Yikes! Di2

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:08:02 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 6:59:00 PM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 9:49 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom
Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about
how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything
and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and
that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't
think he was knowledgeable about. That all of the new
levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll
believe him. This set was only $600 and that's less than
the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and
how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that
won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector
push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that
nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I
cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the
local shops really don't know much about it. I would think
- one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery
supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur.
I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you
the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem
unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the
front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's
vanishingly rare for anyone to say "I can't figure out how
this shift cable is supposed to to connect from the lever to
the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!


You would be wrong about that. A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor
bolt. Consistent problem for many years.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Everybody knows that but Frank conveniently forgets all this in his arguments.

Lou

What you seem to be saying is that , "A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor bolt while
Frank forgets this..."

Or to rephrase this, "A significant number of riders do not know what
they are doing, while Frank does".

And you are correct. The modern Male seems to have the mechanical
knowledge of a kumquat. But perhaps this is progress... where one has
only to press a button. No physical ability, or knowledge, required.

In support of my assertions I recently read a news report that the
*average* youth spends 4 - 6 hours a day playing computer games... and
some admitted to 8 hours a day and the BGR site alleges that there are
nearly as many hard core computer gamers, who play 22+ hours a week,
in the U.S. as there are bicyclists who ride several times a week.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 12/19/2019 7:18 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 4:13:22 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 3:52 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 19 December 2019 10:49:16 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't think he was knowledgeable about. That all of the new levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll believe him. This set was only $600 and that's less than the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the local shops really don't know much about it. I would think - one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur. I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's vanishingly rare
for anyone to say "I can't figure out how this shift cable is supposed
to to connect from the lever to the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, I've seen people come into a bicycle shop or bicycle co-op after putting on a derailleur cable and not having the shifting work right because they had attached the cable the wrong way at the cable anchor bolt.

I can't tell you how many times I and others have fiddled with a cable operated front derailleur and indexed shifter for some time before we could get it to shift properly and consistently.

Indexed front shifter problems? I've never had a lick of trouble with an
indexed front shifter!

But that's because I've never had one on any of my bikes.
:-)

Index front shifting is a good example of unnecessary complication and
diminishing returns. Do you have two chainrings? They're already
indexed, even if they're friction! Push it all the way forward for one
ring, all the way back for the other! Why does it need to click?

It's very, very slightly more complicated if you have three chainrings.
For the middle ring, put the lever somewhere in the middle. Almost
anywhere will do, although if you hear scraping, you may need to fine
tune it.

(Complete disclosu My wife's mountain bike has an indexed front
triple. But it's given zero trouble, probably because she hasn't ridden
the bike more than 100 miles in its lifetime.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank, How many people do you suppose there are left in the world that use downtube shifters?

I don't know. Maybe people in that club would know, but I don't use them.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 4:24:43 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 3:28 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 07:36:25 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector push-on-style connector.

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95782
Durace Di2 basically ran 'hard wire' connections point to point.
Whereas Ultegra Di2 relies on a CanBUS communications protocol
for its signals. Which is why it can use a 2-wire harness
instead of 5.

No, the 2 are not interchangeable. It will be much more
difficult to hot wire your own buttons as well as "homebrew"
harnesses and batteries to the new Ultegra Di2.

There are some other comments in the above thread worth reading.

And following links from the
"Updateyour firmware!"
https://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/ne...ease_ipad.html

I hope I never have a bicycle with firmware.

Frank - you do know that all of the 2016 and on cars have tons of firmware that automatically updates like that Di2?

On 12/19/2019 6:18 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 4:13:22 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 3:52 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 19 December 2019 10:49:16 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't think he was knowledgeable about. That all of the new levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll believe him. This set was only $600 and that's less than the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the local shops really don't know much about it. I would think - one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur. I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's vanishingly rare
for anyone to say "I can't figure out how this shift cable is supposed
to to connect from the lever to the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, I've seen people come into a bicycle shop or bicycle co-op after putting on a derailleur cable and not having the shifting work right because they had attached the cable the wrong way at the cable anchor bolt.

I can't tell you how many times I and others have fiddled with a cable operated front derailleur and indexed shifter for some time before we could get it to shift properly and consistently.

Indexed front shifter problems? I've never had a lick of trouble with an
indexed front shifter!

But that's because I've never had one on any of my bikes.
:-)

Index front shifting is a good example of unnecessary complication and
diminishing returns. Do you have two chainrings? They're already
indexed, even if they're friction! Push it all the way forward for one
ring, all the way back for the other! Why does it need to click?

It's very, very slightly more complicated if you have three chainrings.
For the middle ring, put the lever somewhere in the middle. Almost
anywhere will do, although if you hear scraping, you may need to fine
tune it.

(Complete disclosu My wife's mountain bike has an indexed front
triple. But it's given zero trouble, probably because she hasn't ridden
the bike more than 100 miles in its lifetime.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank, How many people do you suppose there are left in the world that use downtube shifters?


[raises hand] I'm not dead yet.

Campagnolo #1013 with Huret Svelto rear, #1052 front. Never
had any reason to change them. Work as well as the day they
were born.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 12/19/2019 1:44 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 12:16 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 11:48 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:

Contrary to Frank's ideas, it appears that once you know
this stuff it is petty easy - easier than running cables
and attempting to get the tension correct and having to
readjust it a dozen times to get everything shifting
properly.

Once you know this stuff, it will be pretty easy - until
they come out with the next "improvement." Then you'll have
to learn it all over again. Meanwhile, the software will
have gone through three updates, each with a different user
interface. The next version of the software won't even run
on whatever computer you had; it may require you to move
everything to your cell phone.

And if and when part of the mechanism breaks, the generation
of equipment you own will no longer be available. Newer
generations will not be compatible. You may be able,
theoretically, to hack something into compatibility, but it
will involve hours of internet searching to find the hack.

All of this will be fine with most of the system's buyers,
because they won't want anything sold more than ten years
ago. And after all, why waste all muscular work pushing a
button? Only a retrogrouch would refuse to use voice command
shifting.

"Alexa, check Google Maps to see the gradient of the next
hill, and check Google Weather to see the speed of the
headwind. Check my blood sugar level and refer to my sleep
record from last night, an choose a good gear for me. Alexa?
Got that? Alexa? Are you there?? Alexa??? Hurry!! ****!!!"

And your shifting system responds:

"I'm sorry, I'm not capable of ****ting. I don't have that
bodily function."



Sorta.
And yet we survived CP/M, C-Basic, Lotus macro language. BASICA, C and
beyond, each because they offered some benefit we valued more than the
learning time.

"... some benefit we valued more than..." is key. Back when I was
teaching, it was a point I made with students. If you'll be doing some
computation frequently enough, it's worthwhile programming your
calculator (think HP 11C) to do it quickly. It's worth the time you
invest. If you're going to do it only once or twice, why bother?

The same benefit vs. detriment judgment applies to so many projects.
Should I spend money on a more efficient furnace? Should I buy a new car
that gets better gas mileage? Will solar panels pay off?

We had a visitor yesterday who had to choose between two routes to get
home. One route would take 15 minutes longer, but was free of tolls. The
shorter route cost over $12 in tolls. Is it worth $50 per hour? What if
there were a hard deadline on getting home? What if the longer route
carried much more risk of hitting a deer?

These decisions are easiest if it comes down to just money spent vs.
money saved - that's straight Engineering Economy. But I'm aware that
there are other factors that matter to people, and matter to me.
Benefits vs. detriments get harder to decipher.

But when people get passionate about an activity, there's a tendency for
benefits vs. detriments to get thrown out the window, or for the
ephemeral benefit of being "in fashion" to dominate the decision.

And sure, they're allowed to spend their money as they like. But as
always, when they open their decisions up for discussion, those with
other values may disagree.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/19/2019 8:19 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 6:18 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

Frank, How many people do you suppose there are left in the world that
use downtube shifters?


[raises hand] I'm not dead yet.

Campagnolo #1013 with Huret Svelto rear, #1052 front. Never had any
reason to change them. Work as well as the day they were born.

I've still got my original Huret Svelto in the basement somewhere. IIRC,
replaced it with a SunTour VGT Luxe.

I know, that was awfully flighty of me. I've reformed! ;-)

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/19/2019 6:27 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:08:02 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 6:59:00 PM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 9:49 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom
Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about
how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything
and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and
that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't
think he was knowledgeable about. That all of the new
levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll
believe him. This set was only $600 and that's less than
the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and
how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that
won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector
push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that
nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I
cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the
local shops really don't know much about it. I would think
- one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery
supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur.
I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you
the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem
unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the
front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's
vanishingly rare for anyone to say "I can't figure out how
this shift cable is supposed to to connect from the lever to
the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!


You would be wrong about that. A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor
bolt. Consistent problem for many years.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Everybody knows that but Frank conveniently forgets all this in his arguments.

Lou

What you seem to be saying is that , "A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor bolt while
Frank forgets this..."

Or to rephrase this, "A significant number of riders do not know what
they are doing, while Frank does".

And you are correct. The modern Male seems to have the mechanical
knowledge of a kumquat. But perhaps this is progress... where one has
only to press a button. No physical ability, or knowledge, required.

In support of my assertions I recently read a news report that the
*average* youth spends 4 - 6 hours a day playing computer games... and
some admitted to 8 hours a day and the BGR site alleges that there are
nearly as many hard core computer gamers, who play 22+ hours a week,
in the U.S. as there are bicyclists who ride several times a week.
--
cheers,

John B.


Undocumented video game featu

The DA in the next county over doesn't prosecute car theft,
leading, naturally, to an epidemic of car theft. The mostly
juvenile thieves prefer Mercedes, Audi, Jaguar and other
high end cars, having 'driven' them in video games and being
hence familiar with the control layout. (I certainly
couldn't drive a 'modern' upscale car under any
circumstances. Hell I can't even move my girlfriend's Toyota
in the drive).

What does stymie the younger set is a standard gearbox:

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/de...gets-arrested/

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 12/19/2019 7:25 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 8:19 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 6:18 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:

Frank, How many people do you suppose there are left in
the world that use downtube shifters?


[raises hand] I'm not dead yet.

Campagnolo #1013 with Huret Svelto rear, #1052 front.
Never had any reason to change them. Work as well as the
day they were born.

I've still got my original Huret Svelto in the basement
somewhere. IIRC, replaced it with a SunTour VGT Luxe.

I know, that was awfully flighty of me. I've reformed! ;-)


It's a fashion statement of sorts.
My steel Svelto is on my Ti road bike and just so happens to
be lighter than a current DA or Record R Der.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Thursday, 19 December 2019 20:19:06 UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 6:18 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 4:13:22 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 3:52 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 19 December 2019 10:49:16 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't think he was knowledgeable about.. That all of the new levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll believe him.. This set was only $600 and that's less than the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the local shops really don't know much about it. I would think - one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur. I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's vanishingly rare
for anyone to say "I can't figure out how this shift cable is supposed
to to connect from the lever to the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!

--
- Frank Krygowski

Ah, I've seen people come into a bicycle shop or bicycle co-op after putting on a derailleur cable and not having the shifting work right because they had attached the cable the wrong way at the cable anchor bolt.

I can't tell you how many times I and others have fiddled with a cable operated front derailleur and indexed shifter for some time before we could get it to shift properly and consistently.

Indexed front shifter problems? I've never had a lick of trouble with an
indexed front shifter!

But that's because I've never had one on any of my bikes.
:-)

Index front shifting is a good example of unnecessary complication and
diminishing returns. Do you have two chainrings? They're already
indexed, even if they're friction! Push it all the way forward for one
ring, all the way back for the other! Why does it need to click?

It's very, very slightly more complicated if you have three chainrings..
For the middle ring, put the lever somewhere in the middle. Almost
anywhere will do, although if you hear scraping, you may need to fine
tune it.

(Complete disclosu My wife's mountain bike has an indexed front
triple. But it's given zero trouble, probably because she hasn't ridden
the bike more than 100 miles in its lifetime.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank, How many people do you suppose there are left in the world that use downtube shifters?


[raises hand] I'm not dead yet.

Campagnolo #1013 with Huret Svelto rear, #1052 front. Never
had any reason to change them. Work as well as the day they
were born.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

FIORI with Campagnolo Triomphe groupset.
BIANCHI with Suntour Cyclone
MIYATA Seven Ten with Suntour downtube shifters
VELO SPORT with Adamas AX with downtube shifters
MIELE Latina with Shimano N600 and downtube shifters
MIELE Tange Infinity frameset with 600 Arabesque with downtube shifters

MIELE UNO SL converted to cantilever brakes with Mirage 9-speed Ergos
MIELE Team Issue with Mirage 9-speed Ergos

Three MTBs with dropbar and bar-end shifters

Cheers

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:26:45 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

On 12/19/2019 6:27 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:08:02 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 6:59:00 PM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/19/2019 9:49 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/19/2019 10:36 AM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 7:37:06 AM UTC-8, Tom
Kunich wrote:
I was talking to the man in the bike shop yesterday about
how to wire up the Di2. He said to being in everything
and let him look at it so I did.

He said that the lever only used a single connector and
that was prone to some sort of troubles that I don't
think he was knowledgeable about. That all of the new
levers had three connectors each.

As an engineer none of that makes sense to me but I'll
believe him. This set was only $600 and that's less than
the cost of the levers alone on eBay.

Does anyone know what the problems with the levers is and
how a couple of switches need "upgraded" software that
won't work in these levers?

The back of the stem unit appears to take a 5 connector
push-on-style connector. That would make sense so that
nothing could get into the connector in rain etc. But I
cannot find any reference to a connector like that and the
local shops really don't know much about it. I would think
- one wire each to the levers, one wire to the battery
supply and one wire each to the front and rear derailleur.
I'm sure that the bottom bracket junction block gives you
the ability to have reasonable length wires from the stem
unit and then you can buy the correct length wires to the
front and rear derailleurs.

And on the "shift cable vs. electronics" debate: it's
vanishingly rare for anyone to say "I can't figure out how
this shift cable is supposed to to connect from the lever to
the derailleur."

Ah, the price of "progress"!


You would be wrong about that. A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor
bolt. Consistent problem for many years.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Everybody knows that but Frank conveniently forgets all this in his arguments.

Lou

What you seem to be saying is that , "A significant number of
riders clamp gear wires on the wrong side of the anchor bolt while
Frank forgets this..."

Or to rephrase this, "A significant number of riders do not know what
they are doing, while Frank does".

And you are correct. The modern Male seems to have the mechanical
knowledge of a kumquat. But perhaps this is progress... where one has
only to press a button. No physical ability, or knowledge, required.

In support of my assertions I recently read a news report that the
*average* youth spends 4 - 6 hours a day playing computer games... and
some admitted to 8 hours a day and the BGR site alleges that there are
nearly as many hard core computer gamers, who play 22+ hours a week,
in the U.S. as there are bicyclists who ride several times a week.
--
cheers,

John B.


Undocumented video game featu

The DA in the next county over doesn't prosecute car theft,
leading, naturally, to an epidemic of car theft. The mostly
juvenile thieves prefer Mercedes, Audi, Jaguar and other
high end cars, having 'driven' them in video games and being
hence familiar with the control layout. (I certainly
couldn't drive a 'modern' upscale car under any
circumstances. Hell I can't even move my girlfriend's Toyota
in the drive).

What does stymie the younger set is a standard gearbox:

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/de...gets-arrested/

Yes, and I would imagine from what the car sales people have told me
that manual shift cars are very rare these days although the majority
of the Bangkok taxies are still manual shift.

My wife, who has now been driving for about 30 years - on her third
car - can't even begin to envisage how or why a transmission works.
You simply step on the gas and the car does the rest.... doesn't it?
--
cheers,

John B.