Shimano electric

Shimano electric gear shifter system featured at the Tour de France on a Gerolsteiner
team bike.

Whilst the Campagnolo
electric gear shift system would seem to be quite advanced in its journey
toward production, the Shimano version looks chunky and very much at the prototype
stage. The seemingly hand machined derailleur parts look purposeful and with
no carbon in view, you do get the feeling that an engineer might appear with
file in hand to adjust the set up in some way.

The front changer on the other hand does look complete, but the large battery
pack zip-tied to the down tube looks ugly. Campagnolo’s
bottle cage/battery combo further emphasises the Italian company’s more
‘ready for production’ status.

The levers are equipped with a button to change gear and atop the lever is
a LCD display showing gear position. We assume that the Shimano system must work well already
for Gerolsteiner to take a chance on it in the great race.