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This morning to save time I decided to ride to work instead of run. Haven't ridden any of my bikes for a while, but the road bike miraculously didn't need it's tyres pumping up. Get 100m down the road to discover a flat Di2 battery, so no gears. Back to base to swap with a battery from another bike. Remove seatpost, discover battery has escaped from post and is now lodged in the frame, pliers and spokes poked down don't get it out. Check Tri bike to ride that instead, also dead battery. Commuter bike still not fully built up after having the frame repaired, don't fancy riding the SS MTB, 29" MTB has flat tyres and no pedals, but these can be nicked off another bike. After a good amount of faff I'm back out on the road, albeit not spinning along at my originally intended speed. However, I can now mix up the route so go off-road for the last few miles which makes up for it!
Need to dedicate a day to actually getting my whole fleet rideable!
or just start periodically charging your batteries
Yup, I suppose I don’t need to extract my Di2 battery but just charge it and leave the removal for the future if required 🙂
Pfft only 3 bikes with Di2? Proper slumming it...
I know, if I had more, then 1 might have been available for use 😆
batteries on a bike? FAIL! 😉
Whenever I've had mornings like this I end up having done so much faffing that I haven't got time to go the fun way and have the worst of both worlds in that I have to just go the boring way on an unsuitable bike!
Were you late? Or were you previously going to be really early? Were you having enough fun to not care?
I wasn't going to be late, but certainly wasn't going to have the comfortable margin for showering and breakfast that I had planned for. The off-road end section wasn't much of a time factor so seemed like a minor remedy for annoying faffing. I'll probably repeat the exercise on the way home, but with more off-road, as the MTB off-road isn't much slower on the trails I have than tarmac tbh.
Did make me appreciate Di2 though, when it works, as the gears on my MTB are clunky in the extreme. Probably not helped from extreme lack of maintenance!
Get 100m down the road to discover a flat Di2 battery, so no gears. Back to base to swap with a battery from another bike.
And
Check Tri bike to ride that instead, also dead battery.
Most massive humblebrag I've seen on here for a while!
6 bikes, none of which work?! I'd not be spending time on here spouting off about it, you need to be getting on with some maintenance. 😀
So, spent a bit of time trying to get the road bike sorted yesterday evening - pliers to get the battery out the top didn't work - gear outer inserted up from the BB shell didn't work either. I think I'll get some oil in there to let it slide. However, it's not a problem really, assuming it has charge, as it should work regardless of whether it's in the correct place. However the charger comes up with a red error light shortly after plugging in... Have left it plugged in overnight to see if it revives.
I did however have a fun mainly off-road ride home on the MTB, despite the fact that my front bake was dragging horribly the whole way...
A bike that needs electricity to function should have a dynamo for making it, it's not that they drag much these days, or have to be silly heavy either.
I've been out of the loop for a while with bike tech, but is Di2 wireless electronic shifting? really?? never even knew it was a thing
I was about to post about more batteries to charge being the reason I don't run Di2, then I remembered I also have no cash. (I'd run it on an XC race bike in a flash, or indeed a "best" road bike if I used it enough).
My commuter, MTB and child-carrying bikes all have dynamos to power lights. Di2 in theory only needs to be charged every few months for an hour or so, so isn't exactly an onerous task, just annoying when you forget to do it. Yes, it would be nice for the dynamo to top up the Di2 battery, but isn't feasible AFAIA without much hacking.
or just start periodically charging your batteries
Or don't depend on the grid so much, and just use a good, old-fashioned groupset.
Successfully managed to retrieve the stuck battery with some liberal spraying of XPC Green and pushing up from the BB shell with a gear outer.
Swapped it with the battery from my tri bike and we're back in business 🙂
The old battery refuses to charge which is a little annoying, especially as they aren't cheap....
Never mind dynamos, why can't DI2 charge using the movement thing you get on some watches? Bigger version obviously, can't be difficult to connect it to a battery.
Good news everybody - all 3 Di2 batteries have come back to life 🙂
I will endeavour to do as mashr suggested in the 2nd post, and to periodically charge them all up. When I was riding nearly every day this was a formality as my commuter has the gear display and battery status indicator on the bars so is always obvious. As I'm mainly running to and from work and riding is more incidental, I'm not so rigorous about charging. Not sure how long they keep their charge without use either.
I’ve been out of the loop for a while with bike tech, but is Di2 wireless electronic shifting? really?? never even knew it was a thing
Di2 is wired (for now). SRAM AXS is wireless.