Tech News – March 9, 2006
Edited by John Stevenson
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The empire strikes back
By John Stevenson
We can tell you almost exactly nothing about these pics, snapped by Japanese photographer Makoto Ayano in the Gerolsteiner pits at Paris-Nice yesterday, but it's pretty obvious what they are: prototypes of an electronically-controlled Dura-Ace group. In this case, on what appears to be Ronny Scholz' bike.
Of course, the fact that we have no concrete information at all isn't going to stop us indulging in a minor frenzy of speculation. It's no secret that Shimano's revenues were down slightly in 2005 and the company is feeling the pressure when it comes to speccing on 2007 bikes - especially from SRAM.
Shimano's profits were also down in 2005, and by a larger percentage than its revenues. That's not necessarily a symptom of reduced sales though. Shimano has always spent a significant proportion of its revenue on product development. It has three new mountain bike groups lined up for 2007 - an all-new XTR about which all anyone from Shimano is saying is "there will be lots of options" - and facelifted incarnations of Deore XT and Deore LX.
From these pics it looks like Shimano is also spending money on another avenue of research and development. The 2007 XTR is reliably rumoured to have lots of carbon fiber and we'd be surprised if it doesn't have ten sprockets in back. But that's not enough to absorb a few million in R&D: an all-electronic version of Dura-Ace just might be.
Shimano is playing catch-up here to a certain extent, but getting an electronic shifting system out ASAP might allow it to leapfrog the competition. Campagnolo has had an electronic shifting system in development for several years, and prototypes keep popping up at major races. SRAM's Force road group, slated to become available to the proverbial rest of us toward the end of this year, is claimed to be lighter than Dura-Ace in key areas such as the brake/shift levers. A criticism long leveled at Shimano by Campagnolo fans is that the gear cable routing on Shimano's STI Dual Control units is messy compared to Campagnolo's under-the-bar-tape set-up. Electronic Dura-Ace could answer all those criticisms.
Of course, first, Shimano has to get the system developed to a state where it can be sold, and it's clear from these images that there's a way to go yet. (And Campagnolo's Piero Da Rin admitted last year that the biggest hurdle with Campagnolo's electronic system is getting it "beautiful".)
That said, the brake/shifter lever looks pretty close to a finished item. A switch behind the brake lever effects the shift, and an LCD indicator on the lever tells you which gear you're in - that might be overkill for a pro road group, though.
Aside from a somewhat lumpy housing, the rear derailleur also looks good to go. The parts that clearly still need work are the front derailleur and the battery housing, which are also the components that Campagnolo seemed to have most trouble making elegant. An electronic front derailleur needs a big solenoid to yoink the chain from ring to ring, and you have to put it somewhere. Ditto the battery, which Shimano has mounted on the front derailleur. That's one fewer mounting point needed for all the parts, but the implementation here is hardly pretty.
When we run stories on electronic shifting systems, readers often ask "why bother?" and that's a good question. An advantage of well-implemented shift-by-wire would be that it would completely remove human error from the shifting process. However tired and uncoordinated you are at the end of a race, you'll still be able to shift. Whether that's a sufficiently compelling advantage to put up with having to remember to change the batteries every few months remains to be seen, but it looks pretty certain that both Campagnolo and Shimano are going to give us a chance to find out.
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