Originally Posted by Russ Roth

For whatever reason, imho bikes that are coming equipped with electronic shifting are overpriced and just not worth the cost. That said, my oldest kid's bike is Rival AXS, I'm building the middle kid's bike now with Rival AXS, just waiting on shifters right now, and will rebuild the youngest's with Force AXS mechanical brakes. Cost on buying axs road and building with it is somewhat reasonably priced, full rival groupset is less than 1k, not that I can use the full groupset with kids, and they find it so much easier than mechanical. Having built and tested their bikes along with multiple others I'm still not certain if I'd go mechanical or electronic on the next bike or not. Biggest annoyance was discovering the need to carry a spare battery, I never think to remove the der battery when I toss the bike on the car, half dozen trips to bear mtn to train and the oldest showed up for a team training ride and 3 miles in had no shifting. Oops, now keep a spare in the seat bag.