On Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 5:32:07 AM UTC-7, Roger Merriman wrote:
James wrote:
On 7/4/21 2:09 pm, jbeattie wrote:
A few miles into my evening ride on my cable-shift Emonda -- with my
wife pushing me on her ebike, I shifted to go up the next hill and
snap -- immediate downshift into 34/11. Great. In the middle of a
9% grade, that turned at the top to another climb, but a short one.
I tacked a bit, got home and then jumped on the Di2 disc Synapse and
started over. Heavier with fenders, etc., but still a nice bike.
The discs, BTW, don't drag at all. Thank Buddha for that reliable
Di2.

The good thing about the latest Ultegra levers is that there is a
trap door under the lever body, and you can remove one screw, take
out the door and grab the broken cable and end. No more fishing it
out of the lever. This is the second time in 20 years on STI that
I've broken a cable. Before that I broke a friction bar-end cable in
the middle of a tour. I had a spare.


I guess when you've been riding the Di2 setup for the same time &
distance you'll be able to make a more reasonable comparison.

I'm still waiting to break a cable after more than 30 years of using
cable actuated gears and brakes.

I tend to have to replace as the cable gets sticky, and after a while can’t
be cleaned/lubed into life.

Don’t think I’ve ever snapped a cable. Mind you until this year had never
snapped a hanger...

Now that they are making replaceable hangers the aluminum material is of the wrong alloy and is very brittle. I don't think that this is to allow break away in case of a crash or to make people buy more of them but simply that alloy is just cheaper than hell. It appears to be almost pure aluminum.