Fly by wire finally made it to bikes...

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellane ... ry_shimano

What possible benefit could that have?

I'm sure that battery+wires weighs MORE than steel cables. After being around elecronic crap for decades, I've seen that adding electronics to anything NEVER increases reliability. I guess it's just needed because it's cool?

Now if it were wireless, that would be cool. It would be pretty easy to make a jammer that caused your opponent to upshift on a killer hill during a race.

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Velo Ergo Endo

They've been out for a little while. Some teams used them in the last Tour de France. Bike magazine has an article on them in the latest issue. I haven't read it yet, but the by-line indicated they loved it.

I want a neuralink control shifter, like Clint Eastwood had in the Firefox movie!

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"My favorite part of riding a bike is when I get off the bike." - Jim Gaffigan

i can think of some benefits.
you can make the servos move at a more predictable/even distance.
you don't have to force the levers against the spring in the deraillers (like shifting down on a high-normal rd).
you could make shift buttons instead of levers.

I don't like it from a philosophical perspective (bikes should be 100% mechanical), but you can make electric shifting more reliable than cable actuated, and it would probably last longer.

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There's a lot of shame on a road bike. -- evdog

I can just see a guy sitting on the side of the trail with his non functioning bike:

"Do any of you guys have a spare shifter battery?"

I've seen it enough times with spare tubes, so it's bound to happen if electronics gets on bikes.

Then again, I'm just a knuckle-dragging neanderthal luddite on a single-speed.

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Velo Ergo Endo