- If you are lucky enough to have electronic gears
on your bike, then you'll know just how consistent
and slick they are.
But, are you getting the most out of them?
Well, today I'm going to be sharing with you tips,
a few hacks for those tri-athletes out there
to take your shifting to the next level.
(upbeat music)
So a couple of popular examples of electronic gears here,
I've got SRAM eTap in front of me and Shimano Di2 behind,
we've obviously also got Campagnolo EPS and FSA K-Force WE.
All of which have ANT+ or ant plus connectivity,
which means not only can it send and receive data
within it's own system, it can also transmit data
to some other external devices.
In fact, Shimono Di2 can also do this via Bluetooth
with this additional cable that can be plugged
into the system somewhere.
So what does this all mean?
Well, it means that we can actually link up
our electronic gears or the levers to some external devices,
some bike computer head units,
some phones and even some lights.
And I'm not good with technology,
it's something I was totally unaware of until recently,
so I've been having a little bit of a play around
and found some nifty hacks.
First couple, perhaps some of you are already well aware of,
is the fact that you can set some bike computer head units
to display the current gear ratio you're in, pretty useful.
And also, you can display the battery level status
or the amount of charge you've got
for that electronic gear system.
But Shimano's has a pretty nifty trick up its sleeve,
cause we can also customize the function
of some of the buttons and shift
and also how quickly they'll change through gear.
So remember that Bluetooth cable I was talking about before,
I've actually connected that into my system
by the rear mac here, I can then connect that and link it up
to Shimano's E-Tube app and then customize
the function of the buttons.
You can save that, then remove the cable
and it will still function as you last saved in the app.
So for instance, I could change my elbow levers
to solely control my rear mac, have it controlling a mix
of both the rear mac and the front Mac,
I could swap it around so one was changing,
it was changed and vice versa.
The options are endless, but it doesn't stop there,
I wonder how many of you knew this one,
because remember how we could connect
to some bike computer hedges.
Well, we can actually change the function
of some of the buttons so that it will change through
the screens of some by computer head units.
So I've actually changed my bike, which has two buttons
on either area by lever, which were previously controlling
both the rear mac and the front mac,
I've now got one button on either side,
controlling the rear mac and one button on either side
also controlling the screen,
so I can scroll left and right through the screens.
That means I can stay super arrow if my TT bars
was flicking through my screens.
I'm not sure how necessary that is, but it's pretty fun.
(upbeat music)
Now when it comes to traveling with electronic gears,
I'm always amazed how many people
leave the system fully connected up and batteries installed.
It doesn't take much for nicolai
to be practically when we're checking bikes in and out
of cars or getting onto flights
and potentially end up with a drained batch.
And I obviously always recommend traveling
with a battery charger for your electronic gears,
but there is nothing worse than arriving for your first ride
on perhaps a training camp abroad
and finding that your battery's flat.
Now fortunately, there are simple ways to get around this,
with Shimano Di2 you can remove the battery
or with some of the newest systems you can actually unplug
the cables from the junction box
or as I do will also disconnect the cable
from the rear mac here.
With SRAM or that is constantly searching for a signal
from both the front mac and the rear mac
to the gear levers and that is activated through motion
in the bike with accelerometers in the system
and obviously through transport and movement
and bumping around that is inevitably
going to get activated.
And that's going to slowly drain the battery with time,
and then also on top of that with perhaps
some of the nicolai if being pressed,
that's going to drain it further.
Fortunately, there with SRAM you can just remove
the individual batteries from the front and the rear mac.
(upbeat music)
But if like me, you forget to charge your batteries
for your electronic use regularly, well,
is actually possible to use a power bank to charge them
as many of us use for charging our phones for instance.
This is really useful if you're not near power source
or maybe you're chucking your bike in the back of the car
and on route to meeting some friends for rides,
you can just charge it as you drive over there.
But if you really want to take it to the next level,
apparently, and I've not tried this, but it is possible
to charge the newest monitor to through the junction box
using a power bank as you actually ride.
Apparently this has been used by some adventure cyclist
and long distance cyclist, I guess perhaps you could store
the power bank in your bento box on a triathlon bike.
I'm not really sure how safe it is,
I'm not really going to condone this but hey,
another fun thing to know.
But ideally we want to stay away from batteries being flat
and electronic gear, so ideally,
we just charged them regularly
but you can also check the battery level status.
This is really easy on Shimano Di2,
all you need to do is press one of the shifters
for around half a second or more,
and then check the junction box and the lights
that's how it'll indicate how much battery is left in them.
100% remaining it will actually illuminate green
for around two seconds, 50% remaining
it will flash green five times,
25% remaining it will illuminate red for two seconds,
then 0% remaining it will flash red five seconds.
And if you really want to geek out,
apparently Shimano actually found a painting,
back in 2011 for dynamo built into the jockey wheels
on the rear mac that would power a Di2 drive train.
Still yet to see anything for it, but I just thought
I'd leave that there for the tech geeks out there.
(upbeat music)
Okay, now moving on, you may be watching this thinking,
but I don't have a TT or traveling but I only have a robot.
That's absolutely fine, and if you do only have a robot,
I'd highly suggest you get yourself some clip on aero bars.
They are significantly aerodynamic and fast in a traveling,
so they're well worth their investment.
Now as I currently have my clip on aero bar setup here,
on my road bike, to change gear I'd actually have to get out
of the aero bars onto the hoods and use the levers here.
That's fine, but obviously each time I do that
I'm losing some of that aerodynamic advantage.
So way to upgrade is quite simply,
is actually to route your Di2 trio or put some SRAM blips
on the end tear or whatever electronic gearing system
you're using, and you've got a pretty slick setup
without having to go the full hog and upgrade
to a TT or traveling but the only thing you may have to do
in some instances are change the junction box
or the blip box, but this will more than double.
(upbeat music)
Now another bay hacking benefits for electronic
is you can actually micro adjust
and fine tune your gears on the go.
Now normally with mechanical gears,
this requires to jump off mid ride,
play around here front mac or rear mac
and perhaps get your hands a little dirty.
Now get, I'm not suggesting you do this out
on the open road but you can perhaps do this
on the indoor trainer, maybe you've popped your bike
onto a diatribe indoor trainer and the gears
are jumping around a little well, in that case,
providing you can access your junction box
or blip box that you've got here, you just hold down
the function button for a couple of seconds,
and that's going to put the system into micro adjustment.
Now when you press your gear levers or shifters,
it's actually just going to find the move
and incrementally move that rear mac
and trim those gears in.
Once it's making very little noise
and you know that is nicely trimmed in,
then you just hold down at function button again
for a couple of seconds and it's going to come out
of that micro adjustment mode.
(upbeat music)
And finally, something is any relevant to try me tap
with their blips, is that you can more
or less position them anywhere within reason.
Now I first got this idea from Sebastian Keenly
with his bike when we filmed with it,
and he actually had plugs in the end of his aero bars,
so didn't have any shifters there,
then have the blips further down the aero bars.
Now apparently he just preferred to hold
the aero bars further down and on hilly course is required
to stay in aero bars as long as possible,
and he pulled off on the aero bars a bit further down
the aero bars, so to prevent him from having to reach for it
and change gear, you just have them positioned there,
that's a really clever idea.
I'm not personally aware of any way of making that possible
with Shimano Di2, but perhaps there is a way maybe
with the spring buttons that you get on road bikes.
If anyone out there has some experience
with that then love to hear from you,
drop them in the comments section below
or if you have any other hacks that you know of.
Now, I'm sure many of you out there like me
are totally converted to electronic gear,
so I hope today's video has been useful
and you've learned something.
If so, make sure you give us a like
and don't forget to follow GTN on social media.