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Comment by Steltek | Hacker News Reader

Electronic shifting is everything I don't want on a bike.

- Another battery to recharge

- Proprietary battery format making replacements difficult

- Needing an app to make simple adjustments. Hopefully it runs and is still compatible after 10+ years of ownership!

Bike components are wonders of precision machining and modern materials but conceptually, they have a beautiful simplicity. Not to get too "give up programming for woodworking" but all of that goes flying out the window the moment you add a proprietary wireless protocol and closed hardware in the middle of it.

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Index adjustment on SRAM AXS can be done on the fly from the shifters. Or from the app as you ride without stopping. Try that with cables.

The battery replacement is the real issue as technology gets older. Though to be honest, at some stage it gets more difficult to find parts for any system. I started to run into challenges sourcing several replacement parts for a 8-9 year old bike that had 10 speed Shimano group set, so it got sold and replaced. Batteries are not much different really.

Barrel adjusters near the controls are a thing though not all bikes have them.

Example: https://www.amazon.com/Jagwire-Inline-Indexed-Tension-Adjust...

> I started to run into challenges sourcing several replacement parts for a 8-9 year old bike that had 10 speed Shimano group set

I can't say I've had any problems with getting maintenance parts for my 2004 (19 years old) Shimano XTR mountain bike.

I haven't opened the app since I got the bike... about 2 years ago. You don't need the app to make adjustments... I also haven't made any adjustments in 2 years, so there is that too.

That anyone would think 2 years is a long time for a part not to need adjustment is a symptom of 21st century thinking surely. I'd also suspect you're not riding 100s of km of hilly terrain every week (I do, and have definitely needed to make adjustments, but no more often than on mechanical shifters).

2 years of no adjustments on any bike, is pretty unheard of, regardless of technology involved. Cables stretch, e-shifting gets rid of that issue... there really isn't anything to get out of alignment there.

I've been riding and racing bikes since I was 15 years old and I'm nearly 50 now.

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