Originally Posted by
Calsun
I am very much aware of how much time is spent having to recharge devices. In the past I had a bike computer that required a new 2032 battery once a year. Now I have a smartphone and a Wahoo and a cadence meter and one of my bikes is an e-bike. The idea of having to worry about the battery on a derailleur is where I think it is frivolous for those not engaged in professional road racing.
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Originally Posted by
PeteHski
I worry less about derailleur batteries than I did about cables. I've only very recently embraced electronic shifting, but I can't see myself going back. That seems to be the way it goes for most people who give it a try. I wouldn't go as far as converting any of my other bikes with mechanical shifting to electronic, but I think all my future bikes will be electronic. Fewer cables and touch shifters are nice. I also prefer that the brake levers don't need to move laterally. I always found that a bit weird.
the batteries that drive my di2 setup seem to last a VERY long time; so long that you'd have warning of them being low long before any ride of a reasonable length could exhaust them. i'm sure it happens, but bikes need somewhat regular maintenance and charging a single battery in the seatpost every couple months and replacing a couple coin cells in the shifters less often than that is really trivial compared to how much of a hassle it is to adjust a mechanical derailleur. of all the components on my other road bike (GRX) the rear derailleur was by the most annoying, very difficult to get perfectly aligned and indexed, and of course it doesn't stay there forever. with electronic shifting that seems to be a thing of the past, for the price of a few seconds of plugging a cable in every once in a while. i'm 100% sold, along with the flexibility it allows in shifter designs. i was very skeptical until i tried it.