What is Synchro Shift for Shimano Di2?
What is Synchro Shift for Shimano Di2?
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been hearing a lot about synchro shift for Shimano Di2 electronic gears but I have to admit that I didn’t really know what it was all about until I was chatting with one my cycling chums.
It appears that synchro shifting is the big thing when it comes to Di2 at the moment and has made quite a few people rather excited but if you are in the dark and want to know what it actually is and how it affects your cycling, here is the low-down.
If you are currently running Di2 on your road bike you will have two front derailleurs and either ten or eleven speeds on the back. To change gears you will probably use the right shifter to go up and down the cogs on the back and the left shifter to go between the two on the front.
As you do this, you will probably notice that when you change from the big to the small ring on the front derailleur or visa versa, you also need to adjust the gears on the back to achieve a similar cadence.
I’m probably the only person in the world to call this ‘castleing’ but then I did used to play a lot of chess back in the day.
So for instantance, lets imagine that you are riding along quite happily in the big ring on the front and your 19 tooth cog on the back. You then come to a hill and as you start climbimg, your cadence slows so you shift down through the rear cogs until you run out. Normally you would then shift to the small cog on the front but if you don’t start moving the rear cogs back up the block you will be in a much lower gear than you might actually need.
With synchro shift, however, all you need to worry about is changing gears using the right hand shifter. Then, as you go up and down the block, the system will automatically shift between the big and small rings on the front so that you are working your way through the gears in sequence.
Now how useful this actually is is up for debate, especially when you factor in the cost of upgrading the older Di2 systems to accommodate the new features.
As far as I am aware, newer Di2 systems have all of this as standard but if, like me, you are running an older version you will need to buy a couple of pieces of extra hardware and update the firmware which is done via USB if you use a PC. Unfortunately us Mac users have to do it wirelessly which means buying the bluetooth module and installing the smartphone app.
I personally don’t mind ‘castling’. At the end of the day, it boils down to a couple of extra hand movements to click the shifters. Most of my riding is for fun so losing a couple of nano seconds while I work out my optimum gear is no great shakes but if you are racing this may be consideration. But then racers have been doing without synchro shift on traditional cable systems since the year dot so is this, perhaps a bit of a gimmick?
So will I be trying out sychro shift on my bike? Well, totting up the numbers, it looks like its going to cost me around £100 or $150 and I just don’t think its worth it but if you are already running it I would love to hear what you think.
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