Originally Posted by
tetonrider
did any of the eTap failures cause you to pause when making the decision?
just asking because neither system is perfect.
and wire length...it's really a non-issue. sure, someone tries to get the exact right length of wire, but the reality is that a 700mm section of e-tube wire weighs 7g, and an 800mm weighs.... right about 7g, too! assuming you're not a growing boy, we tend to rid the same size frames. i've moved wires over from one bike to the next.
not questioning your decision, just saying from my perspective that 'troublesome install' argument seems to get such a large amount of thought relative to the actual trouble.
personally i think this is more exciting with TT bikes than road bikes, but i think sram dropped the ball with their TT/tri add-ons (size/shape).
manufacturers have gotten more thoughtful about internal routing in many cases.
not sure i understand. doesn't a mechanical FD need a wire? one could just route the e-tube wire where the shifter cable would go. sounds like you were getting distracted by people having some obsessive question about changing up the bike.
but, yeah, i've drilled holes in plenty of frames before (not just for electronic wiring). definitely not for everyone--and shouldn't be. that hasn't happened for a road frame since MY2011 for me, though i've done it for MTBs in the past (dropper posts, actually).
(i know sram's choices vs shimano's choices are not bad like the choice in my door example, but they are something else for the user to learn. when i have to ride a sram bike, i'll inevitably make a mis-shift at some point during the ride. i suspect you might, too, if for example you got crashed out of a crit and got handed a neutral bike with another system. might cause you a few minor issues when you are breathing hard and maybe not thinking clearly.)
eTap failures were pretty hard to come by when I ordered/got mine. In fact, I'm aware of only a few issues. None I've seen myself on either eTap bike. 1) Battery tabs breaking. 2) FD limit screw hitting/scratching crank arms. 3) Poor FD shifting 4) RD losing signal.
I kinda get #3, but I'm not entirely convinced it isn't my weird combination of rings, P2M spider, and BB30->GXP adapters.
The wire length thing is probably a non-issue now. Back when I was really considering it, battery placement and junction box could drastically change how much wire you needed.
The 'thought' of the install being difficult was definitely larger than reality would have been. But it was enough that when eTap was announced, the perceived lack of difficulty made it an easy choice for me.
I agree. SRAM's Blipbox is horrendous. The actual shifter buttons are way more attractive than Shimano's though.
For the Allez Sprint, the FD housing exits the frame about 6 inches up the downtube from the BB. It then seats in an external stop located a couple inches up the seat tube from the BB. So you'd have the FD etube running for about 8 inches external to the frame with nothing holding it in place. You could use tape or something, but that's an ugly solution. So they were looking to keep it internal and drilling a hole closer to the FD to minimize exposed etube.
I respect your opinion on Di2 vs SRAM/eTap, but I personally, and others I've talked to, find it to be way more intuitive. Switching back to mechanical SRAM and even Shimano 105 has never caught me out. Switching to a neutral bike with mechanical SRAM/Shimano would probably phase me for all of 1/4 of a lap.