datlas 

I suspect you are right. We can wait a decade for this to be a bumped zombie thread to find out if you were right.

Psimet2001 

Shimano officially said they would not be supporting rim brake in 12 speed Ultegra and DA. They then quickly decided they would keep the previous generation rim brake lever in DA to run rim brake and an option. Can't remember the specific conversion they offered in order to make it compatible with the new cables or whether it just involved using the old cables. It's in the press releases if someone digs for it.

They will be eliminating rim brake on higher component lines just as soon as they can feasibly get away with it.

Every day I deal with another hub manufacturer who either eliminates rim brake all together or reduces the options even further.

SoSmellyAir

In related news, road.cc is reporting FCC documentation on 105 R7100 Di2:

Shimano 105 R7100 Di2 groupset breaks cover | road.cc

genejockey 

So, 105.

beng1

This is why new bicycles are a farce, as are most consumer goods under the USA's predatory capitalism. Goods are not changed in design for any other reason than to have something to market to maintain sales and profits.

Some new technology is marketed to the consumer as being "better" or that it will make them into something they currently are not, but 99.99% of the time nothing in marketing is true.

What is gotten out of bicycling is 99% up to the rider, not the equipment. As long as the equipment is in good condition and of the type needed for the task at hand, it does not matter how old it is.

Microsoft Windows follows the same pattern, new versions of it have been trotted out every few years over the last few decades not because it works any better for most people, but because newer versions work better for those making money off it.

The crime is when bicycle manufacturers, or manufacturers period, quit supporting the product they sell after a very short time to force everyone to buy into the new technology and to maintain their profiteering.

Currently it is very hard for most of the general population to not be taken advantage of in this way. Society has been shaped to insure people have to spend their money on new technology and goods to simply exist, to be able to work and pay their bills and live. If anyone can see the farce and crime that this is, then in any facet of their life which they can drop participation in it they should, and bicycling is one place that is possible.

There are millions of old road bikes laying around from thirty or more decades ago when technology was not updated every year or two, ten-speed road bikes were sold for over twenty years with no major changes from the 1950s through the 1970s. For little more than pocket-change anyone can have a nice old road bike that has lost None of it's utility, performance or practicality since it was made forty or sixty years ago, and there is no difference worth mentioning in what they can do with it where bicycling is concerned compared to what can be done with current equipment.

AlgarveCycling

I disagree with you 100%.

I've had bikes all my life, started riding as a very small child. I've had all types of bikes, still do. Taking road bikes specifically, my first 'racing bike' was a Reynold's tubed 501P with SunTour components when I was 18 years old. I then started racing and was fortunate enough that with sponsorship help, got an aluminium Allan with the then flagship Campagnolo C Record group at 19. I upgraded the frame to a Trek 2300 carbon for extra stiffness two years later.

My next bike was a Saeco Cannonade with Dura Ace in 1999. After that, having quit racing, I moved to a mid-range Giant TCR with Ultegra and had that for many years. More recently, I got a 2019 Wilier Zero6 with SRAM Red and then added a Trek Madone SLR with Ultegra.

I can tell you that the difference between my two current bikes and those I rode 20 - 30 years ago is huge in terms of agility, weight, braking distance, rolling resistance, aerodynamics and efficiency. And I'm comparing against machines that were high-end in their day. All these things aren't only good for competitive riders, but make cycling more enjoyable for the recreational rider too. Going up hills is easier. Braking distances are shorter, ergo safer. Changing gears is more efficient. The bikes are more agile, ergo more responsive, inspiring greater confidence.

It is true, you can hop onto an old bike and have fun. If you are a collector, or enjoy the nostalgia of an older racing machine, then that's great, the older bikes are nice too. But to say tech has not moved on, to suggest the current bikes are not significantly better for the reasons I have outlined, is just incorrect. I borrowed a near 20-year old Bianchi last month in perfect working order for a couple of days. I did around 150km on it. I had fun. It was a throw-back for sure. I raced and did very well on bikes like that. Would I prefer to ride it over my current bikes? No chance! It was a nostalgic experience, not a better one. My Wilier is much nicer to climb with, my Trek is far nicer to cruise on and it is ultimately safer, it brakes far sooner when I need it to.

I got around Amsterdam on an old bike for awhile when I used to live there for a week a month for three years; a freebie I was given. I then got a new one - just the same design but modern materials. So much nicer to commute on. Just felt better.

Nope, I loved my old bikes when I had them but wouldn't prefer them to my current ones. I have no doubt that in 15 years I'll prefer the bikes I have then to the one's I have now, too.

seypat

Is there some reason the group can't be used with whatever shifter/lever Shimano will make to replace the R8000 shifter/lever? If you really like the R8000 you are using you'll be able to keep it working. You might have to do some groups cobbling. The C & V guys will find a way.

PeteHski

Just because you've somehow convinced yourself that anything newer than a 1970s road bike is just pure marketing and corporate greed, doesn't mean it's actually true. Enjoy your old bike and don't worry about what everyone else chooses to ride. We're not all idiots like you seem to think.

beng1

Poor logic, because it is just as likely, even more so, that you and your peers, who have been subjected to consumerism, marketing and propaganda since you were born, are indoctrinated into supporting whatever you do. It is those who question mainstream thinking using critical and independent thought who are much more likely to have a grasp on reality than those who's opinions just happen to agree with marketing campaigns and mainstream thought.

And AlgarveCycling's comments about rolling resistance and aerodynamics are poor. Modern bikes have ball bearings in all major areas just as all bikes of the last 100+ years have had, except now they have bearing seals, which ADD drag to the bearings, and anyone knows that the biggest gain in aerodynamics by far is simply rider position. Also if a road-bike from forty or sixty years ago is worked on by a competent mechanic, it's brakes can work really well for any situation on the road except where the rider is dull enough to get themselves into a ridiculous situation, in which case evolution is going to take them out sooner or later anyway no matter if their consumer goods are new or old.

It is just more of that marketing/brainwashing for profit, telling customers that their wares will do great things for them, when in fact the greatest improvement for any cyclist is proper riding and for racers proper training and living.

base2 

I thought, this thread was about how long it was until Shimano obsoletes a perfectly good thing that serves a large portion of their customer base for the next big thing that gets their customer base to better serve it's shareholders.

It's no secret that people who buy Ultegra/Dura-Ace tend to be early adopters with disposable income. Why wouldn't a mega-corp cater to that customer base? Think about the psychology of that consumer type. Shimano is excellent at what they do. (I have 3 discarded Ultegra 6800 group sets in a box, in favor for more novel kitsch and some Dura-Ace. So, this is not intended as the insult it may sound.)

Mechanical in it's various configurations will be around for at least the foreseeable future. If not by Shimano, but by another brand filling Shimano's discarded niche. If not better than ever, at least every bit as good as the standards at the time...& probably a lot cheaper. That can only be a good thing.

Centos 2x11 is only $164 at Modern Bike. How long until a carbon or hydro variant? 2 years, 5? Gevenalle already has Hydro/mechanical. It's no wonder Shimano is moving on with it's high margin customer base by creating another exclusive halo product. Bit players serving the masses have sucked profit margin out of the current equation. What else can Shimano do but take the high earners, the exclusive status & repeat the cycle anew?

AlgarveCycling

You should get an actual education if you truly believe the utter garbage you wrote.

The rider is aided by the machine. Forget you vs someone else. Focus upon you vs you. The modern bike is true to all I wrote in my post above.

This is an indisputable fact and the research is available to you for review online. Heck, you can just go through GCN's own video's and see where you are wrong without looking for peer-reviewed scientific research.

See: (and this is over short distances, imagine longer...but Ollie is right about one thing, the old Wilier is cooler )

Needless to say, however, you don't need to take anyone else's word for it. Simply pull off the idiot glasses and do the research yourself; take an actual open, intelligent, mind (like the one you profess to possess but have failed to demonstrate thus far) and get yourself a 30 year old bike and its equivalent from today and perform a series of test rides. It really isn't difficult, you should be able to manage.

Find a 1 mile incline, say 3-4%.
Freewheel from the top on both bikes, see which is faster to the bottom.
Climb at strictly 150watts back to the top on both, see which is faster. (You'll need a power meter so may need to borrow one)
Perform emergency braking on both using traffic cones or similar to see where you stop. See which stops sooner.

When you have done this, report back with your findings. Include videos so we know you have done the tests properly. Same rider, different era bikes. Go on, put up or shut up.

The above is just the basics, when you have done that successfully we can move on to other tests to show you even more so how significant the gap is.

Your last comment re braking betrays you; really, really dumb comment

On topic: the market likes electronic, so that's where it will go; Di2 etc is more efficient so most want it.

PeteHski

You do realise this is a bike hobby forum right? Probably not the best place to have a rant about how all modern bikes are pointless, lol. I was born in 1967 by the way. I'm guessing you were born in the 1800s?

I love how you use the word "propaganda" here. Do you have any idea what that word actually means? You are getting confused between a bit of harmless product marketing and political brain-washing. For sure consumerism is perhaps getting a bit out of hand, I'll give you that much, but you are blowing it out of all proportion here and making yourself look silly and patronising for good measure.

Ubie

Oof, I have a very different experience with the GRX800 bits. I cannot, for the life of me, get the RD dialed in correctly. It's mildly infuriating. My 20+ year old 3x9 105 drivetrain is better and shouldn't be .


As for mechanical vs. electronic I would think in the long term we will see electronic make it's way down to 105 as a sole option, with Tiagra offering both, and below being mechanical only. Too many riders using the Tiagra level and lower that don't ride often enough to remember to keep the batteries charged and would prefer not to worry about it. If you only ride twice a month, or less, you're probably not going to spring for 105+.

As for 11spd.vs 12, it has to be coming as standard on DA and Ultegra within the next 5 years or so, right? The basics of the technology have been established by the mtn bike crowd, it just needs to be translated over (says the guy not doing the engineering on that).

SoSmellyAir

I empathize with your rant against consumerism, but I don't want to ride a rim braked road bike without dual pivot caliper brakes, which did not exist 40 or 60 years ago. If that makes me a brain-washed dullard, so be it.

t2p

when Ferrari (F1) went to electronic / paddle shifting in the late 80's it was a huge step - but pretty much a disaster (initially)

now - anything less would be considered to be archaic

seypat

Maybe the more important question should be:


What type of mustard do riders with electronic shifting/disc brakes use?

Atlas Shrugged

There is no reason that the GRX 800 does not work faultlessly unless something is wrong with your setup. Start with hanger alignment, cabling, cassette issues. I have built up a few GRX groups and each one worked perfectly out of the box.

aliasfox

Individual generational changes might not amount to much, and you may not like some of them, but taken as a whole across time, things are definitely getting better. My R8000 crank is lighter and stiffer than my Ultegra 6500. Modern carbon bars are lighter and more ergonomic than my Deda alloy bars from 2004. Feel and modulation are definitely better on my hydro disc R8000 vs rim 6500 and Force setups.

And besides, people don’t need to buy everything new that comes out - in fact, I’d argue against it. But manufacturers want our dollars, and the best way to get them is to figure out what it is we want - be that faster (lighter, stiffer, more aero), more comfortable (endurance geometry, wider tires), or more inclusive of people with different abilities (compact cranks, longer cage rear derailleurs).

Ubie

Well, yes. Taking it to the shop to have them take a whack at it next week. This is one more reason why the ideal number of bikes is n+1😆

Troul 

I'd like to know, how long does the engineer know in advance to what will replace the material/design for which they "developed" currently?

When steel was the thing for frames, how far out from that point did they know aluminum was going to be put in place to the consumer? They might not have known initially or they might have known before the 1st steel frame was publicly sold. Hard to say, but everyone has there own opinion likely.

PeteHski

They don't tend to know much in advance, but it varies. You have product engineers working with current proven tech and you have R&D engineers working on longer term projects and prototypes. At some point a new design or material will become viable for R&D to pass over to their product design team. That could be anything from a few months to several years. I'm sure electronic group sets were in the R&D stage for multiple years before making it into production. In the meantime engineers developing mechanical groups would be guided by management in terms of budget/resources etc and that would be based on the longer term product planning strategy. I'm sure once management realised that electronic shifting was going to be the future standard, they would start to wind down the development of equivalent mechanical groups.

datlas 

Yes. I recall the initial announcement and mentioned it to my friends, who all now think I am a liar who does not know anything because Shimano backslid on it as you remarked.

I do expect less and less support for rim brakes at what we would consider mid-range (105-ish) and high range (D-A, Ultegra) gropusets. Ditto for equivalents from SRAM. I do expect lower level like Tiagra or Sora to continue to support rim brakes for awhile longer.

seypat

I have short fingers, so the long throw of shifting a Shimano brake lever is awkward for me anyway. I replace them with Microshift. Exposed cables are not a deal breaker for me. Having a matching group is not very important either. In fact, the only Shimano components on my last build are the hubs and the RD. Middle finger held high to Shimano and Big Bike in general.

Psimet2001 

This went all sorts of places...

GRX performs extremely well so if anyone is having problems with it then it's something about their personal setup that is causing issues. Don't overlook that some frames may have envelope dimensions that fall outside of the working envelope of the components. I have seen the specs on occassion but they are usually listed in a collection of docs that frame builders can use to determine how their frames need to be made in order to work with certain groups.

Sometimes if a chainstay is super short then it can mess with drivetrain performance. As mentioned above though - start with the derailleur hanger. It's almost always the derailleur hanger.

Old bikes are awesome. New bikes with modern tech and design are really lightyears ahead. Doesn't mean older ones are any less fun to ride....but yes the old components and frames are at a distinctly less advantageous place with regard to aero. It is what it is but yeah a good rider will outride that aero deficit in just about any scenario outside of closely matched racing.