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Riding to work on my trusty Tripster this morning, getting a bit fed up with waiting for those rear shifts to find their way down the cable to the mech. Got to thinking - could I replace front and rear 11 speed STis, rear and front mech with Di2 and stick with the brake calipers, cranks, cassette I already have?
Can find groupsets for about £900, maybe that's the most economical way..? Would like to keep the 2x11 though... what say STW?
Assuming you have shimano calipers and intend to buy the hydro di2 shifters then yes it'll work with your crank, chain, cassette
Can't say I've noticed di2 being significantly faster at shifting than cabled 105 or ultegra tbh. Assuming your cables aren't gummed up. Di2 is nicer. But it's only very very marginal
Yes, but you'd also need battery, junction box, charger & wiires
Di2 is nicer. But it’s only very very marginal
Oh, that is interesting. And disappointing! Is AXS better?
Cable is fairly new, but it's one of those fancy lined ones - I think that's probably the main issue, so maybe I'll just switch that to a Shimano and not think so much 😀
If anything AXS is slower than Di2, both are better than cable though and will continue to be without maintenance. If that’s worth £900 to you, only you can answer. FWIW I no longer own bikes with cables.
Gotta be better than cable, surely! guess it's a matter of trawling the web to find the shifters, mechs and battery gubbins, see if its available cheaper than an on-offer groupset
Riding to work on my trusty Tripster
Yes, you can and I have done it with my v1 Tripster.
It's currently running grx shifters, old Dura-ace front mech, r8000 ultegra rear mech and a grx 2x crank.
You can't mix and match MTB and road/gravel di2 and the new 12 speed stuff isn't backwards compatible.
The only problem I had was finding somewhere for the battery as the V1 doesn't have internal routing. In the end I found a di2 stem and put the battery in the head tube.
I'd also recommend the MTB display, makes life easier for charging/firmware etc.
Good info, cheers slackboy. Yep, mine's a v1 too 🙂
I'll be selling my Ultegra Di2 in the new year if your interested? However I find the Mechanical Ultegra just as slick on my winter bike.
Perhaps you just need a new inner & outer cable?
dickie
I’ll be selling my Ultegra Di2 in the new year if your interested?
Yep, give me a shout if you remember!
In the meantime I'll ditch the fancy lined cable. Pain really cos just re-wrapped the bars and the glue on this bar tape wrecks the outside surface of it. 1st World problems eh?!
Good info, cheers slackboy. Yep, mine’s a v1 too 🙂
You can get a external junction box that goes under the bottom bracket. Sounds like it's fragile, but ive never had problem. I've got a single di2 cable running from the head tube to bottom bracket and the mechs plug into that. If you look at the Tripster thread, I put some photos in when I did it originally.
Merlin will do you a di2 brake set for £300 , flat mount but you could swap your existing calipers , which is what I did . (, although I bought a cotic carbon fork too, which was flat mount.
https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-grx815-di2-front-or-rear-disc-brake-283457.html
Ebay actually looks good for the 11 speed stuff. Something to think about, definitely
Change your cables to SP41 optislick.
Just done 4 days on the KAW is sticky wet chalk and mud and my 10 year old 10 speed 105 on the CX bike has been perfect. Fast changes.
Zero mechanicals despite carrying camping gear on 24 spoke rear wheels.
Remove the inner cable, cut the outer after it leaves the bar tape, & replace the rest of the outer joining it to the wrapped outer with a Cable Oiler. New plain stainless steel inner & a good squirt of GT85 in thru the cable oiler.
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/cables/jtek-cable-oilers-5mm-black-3-pack/