Shimano electronic shifting

On Jan 23, 10:48 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Jan 22, 1:46 am, keithv wrote:

Supposedly coming out next month.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscell...009/01/gallery...

Keith

This is about as new as last week's stale bread. Shimano has had
electrically-shifting auto-gears since the middle 1990s. What they are
touting now -- and you're falling for their spin -- as brand new is
just a cut down version of a system that was on the Koga-Miyata
Excellence (a Euro commuting and touring bike) four or five years ago.
The K-M had electrical shifting of derailleurs. I have a sister
version with full auto shifting of an internal gearbox. You can see my
Smover hehttp://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/B...igator%20L700%...

Those bikes didn't sell too well -- no demand, or "Why?" (offer them
at all) as someone has already asked in this thread -- and are no
longer listed, so Shimano is trying again, with the most gullible
market they know, the audience most easily parted from their cash, the
racers. *And* Shimano is hitting them up for more money for a cut-down
system that does less than my Shimano Cyber Nexus full auto gruppo
from 2004.

The rest of us are laughing aloud at the fashion victims falling over
each other to be ripped! I think electrical shifting on racers will be
a tremendous success, a moneyspinner out of electrical gearboxes for
Shimano at last, until they cut their own throats by launching a new
gimmick, about three years down the line. You heard it here first.

However, once the racers have accepted semi-auto shifting at a very
high price, Shimano will use the well-known trickle-down effect (also
known as "follow-Lance-all-ye-dreamers") to make autoboxes the in-
thing in commuting and touring bikes, repackage the Smover concept,
raise the price, and make their fortune anew; it is what they should
have done in the first instance. When it happens, I'll be around to
remind you that I predicted it.

Andre Jute
Done gone Rohloffhttp://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/Andre%20Jute's%20Utopia%20Kranich.pdf

I'm mostly impressed (but that's easy to do); I'd be even more
impressed if it had no chain and a charging system powered by the
pedals and brakes a la hybrid cars; charge it up before you leave
home, should be good for a (very) long, leisurely ride