OTOH it’s absolutely insane what new bicycles are costing these days - bikes can be money pits too. I bought my road bike 12 years ago for about $1800 and was kicking myself for years for spending that much. A modern road bike (with disc brakes, wi-fi controlled electronic shifters etc.) would be in the neighborhood of ten grand, more than my car cost. Meanwhile my favorite bike is the 25yo hybrid that I bought on Craigslist for $100.
Why would you ever want wifi controlled shifters‽ Maybe (ok definitely) I’m pilled on the whole anarchist bicycle repair scene, but I’ve got some decent trigger shifters that were like $30 and aside from the pain of calibration they’re great.
On one hand if it’s automatic it might be nice, but on the other hand I’d rather just have a separate tool that does that so I can share it with friends and we can all have easy shifter calibration. But also I’d dread someone being able to hack my shifters or being unable to shift when I forget to plug it in. But on the other hand my bike has probably cost me like $200-250 over the three years I’ve had it so I’m definitely not the target audience
OTOH it’s absolutely insane what new bicycles are costing these days - bikes can be money pits too. I bought my road bike 12 years ago for about $1800 and was kicking myself for years for spending that much. A modern road bike (with disc brakes, wi-fi controlled electronic shifters etc.) would be in the neighborhood of ten grand, more than my car cost. Meanwhile my favorite bike is the 25yo hybrid that I bought on Craigslist for $100.
Why would you ever want wifi controlled shifters‽ Maybe (ok definitely) I’m pilled on the whole anarchist bicycle repair scene, but I’ve got some decent trigger shifters that were like $30 and aside from the pain of calibration they’re great.
I was talking to a guy with an $8K bike the other day and he was proud of the fact that he could calibrate his shifters with his phone.
On one hand if it’s automatic it might be nice, but on the other hand I’d rather just have a separate tool that does that so I can share it with friends and we can all have easy shifter calibration. But also I’d dread someone being able to hack my shifters or being unable to shift when I forget to plug it in. But on the other hand my bike has probably cost me like $200-250 over the three years I’ve had it so I’m definitely not the target audience