Hydraulic shifting

[rgmerk]

In the latest piece of off-season speculation from BikeRadar, it's claimed that Magura and Acros are going to team up to build a "fully hydraulic road group", with hydraulic disc brakes and hydraulically-operated shifting. Acros already have a hydraulic MTB group. The price is eye-watering though - $2,300 for just the shifters and derailleurs....

OK, compared to a mechanical setup, the routing is more flexible, the cables don't stretch, and the mechanism can probably shift more consistently, meaning fewer missed shifts and less adjustment required. But electronic shifting gives you all of that plus a whole lot more - most notably, it self-adjusts so you *never* have to touch your derailleurs except to clean and lube them.

The only advantage I see that this would have over electronic shifters is perhaps a marginal weight reduction (who cares, given the UCI weight limit?) and the fact that you don't have to remember to recharge your shifter battery once a month.

And while electronic shifting is super-duper expensive now, a few years from now it'll be cheap as chips, whereas hydraulic stuff is fundamentally more costly to manufacture.

Am I missing anything?

 

[BroDeal]

Solution without a problem.

 

[ElChingon]

You're missing the O-Rings

 

[Bustedknuckle]

In the latest piece of off-season speculation from BikeRadar, it's claimed that Magura and Acros are going to team up to build a "fully hydraulic road group", with hydraulic disc brakes and hydraulically-operated shifting. Acros already have a hydraulic MTB group. The price is eye-watering though - $2,300 for just the shifters and derailleurs....

OK, compared to a mechanical setup, the routing is more flexible, the cables don't stretch, and the mechanism can probably shift more consistently, meaning fewer missed shifts and less adjustment required. But electronic shifting gives you all of that plus a whole lot more - most notably, it self-adjusts so you *never* have to touch your derailleurs except to clean and lube them.

The only advantage I see that this would have over electronic shifters is perhaps a marginal weight reduction (who cares, given the UCI weight limit?) and the fact that you don't have to remember to recharge your shifter battery once a month.

And while electronic shifting is super-duper expensive now, a few years from now it'll be cheap as chips, whereas hydraulic stuff is fundamentally more costly to manufacture.

Am I missing anything?

We bleed wet brakes all the time. The tools, fittings, lines, etc fill a small room. With the reservoirs becoming so small, with all this emphasis on low weight, and unique parts and bits...wet brakes work great when they work. When they degrade or are damaged, or something as simple as bike falls over w/o a front wheel in and compress the lever, they don't work at all.

 

[DirtyWorks]

And while electronic shifting is super-duper expensive now, a few years from now it'll be cheap as chips, whereas hydraulic stuff is fundamentally more costly to manufacture.

Am I missing anything?

Has Dura Ace/Ultegra gotten cheaper? No.

If it were the case there was no intellectual property at play, I would agree with the general idea that prices decline over time. But there is an enormous amount of Intellectual Property that protects Shimano's pricing.