Cycling Enters the Electronic Age With a New Gear-Shifting System

By IAN AUSTEN
NYT

The bicycle, one of the world’s most resolutely human-powered machines, will join the long list of devices that have switched from the manual to the electronic when a new gear system makes its debut this weekend at the Tour of California.

Although the battery-powered derailleur by Shimano promises to bring ease and accuracy to changing gears by enabling riders to shift with a light touch to two electronic switches, traditionalists worry that it may erode the basic tenets of the sport.

“People choose bicycles precisely because a bicycle’s motion requires only human effort, and nothing could be more simple, independent and autonomous,” Raymond Henry, a cycling historian in St. Etienne, France, wrote in an e-mail message. “Any source of external energy, however weak, runs counter to this philosophy.”

Whether the gear system becomes the next iPod and redefines bicycle technology or ends up as the sport’s version of the eight-track tape will hinge on a number of factors, the most obvious being performance, reliability and cost.

(More here.)