so you are saying there is a .000000000003% chance i'll die

"The team at Saarbrücken Computer Science say the system can stop a bike in 250 milliseconds. This means a cyclist traveling at 30 km/h would have a two-metre stopping distance."

... and 1.5 metres of that would be on your face... lol

"Wireless shifting was introduced by Shimano in 2008 in the form of Dura-Ace Di2"

Di2 is wired guys...

Interesting idea, having fingers over the lever does reduce the amount of control and stability you have at the bars. But weight shifts due to braking or terrain might be translated into further braking and would need to be avoided.

Oh and the aesthetics... We're all far to gay for a component to look like that.

Sorry guys. The Shimano Di2 electronic shifter systems are not wireless. They use a wire harness from the shifters to the battery and from the battery to the derailers. I would get one if they were wireless.

Just once in a while......... I am glad we won the war.

Come on, another useless device, please don't waste another time and money by making crap, put your head to better use not this expensive junk, witch nobody will ever buy.

The thing is, that grip my handlebar grips pretty tightly when climbing a very steep climb... so does this mean i will find myself eating dirt every time I get out of my saddle??

This just proves the adage. " just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

250 milliseconds is the signal transfer time, not the stopping time. Imagine those G forces on your giblets!!!!

Assuming the mechanical bits are stock discs and calipers, which cannot stop in this time!

Are F1 cars braked wirelessly? Doubt it. If it was that good, that weight saving, they would have already come up with it.

This reminds me of that story of someone getting million dollar research grant to make a lightsaber!

XT brakes for me thanks.

USAMtn. No there'a a 100% certainty you'll die unless you've discovered the secret of ever lasting life

MMMM!

Solution looking for a problem?

Don't forget to charge the battery...

this probably make more sense to have shift system in wireless, if to cut the cost on shifting wires to front/back dérailleur. if using dynamo hub and shifting system reinvented to alternate shifting tension from current wiring by maybe magnetic or other next to wireless source. that bike probably will make money for real, and i wouldn't dare to go downhill by this wireless brake system, it seemed only good in campus

Hope not to get an interference from another bike.

Who will be the first person to find a way to hack into your brakes by using a remote control.............reckon that would add extra spice to DH races!!

Great! You lose about 200 grams from not having any wires, but you just gained 5 extra pounds on bulky ad-ons.

What hedge fund manager is funding this garbage?

they look light, practical, reliable, robust and the grip thing is an excellent idea great for an mtb when your bouncing down the hill ha what a pile!!! Stop wasting money and feed the starving

Is it 99.999999999997% reliable at fort william......

Ok, it looks daft now but just think how light bikes could get. Or imagine a mountain bike with no brake leavers or shifters (or some mini lever/button type construction). There would have to be some new ergonomic solution obviously. But why not? Disadvantages would be failing batteries or inability to charge up when touring. So practical reasons would be the bigger issue. But that's the same with Shimano's electric system.

This guy Holgar Hermanns is not a cyclist. If he was, he wouldn't even have embarked on this crazy project. What exists already is fine.

dilemna "What exists already is fine"

I'm picking on you because you were last to post but to all of you "why bother, bikes are already good" brigade; same was said of cantis then of v brakes, of rigid forks and hardtail frames, of drivetrains without gears. without people pursuing ideas you wouldn't have the bike you ride on today.

That said (and not forgetting that he has said the bike system is a testbed aimed at developing systems for trains) this system in its current form really isn't necessary / useful on a bike

- digital braking could be easily wired on a bike (but I can see where a train could benefit) the wireless bridge is an unnecesary weak point

- 1/4 second delay is not good enough. I wonder if this is due to wireless signal processing or actuator engagement. I suspect the latter which makes it a fundamental problem.

as for the grip sensor, well, in principle you could use anything; traditional lever, button or even a straw in the mouth that you blow through. main issue I suspect is battery power to the actuator and the weight that implies

Rock on new ideas dudes though, ignore teh haters!

I totally agree bomberesque, too many people can't see that it's just normal evolution and that these sorts of systems will become more powerful, smaller, lighter, cheaper and more effective over time. It's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of the one who can adapt to the changing environment the best, most of the "back in my day" type of guys above will be left behind and start sounding like their Dads before long.

Good innovation has been summed up by many, probably best by pip coburn in the change function, as it should solve a problem, however to be succsessful it should have a pain of adoption that is smaller than the pain of the initial problem it solves...

Di2 solves a chainline efficiency problem and the pain of adoption when installing a new Groupset or building a new bike is minimal...

The first issue of this technology is: who has looked at their bike, thought where to improve efficiency, funtionality and save weight, and thought: "i need to lose the brake cables"????? Even then, there are some who like technology for technology's sake, not for its problem solving skills, but for this to be successful it will need to solve the pain of adoption puzzle, the chance of your brakes not working, even i they are the same as winning the lottery, are just too high for all but a few, let alone the fact of having to charge a battery and the extra electronics plus battery being heavier than the cable weight you are using, and do not get me started on the possibility of a nut job using a jammer to cause mass bicycle brake failure at the bottom of a hill or a junction...

For me this is a very interesting application of redundant wireless, and it may have an application in a device with many more wheels and much larger than a bike, or where a mechanical or hydraulic brake, or even an electric brake wire may not be practical or too heavy, etc.... And certainly very interesting: But on bikes, it just ain't gonna happen!

The majority of these comments are typical of the luddite attitude to anything dramatically different in cycle design. I love the relatively simple design of the bicycle but I'm always open to new ideas. Let's be honest, this is a concept design and how often to concept cars actually make it to market? What does happen though is that the better ideas trickle down into production cars.

As to the system itself, removing the wires takes away the effects of wire stretch. I don't know that the 1/4 second delay is such a big issue. Simply change the modulation of the brake actuation to compensate. I doubt that it would be such a big difference that it would result in the brakes grabbing. And once again, this is a concept design, subject to refinement and improvement.

Really, I don't see what the big deal is - if you don't like it, don't buy it (if it becomes available). Di2 won't be entirely replacing regular gears for quite some time, and I would say the same about this if it ever goes to market. Or is it that we don't feel we can afford it? Jealousy is a bad trait (and for the record I can't justify the cost of Di2 myself).

Speaking specifically about computer networking, when a signal must transfer across media (e.g. from wire to air) a delay is introduced as this happens. You should be able to easily test this at home by 'ping'ing your modem/router via WiFi, then connect via wired and see the difference in latency. It will be very minor, but, it is detectable.

NB: Works best if you use non-Windows, as Windows has a nasty habit of not tracking ping/latency of

edit: apologies for the (almost) double-post. I used a 'less than' symbol, and it trimmed my post.

Speaking specifically about computer networking, when a signal must transfer across media (e.g. from wire to air) a delay is introduced as this happens. You should be able to easily test this at home by 'ping'ing your modem/router via WiFi, then connect via wired and see the difference in latency. It will be very minor, but, it is detectable.

NB: Works best if you use non-Windows, as Windows has a nasty habit of not tracking ping/latency of less than 1ms.

So, I'm surprised to see them go for a wireless solution, and then offer it as being secure as it reduces response latency. I'd expect a wired solution to be even better, and with the obvious solution of not requiring additional batteries, or security against signal intrusion/interruption. Perhaps these are the main reasons why Di2 is wired?

There's no reason why a wired solution couldn't give all the aesthetics of a wireless solution (e.g. wires hidden through bar/stem/frame/forx), but, without the -ve's.

Wobbern;

What war did you win? And why does it have anything to do with this ?

Your quite a fool.

Some people seem to be missing an important point. The bike was just a test subject for the system. They were developing a remote actuation system, not trying to find the best kind of braking system for a bike. That's pretty common in engineering research, you find something from everyday life to guide your inventing and make your research less abstract.

250 milliseconds delay between operation and actual braking?! That's a quarter of a second!! Would be absolutely shite to use with that sort of delay, especially for DH.

Also, what's wrong with hydraulic cabled systems? Lots of power, lots of feel and relatively light weight. Not to mention that a grip mounted brake would have you on your face in seconds.

Maybe we can just carry a lightweight aluminium rod instead and jam it in our spokes when we want to stop. Would be the same amount of use as this shite.

Perfect example of something that was designed in a lab by non-cyclists without passing the gaze of an actual cyclist.

"Three failures in a trillion applications" leaves me wondering how my ordinary brake cable would fare after a trillion goes. Interesting idea, but perhaps not the right application for now