this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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The obsession toward overcomplicating a simple mechanism is both fascinating and annoying. We have that in car, and it became a death box if accident happens and you lost power, nothing will work other than smashing your window.
At least in bicycle world, it will never became mainstream. A cable/hydraulic works just fine.
Are you a current cyclist? Because quite a bit of modern bikes have electronic and wireless parts now.
If something is lighter in weight racers will use it. And since racers will use them then so will hobbyists because roadie dorks always follow the peloton.
I don't think roadies are the only cyclist in town, to most people cable is the bread and butter, so what enthusiasts think as a mainstream mean absolutely nothing to the broader picture. Most people use bike to get around or just enjoying the ride, and don't really care about the latest tech.
But of course, if by "cyclist" you mean being a lycra wearing folks on a road bike concerning about weight and aero, then yeah i ain't one.
Well I meant all competitors. And by cyclist I mean do you currently cycle on the regular. I don't wear lycra either since I ride downhill.
Downhill and Enduro racers use wireless groupsets pretty much 100% of the time now. A few grams means a lot to guys where 1st and 2nd place are separated by a few hundredths of a second.
Since everyone uses it and it comes on higher end bikes it has and will start to filter down to the lower end bikes and eventually everything will be wireless. Same thing happened with disc brakes and single chainring groupsets.
You say that but if it's lighter, and sold as the next big thing you'd be surprised what people would buy. Regrettably the freds of the world will eat up what cycling marketers put down for them.
I can picture it now; no hydraulic lag - brake by wire! No air bubbles, no more DOT fluid! Shave grams off your bike! Tune it with a proprietary app!
Yeah, but will it become mainstream where commuter will concern whether they need brake by wire? I don't think so though. It's not in a way like when we go from rim brake to disc brake.
It depends on how hard bike companies want to push it. If a bike has anything integrated with a battery (Di2, AXS, whatever) then I'd imagine that it'll just become normalised, like hydraulic brakes have been (or, for that matter disc brakes!).