Di2 question
#1
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Di2 question
Hey guys, I wanna upgrade from mechanical to Di2 in the future. Would Di2 eliminate 1 or 2 cables? There are total 4 cables showing (see pic)
#2
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it was get ride of two cables, it takes place of shifting so you would be left with your brake housing, Di2 uses wires so you would swap 2 shift cables for 2 wires, they can be hidden a lot easier to make for a cleaner set up.
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No, he'll lose 2 pieces of housing and replace w/ 1 Di2 wire.
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while this is true coming from the junction box, I meant from each shifter, sorry I should have made it clear, correct you will get rid of two cables going into the frame for one wire, then from the shifters you will have your brake housing and one di2 wire going to a junction box either under your stem or on one bar end. please note with the bar end you will need a set of handlebars that can do this type of install.
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#5
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Just completed the exact same conversion. It left me with one hydraulic line going to the rear brake through the frame, one hydraulic line to the front brake via a fork leg and one Di2 wire going from the A junction box into the frame via one of the ports in the head tube.
BTW, this is an Ultegra installation. I've run a Campy Record EPS v3 group on my other bike for years, and for my money, the Di2 set up shifts more cleanly and quietly by a significant margin. Forgive me this piece of blasphemy, but it's true
BTW, this is an Ultegra installation. I've run a Campy Record EPS v3 group on my other bike for years, and for my money, the Di2 set up shifts more cleanly and quietly by a significant margin. Forgive me this piece of blasphemy, but it's true
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#6
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You want clean? Do an eTap upgrade instead. The only cables you have are for the brakes. Very clean. I converted my Di2 bike to eTap after converting a pure mech bike to eTap earlier.
J.
J.
#7
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Second this. After installing both eTap and Di2, the ease of the eTap installation was apparent. Yes, with Di2 you go from two shift cables to one e-tube cable poking out the frame. But, that one cable is actually made up of 6 cables strung together (if you're using D-Fly). Pulling all that through the frame is not super fun. Pulling cables through aero handlebars is even less fun. I love the way Di2 shifts, but I would not want to set it up again from scratch.
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Some people take the Di2 wire and put shrink wrap around it and the rear brake cable and wrap the together to make it appear as one cable as it enters the frame. You have to have an opening large enough to do this but it does look good. Check out GP Llama and Rides of Japan on YouTube who show how this is done. It just cleans up the appearance a little.
As for the comments on eTap vs Di2, I agree Di2 is more cumbersome but I still recommend it. For one you won't have to change the brakes on your bike since you have Shimano calipers which are not compatible with SRAM systems. Second, once it is set up, it is done for life. Small pain for large gain. If you were starting with a clean frame, then eTap would certainly be easier.
BTW from what I can see of your bike it looks great. Happy riding.
As for the comments on eTap vs Di2, I agree Di2 is more cumbersome but I still recommend it. For one you won't have to change the brakes on your bike since you have Shimano calipers which are not compatible with SRAM systems. Second, once it is set up, it is done for life. Small pain for large gain. If you were starting with a clean frame, then eTap would certainly be easier.
BTW from what I can see of your bike it looks great. Happy riding.
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#11
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Just completed the exact same conversion. It left me with one hydraulic line going to the rear brake through the frame, one hydraulic line to the front brake via a fork leg and one Di2 wire going from the A junction box into the frame via one of the ports in the head tube.
BTW, this is an Ultegra installation. I've run a Campy Record EPS v3 group on my other bike for years, and for my money, the Di2 set up shifts more cleanly and quietly by a significant margin. Forgive me this piece of blasphemy, but it's true
BTW, this is an Ultegra installation. I've run a Campy Record EPS v3 group on my other bike for years, and for my money, the Di2 set up shifts more cleanly and quietly by a significant margin. Forgive me this piece of blasphemy, but it's true
#12
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#14
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I'll post pix as soon as I complete the installation. In the process of performing the upgrade, I uncovered a serious defect in the H36 aero cockpit (not my favorite feature of the Canyon line of road bikes) and I'm waiting on a replacement. The bike is OK to ride so long as I stay off the drops, but I do not want to press my luck. So I haven't cleaned up the install yet
I did the Di2 upgrade because I'm a spoiled boomer who had the resources on hand. I took a pass on the new SRAM stuff because as far as I'm concerned, it's still an advanced beta product.
Last edited by bmcer; 10-04-20 at 10:53 AM. Reason: added content
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#15
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We built my wife a bike last summer with a custom steel frame to accommodate her chronic neck injury. I moved her eTap set up over to one of my bikes and put a 1x AXS system on hers. Given that AXS also works with the MTB SRAM RD, we put a 10-50 cassette on it, an Eagle MTB AXS RD and a 40T 1X crank. That gives her one lower gear than she had before with a 50-34/11-32 which she loves for climbing in the mountains and she loves the 1X shifting too.
So, I think we now have a total 4 bikes with eTap on them and have not had any problems. I converted my road bike over to eTap from Ultegra Di2 at the beginning of last year after riding eTap on my gravel bike for a year prior. The primary issue for me is that I live in Minnesota and I start riding on the road in March and continue on through November and into December often at temps of around or below freezing. So that makes for March, April and early May and October, November and part of December or about half of my cycling season in cold requiring full finger gloves. With the dual paddles on the Di2, I had a hard time feeling which paddle I was on for shifting and in telling if I had shifted or not. That's not a problem with eTap where the click is more distinct and the paddle is considerably larger. Besides that, I really like the eTap shifting set up.
The other reason we converted our bikes to eTap was for travel. We're retired, and we upped our travel as a result. We now take our bikes on almost all our trips and packing them up for air travel is far easier with eTap than with any other drivetrain either electronic wired or mechanical. My travel gravel bike has a coupled frame so it would be pretty difficult to have clean cable routing internally and then split the frame apart. I definitely wouldn't want to do that with Di2. With wireless, I split the chain with a quick link and unbolt the RD and pack them in the case safely and separately. There are no cables so it's dead simple. I can pretty much disassemble/assemble our two bikes in about 45 minutes (20 minutes a bike) which includes taking fork out, front brake unbolted, chain off, RD off as well as wheels.
On the mech bike I changed out (my son has that now) from Ultegra mech to eTap Red. That made it a lot easier to disassemble for travel and it eliminated two cables. The stops remained on the frame but were small so there was no real esthetic issue. The lack of cables really cleaned up the appearance of the bike. It would have not been possible to cleanly retrofit my mech bikes to Di2. I was kind of surprised at the amount of stuff that came out of the bike when I converted my Di2 bike over to eTap - cable, junction boxes, bluetooth interfaces, etc... I had done the shrink wrap of the Di2 cable to the brake cable too. It looked better, but it still made one brake cable look pretty different than the other.
Bottom line - if you have a nice frame and want to upgrade the drivetrain to electronic, I'd definitely go eTap. You can easily do it yourself. I waffled for a long time on mech vs electronic, took the step and now - 10's of thousands of miles later - I haven't had a single bad shift and I'd never go back to mech.
J.
Last edited by JohnJ80; 10-04-20 at 11:23 AM.
#16
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Thank you. That's excellent and comprehensive info. I appreciate it.
#17
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My "previous" bike - right before it was returned (warranty).. seat stay was welded wrong and it'd rub on the 11T.
That shrink wrap hasn't been shrunk yet.. but it gives you an idea of how it tidies things up a little.
eTap is hard to beat for ease of installation though.
It would be nice if the next Di2 moved to a semi-wireless setup (I don't know).Either way, Shimano's new and slimmer EW-SD300 wire will also make installation easier (but not cleaner, if shifters still require wires).
That shrink wrap hasn't been shrunk yet.. but it gives you an idea of how it tidies things up a little.
eTap is hard to beat for ease of installation though.
It would be nice if the next Di2 moved to a semi-wireless setup (I don't know).Either way, Shimano's new and slimmer EW-SD300 wire will also make installation easier (but not cleaner, if shifters still require wires).
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The Di2 install is obviously going to be more complicated than SRAM eTap, but it's only something you do once so I don't really consider it a reason to completely change component groups. As a computer nerd by trade, I much prefer hard-wired connections over wireless connections and agree with Shimano's reasoning for not going wireless. (Note that I'm not saying that SRAM is bad by any means, I just think there are pros and cons of wired and wireless that should be considered.) I personally think that upgrading a bike to Di2 just isn't cost-effective to begin with (vs buying a bike that already has it) and switching to SRAM would make even less financial sense. In addition to shifters, you'd also need a SRAM freehub body, unless you went with a Shimano/SRAM hybrid.
My opinions aside and back on-topic...
In addition to wire routing, one has to decide where the Di2 battery will go. Obviously, and internally mounted battery makes for the cleanest install. Some bike frames have screws in the frame were the internal battery would go if the bike had come with Di2, which means there's likely a battery hold part one could get from the manufacturer (I know this is true of Treks, but don't know Kestrel's that well.)
I highly recommend installing the Di2 wireless unit as part of your installation. It's not cheap, but will allow for super-cool wireless integration with your cycling computer (Garmin or Wahoo). I'm recommending you do this as part of the build because the placement of the wireless module can affect the length and number of wires your purchase. I opted to tuck my wireless sensor right below my bikes stem so it's close to the computer and it's inline with the wire that runs from the junction box to the battery.
Do you have a need for remote shifting, like sprint shifters on the drops? If so, take those into consideration with your build as you'll have to re-wrap your bar tape to accommodate them.
And finally, there's the Di2 junction box. I think the bar-end unit makes for the cleanest install, but also requires you to have handlebars that have internal cable routing. Deciding which junction box to use and where it will go will also impact the number and length of wires you need.
If you do go through with the upgrade, post-up "after" pictures, please!
My opinions aside and back on-topic...
In addition to wire routing, one has to decide where the Di2 battery will go. Obviously, and internally mounted battery makes for the cleanest install. Some bike frames have screws in the frame were the internal battery would go if the bike had come with Di2, which means there's likely a battery hold part one could get from the manufacturer (I know this is true of Treks, but don't know Kestrel's that well.)
I highly recommend installing the Di2 wireless unit as part of your installation. It's not cheap, but will allow for super-cool wireless integration with your cycling computer (Garmin or Wahoo). I'm recommending you do this as part of the build because the placement of the wireless module can affect the length and number of wires your purchase. I opted to tuck my wireless sensor right below my bikes stem so it's close to the computer and it's inline with the wire that runs from the junction box to the battery.
Do you have a need for remote shifting, like sprint shifters on the drops? If so, take those into consideration with your build as you'll have to re-wrap your bar tape to accommodate them.
And finally, there's the Di2 junction box. I think the bar-end unit makes for the cleanest install, but also requires you to have handlebars that have internal cable routing. Deciding which junction box to use and where it will go will also impact the number and length of wires you need.
If you do go through with the upgrade, post-up "after" pictures, please!
#19
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OP: If you are going for the cleanest-looking front end (fewer cables/wires), get a Di2-compatible handlebar and use the bar-end junction box instead of the box that fits under the stem.
PoorInRichfield notes, the BT dongle is pretty useful, and not very expensive. It's also tiny, and can be integrated into your system almost invisibly.
Regarding Sram: yeah, wireless is awesome. Those huge derailleurs are not so awesome.
PoorInRichfield notes, the BT dongle is pretty useful, and not very expensive. It's also tiny, and can be integrated into your system almost invisibly.
Regarding Sram: yeah, wireless is awesome. Those huge derailleurs are not so awesome.
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PoorInRichfield notes, the BT dongle is pretty useful, and not very expensive. It's also tiny, and can be integrated into your system almost invisibly.
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https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/produ.../EW-WU111.html
Another option is to purchase the SC-MT800 display head, designed for the XT Di2 system. It mounts on the h-bar, usually to the right of the stem. It has 3 E-Tube cable ports so 2 shifters and a run into the frame to the B junction. It shows you what gear you are in, has the charging/data port and has built in BT so replaces both the A junction as well as the W111 BT unit, saves about $75 or so. Only downside is it clutters the bar area.
https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/produ.../SC-MT800.html
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Sorry for the confusion, and thanks to Steve for the correction.
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Steve B. already clarified my post: I am referring to the wireless unit to which you linked. And I think I am in error in describing it as a BT unit -- it's probably ant+.
Sorry for the confusion, and thanks to Steve for the correction.
Sorry for the confusion, and thanks to Steve for the correction.
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#24
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My "previous" bike - right before it was returned (warranty).. seat stay was welded wrong and it'd rub on the 11T.
That shrink wrap hasn't been shrunk yet.. but it gives you an idea of how it tidies things up a little.
eTap is hard to beat for ease of installation though.
It would be nice if the next Di2 moved to a semi-wireless setup (I don't know).Either way, Shimano's new and slimmer EW-SD300 wire will also make installation easier (but not cleaner, if shifters still require wires).
That shrink wrap hasn't been shrunk yet.. but it gives you an idea of how it tidies things up a little.
eTap is hard to beat for ease of installation though.
It would be nice if the next Di2 moved to a semi-wireless setup (I don't know).Either way, Shimano's new and slimmer EW-SD300 wire will also make installation easier (but not cleaner, if shifters still require wires).
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#25
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Definitely! Too bad I had two frames that didn't live up to my expectations (the first was welded wrong, second had a couple of small dents and rough paint). The guys are Bowman have been great though, I'll probably give them another shot in a year or so .
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