Yikes! Di2

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:24:38 -0500, 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.

Well, it might be better than "software" :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On 20/12/19 12:33 pm, AMuzi wrote:
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!Â* ;-)


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.


What does yours weigh? I see 271 g including the hanger plate [1].

And 2009 Shimano DA at 166 g [2].


[1]
http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Huret_Svelto_derailleur_1st_style.html

[2]
https://weightweenies.starbike.com/listings/components.php?type=rearderailleurs&sortby=real

--
JS

On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 06:34:18 +0700, John B.
wrote:

But, some systems have not been converted to electrical/electronic
operation even after more than a thousand years. The first hand gun
seems to have been developed in China in about 1200 A.D. Manually
operated then and still manually operated today.

True. The firearms industry tends to be rather conservative. Were
this not true, we would be shooting at each other with Buck Rogers
style ray guns, and pocket size RPG missiles. This conservative
attitude is in some ways a good thing, preventing the development of
weapons that are too advanced to control or regulate. Unfortunately,
this only works between major military conflicts, where the
conservative weapons makers are inspired by cost plus military
contracts to temporarily ignore their conservative attitude and
product some truly impressively new methods of localized mass
destruction.

True the Gatling gun, the first rapid fire gun, developed in 1861, was
originally operated by a manual crank and has been "updated" to an
electrical motor to rotate the mechanism.

Yep. Also, electrically ignited primers are appearing.

Will this be the future of the bicycle? Conversion from manual crank
to an electric motor to rotate the mechanism?

I'm afraid so. Once eBikes becomes sufficiently common and popular,
mechanical bicycles will be limited to niche markets. When we have
our next "energy crisis", the demand for eBikes, as an alternative to
gasoline powered personal transpiration, will seal the fate of
conventional bicycles. If we do have an "energy crisis", I would also
expect to see more of this kind of transportation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Straight

Even the conservative (and possibly reactionary) UCI is hosting eBike
races:
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a26742867/e-mtb-world-championships/
and immediately attempting to enforce an alleged monopoly on eBike
racing:
https://www.bicycling.com/news/a27074891/ebike-racing-uci/
It won't be long before we have eBike racing as a recognized Olympic
sport. When the younger generation grows up on eBikes instead of
conventional bicycles, I think it likely that they will continue to
ride and purchase eBikes when they are older.





--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:24:38 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

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.

I hope I never have a bicycle where the component manufacturers don't
bother updating their firmware. In the computah business, everything
has firmware. Same with most everything that has a microprocessor,
controller, or brain of some type. There are many advantages and
disadvantages to having a product with upgradable firmware. I don't
want to get into a debate on those, but will mention that the major
advantage is to the manufacturer, who is able to ship a product that
isn't quite finished. In computahs, the first thing I have to do when
delivering a computah is to update the motherboard BIOS, video,
printer, and accessory firmware. Nobody ships products with current
firmware and no sane customer would run such a computer on the
original factory firmware. There are just too many bugs and security
problems to risk it. In some cases, you can't repair a product unless
you can also upgrade its firmware. So, instead of returning your
products every few weeks to the factory authorized service station for
upgrades (as is common with companies selling DMCA protected
products), you are allowed to do your own firmware updates. Unless
Right to Repair becomes an enforceable law, consider yourself
fortunate that your gadgets are not managed in the same manner as
tractors:
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 12/19/2019 11:11 PM, James wrote:
On 20/12/19 12:33 pm, AMuzi wrote:
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!Â* ;-)


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.


What does yours weigh?Â* I see 271 g including the hanger plate [1].

And 2009 Shimano DA at 166 g [2].


[1]
http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Huret_Svelto_derailleur_1st_style.html


[2]
https://weightweenies.starbike.com/listings/components.php?type=rearderailleurs&sortby=real

At the time, one of my best friends became a new convert to cycling. He
bought a lovely Raleigh with a Huret Jubilee derailleur. Wow, I was jealous.

http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/...leur_2248.html


--
- Frank Krygowski

Tom Kunich wrote:

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

I see more bikes with downtube shifters at the shop than I do of all 11-speed bikes combined. These bikes are being used, which is why they come in for service.

I don't like using downtube shifters, which stay at about the same height off the ground no matter how tall the bike. (So for my bikes, they're way the hell down there somewhere.) But they are easily the most mechanically elegant shifters around, and the easiest to deal with from a service standpoint.

I prefer index thumbshifters with a friction option to any other shifters I've tried. I wish they were still made.

On 12/19/2019 8:48 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
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...

One of my best friends still rides a classic 1980s touring bike with
downtube shifters. (Back in the day, she toured the Rockies, the
Appalachians, etc. etc.) But her shifters are pure friction.

I've thought about getting her a pair of the SunTour Power Shifters, the
ones with the fine racheting action. But here we are, Christmas days
away, and I've forgotten to do it until just now, too late to arrive in
time. Rats!

Maybe a late present...

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/19/2019 8:26 PM, AMuzi wrote:

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/

That gives me hope! Friction, non-electronic derailleurs as a theft
protection device!

(Not that there's much bike theft around here. Our cops have a strong
presence and good reputation.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/19/2019 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:


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?

When I was in engineering school, I volunteered to teach my much younger
sister how to drive stick. I figured it was best to first, explain just
a bit about what was happening in the transmission and clutch; so I drew
a simple sketch and explained just the basics - clutch, flywheel, pairs
of gears, etc. Then I moved on to the actual driving lesson.

She learned just fine. But decades later, she confessed she never had
any idea what the heck that sketch was all about.

OTOH, she's a published poet of significant repute. We all have our
different talents. And she still drives stick very well.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 01:03:37 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 12/19/2019 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:


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?

When I was in engineering school, I volunteered to teach my much younger
sister how to drive stick. I figured it was best to first, explain just
a bit about what was happening in the transmission and clutch; so I drew
a simple sketch and explained just the basics - clutch, flywheel, pairs
of gears, etc. Then I moved on to the actual driving lesson.

She learned just fine. But decades later, she confessed she never had
any idea what the heck that sketch was all about.

OTOH, she's a published poet of significant repute. We all have our
different talents. And she still drives stick very well.

That is/or was probably far more common than most people realized. A
high school friend's mother complained that her 1948 Chevy wouldn't go
so I had a look at it. It turned out that the clutch was just about
shot and the reason was that she only used 2nd and 3rd gears and
slipped the clutch when she slowed down or was starting off from a
stop. I explained how to use all three gears and she said that was
awful complicated and she thought it better to use only two gears like
she always had done :-)
--
cheers,

John B.