear display. Thus I use my Garmin.

sysrq

It's for ebike. Need to make sure the gear is low enough for BBSHD to climb hills during 50 mile commute at night with 170 chainring rpm. Flats and short inclines are leg power only. So far nothing has come up on endless-sphere sphere for example only some unconvincing DIY projects on arduino forums.

sysrq

Too expensive and posh for commuting or touring.

indyfabz

Beat me to it. I had one with my FlightDeck back in the early 2000s. Never paid attention to it. I got the computer for free with a new Colnago. (Had gone to high school with the shop owner.) I certainly wouldn’t pay for anything like that.

veganbikes

Flat bar Di2 stuff has a display and will tell you your gears. Not "posh" at all just quality functional equipment.

In terms of knowing what gear you are in, it doesn't really matter, if you knew how to ride a bike you would be able to feel what gear you are in If you are really into e-bikes get something with Rohloff E-14 and at least for Bosch it will tell you what gear you are in if you really need to know.

Steve B.

Kind of a condescending comment. I’m nearing 100,000 miles in 30 something years on a bike, and can state I know how to ride a bike by this time. I can still lose track of the gear I’m in. As myself and others have found, the Di2 gear indicator is very useful. Not life changing, but I do use it and like it,

Ironfish653

I can see how a gear indicator might be of use to the OP, to make sure you're in the "right" gear before you flip on the E-assist. I've had them on motos and cars with DSG transmissions; and it's useful while you're getting used to the vehicle; but over time, you learn to read the tach to know when to shift up or down without looking at a specific number.

​​​Cann not say if I've ever been in a situation where I've been unable to look down for the duration of the ride; but then, im usually not concerned with being in a specific gear, i just wanna to know which part of the cassette I'm in, so I know whether i might be ready to switch chainrings up front. Otherwise I just feed it up or down a gear or two, depending on what my legs are telling me

Op could use a simple hall-effect sensor to detect when the chain is on the correct cog and signal a pilot light on the bars, to know when its okay to turn on the boost. All it needs is voltage, no need to muddle about with numerical displays.

50 miles is a considerable commute under most circumstances, but on a bicycle? Chapeau!

BTinNYC 

Then you need to look at your gears like the hoi polloi.
😜

seypat

Post 6 is a bit confusing. Does the OP need to know exactly what gear he/she is in while climbing a hill? Or does the OP just need to know that he/she has enough gearing to get up said hill. If it's the latter, a gear calculator should answer that question.

OP could use a clicking hand counter like the bouncers at the door of a night club.

Rick_D

Same with AXS, Garmin Edge has a pictogram gear display plus the current combo, e.g., 44 X 19. In the Garmin setup you can combine them with other parameters such as current speed.

cellery

This post might go over better on an e-bike forum where the use-case is more appropriate. My understanding is that these visual indicators are the norm on a lot of e-bikes - but have fallen out of vogue on mechanical bikes. I personally think keeping things simple helps you to have less things to distract you (and possibly avoid the issue of being confused on what gear you're currently in). But we used to have gear indicators on shifters once upon a time, and then they stopped being produced like that. Probably because most riders found it to be redundant and it added complexity, cost, and more points of failure to the shifter unit. I don't personally think anyone outside of a disability really needs a visual indicator for what gear they are in; by 1/4 of a pedal revolution you know quite clearly where it is along your cassette that you are and approximately how many clicks you need to get where you should be for the terrain you find yourself transitioning to. I can see why some folks would want such a feature, just like the plethora of data we get from bike computers that we don't really need, but like anyway.

(edited because I was being a ****** before)

BTinNYC 

Earl Sweatshirt coulda dropped that rap!

Atlas Shrugged

The same could be said for any piece of bike tech developed over the past 100 years. I have it displayed on my Garmin and find it useful. Not sure very many feel they need this feature yet many people like to have this feature.

cellery

You're not wrong, fixed gear riders prove your point. I realize I was too harsh with saying someone might be bad at cycling if they need these indicators - but I guess it's moreso that folks want this piece of information on a visual display for whatever reason. None of my business and I don't want to gatekeep.

PeteHski

I agree. The only thing I find mildly useful on a normal road bike is the warning bleep I get from my Garmin when I select the lowest climbing gear (this is with SRAM AXS). It lets me know I’ve run out of gears! Otherwise I don’t need to know what gear I’m actually in.

sysrq

Since even motorcycles can get away without gear indicator then on ebikes nobody is concerned about it too much either judging by the amount of discussions on ebike forums.
Suddenly got a "simple and stupid" idea to put on only a single LED indicator which will light up at 1:1 ratio which is low enough to climb any hill without drop in motor RPM.

Broctoon

Okay, first, are you really spinning your legs at 170 RPM? That is an incredibly fast cadence... like, nearly twice what I can comfortably maintain. If your claim is that you do this for an entire 50 mile commute, I have to throw a BS flag.

Anyway, are you concerned that you will run through your battery power too quickly? Just discipline yourself to stay near the middle or large end of your cassette and/or in the lower e-boost levels, and accept that you will not go up hills very fast. You should have no need to know exactly which gear you're in before engaging the e-drive. Trust me. My wife has a Bafang e-bike kit, and she pays no attention to her gear position. She just picks a boost level on the e-control and a gear on her cassette that will move her at the speed she wants. She does not use the throttle, but puts in whatever power she can manage from her legs (sometimes she's providing most of the total power; other times not much) and lets the system do the rest. We've found her range is about 28-30 miles. This is with the 750W motor and I think a 14 amp-hour battery (48v). If you're trying to get more range, the key is not to carefully manage gear position, but to reduce average speed, and/or push harder with your muscles. And by the way, how long are the hills on your commute? If you go with legs-only for short inclines, and on longer hills you still use your legs plus boost, I don't see how you will not have enough range. That is, unless you're climbing moderately steep hills for at least half of the distance.

FWIW, I'm not saying my wife does it right. I wish she would choose a cog one or two sizes larger when riding at low speed or starting out from a stop. I believe she strains the system excessively. My point is that it's not going to damage anything, and it certainly isn't critical to be in exactly the right gear.

If you really want to know your gear position, don't like looking down (or can't see it in the dark), and can't upgrade to Di2, your best option is probably to home brew something with an Arduino.

shelbyfv

Seems as if OP could recharge the battery while at work, have enough juice to get home w/o being concerned about gearing. 25 miles each way?

Leisesturm

I don't know of a flat-bar shifter that didn't have some kind of indicator for gear position. The ones on my Rapidfires aren't very precise but they don't really need to be. I look at them from time to time. On a tandem, hills can really mess up a commute. There is enough stuff with lights and peds and etc that on occasion I arrive at the bottom of the HILL not knowing what gear I am in. Too low and the Stoker complains. Too high and we will bonk halfway up. There is no getting started again if we stop. Anyway, to the ask of the post. A helmet mounted headlight would illuminate the passive gear indicators that all shifters must have. Seems to be the only practical solution.

wheelreason

lmao

DangerousDanR

Not a one of my flat bar shifters (most are SRAM but one is a Box 9 on the tandem) has a gear indicator.