I’d say that the matter of performance in non-ideal conditions depends on how you define non-ideal conditions. For many riders, non-ideal will mean cold (since skis are the right tools for snow, not bikes). In the cold, cable friction increases and mechanical shifting performance gets worse, while electronic shifting is unaffected, making di2 the technology of choice for many winter commuters.
When you don’t have mountains in the backyard, we flat-landers have to make do with what’s available…
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Van Til
142ish lb flatlander
2 years ago
One other minor DI2 advantage – while the total weight for rim brake systems is very close, Shimano mechanical disk break shifters are quite heavy and total weight for disk break DI2 is a bit lower than mechanical, especially 9170 vs 9120 (https://ccache.cc/blogs/newsroom/2019-road-groupset-weight-comparison). I would only care about that for some road bikes, not gravel.
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I’d say that the matter of performance in non-ideal conditions depends on how you define non-ideal conditions. For many riders, non-ideal will mean cold (since skis are the right tools for snow, not bikes). In the cold, cable friction increases and mechanical shifting performance gets worse, while electronic shifting is unaffected, making di2 the technology of choice for many winter commuters.
When you don’t have mountains in the backyard, we flat-landers have to make do with what’s available…
One other minor DI2 advantage – while the total weight for rim brake systems is very close, Shimano mechanical disk break shifters are quite heavy and total weight for disk break DI2 is a bit lower than mechanical, especially 9170 vs 9120 (https://ccache.cc/blogs/newsroom/2019-road-groupset-weight-comparison). I would only care about that for some road bikes, not gravel.
Excellent point. Thanks.