I mean…
My current bike is Di2,
Maybe I would be more interested in a 12 speed system in 2 or 3 years… who knows…
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They are allowed to drop support for legacy systems. If they don’t have compatibility breaks they would have to be figuring out how to piecemeal 12spd stuff to 10 speed stuff. They aren’t bricking your stuff, it’s no worse than it has been in the past. Being able to plug and play parts across 7 years of releases… is pretty damn good.
They didn’t even go to microspline to ‘force’ you to buy new wheels. They are supporting rim brakes even though there is basically only Pineralleo making a top end rim bike. They have no motivation to support people that are never giving them money anyways.
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You are making a ton of assumptions here.
but I am doing this 3 things now…
1. Be excellent to each other
2. Challenge the idea, don’t attack the person
3. Contribute Constructively
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I won’t go that hard on Joel cause I don’t think he’s exactly the Luddite you make it seem, but agree there is perhaps some misdirected frustration here. Companies cannot support things forever, things change and usually to improve (know how phone manufacturers like to change their charge ports and everyone with the old stuff is like “omg they’re screwing us!”)
I don’t think there’s some conspiracy here to antiquate 11s and force people to buy 12, personally I don’t see the a strong value proposition to go to 12s, or a new aero frame disc brake bike, and as someone who’s not a potential customer I find it pointless to complain about things I won’t buy anyway. Even if Shimano did make the new derailleurs work with the old shifters I wouldn’t be running out to spend the money for an extra gear, most folks wouldn’t, so why are we all bitching about it?
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Obligatory forum rules reminder (top 3 bolded for emphasis and relevance to the recent posts):
1. Be excellent to each other
2. Challenge the idea, don’t attack the person
3. Contribute Constructively
4. Don’t break the law
5. Keep it tidy
Clean up your own mess, so Ivy and I don’t have to do it, please.
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Agree…
Although I am definitely not upgrading soon, I find the whole thing interesting. Basically making the whole 11 speed Di somewhat obsolete, when there is no need to (or at least not the whole thing)… pointing to this should be part of the conversation… or at least A conversation… or so I think
I don’t think obsolete is the word. You just can’t throw on a 12s derailleur if you bust your 11s, but you probably couldn’t mix in an 11s derailleur with 10s di2, or 10s mechanical with 11s levers, or sram 12s mech derailleurs with 11s mechanical shifters, this isn’t new, different systems are different.
Can you mix SRAM 11s eTap and 12s AXS? I really don’t know but I would doubt it. As someone said, it’s not like they’re bricking 11s equipment, it’s all still compatible with other 11s equiptment (wanna mix GRX levers with Ultegra derailleur? Rock on)
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Here is my point.
When we only had mechanical, you could, in theory, keep 9 speed version of everything, and just swap the rear derailleurs, brifter and chain for a 10 or even 11 speed and it would work…
Maybe It would look odd, because you would end up with 2 different brifters… but the option was there.
Now, everything is going to electronics, which, awesome. Electronic shifting is great and I love it.
But with that, every new version comes with new set of everything and is not compatible with anything older.
Sadly, this is the world we are living in. Most companies do this anyways… 
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It might work, but not recommended. SRAM changed the chain dimensions when it went to 12 speed - see the SRAM flattop chain.
I’m not sure but seems doubtful that you could run a 9 speed chain and crank with an 11s cassette and derailleur, maybe, but seems like the chain width etc would cause a problem.
The more innovation/improvement happens the harder it is to mix and match stuff. Chains get narrower, tolerances closer, and it’s tricky to keep progress going if you’re constrained by trying to grandfather in the users of the last generation of stuff. I agree it would be nice, but I can see why Shimano and SRAM choose to do this. From Shimano perspective at least the 11s and 12s di2 use different wires and connector, so you physically can’t mix them. SRAM imo could have made eTap and AXS compatible much more easily but chose not to, they weren’t constrained by a connector
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but it is what it is. There’s lots of things I want but can’t justify spending the money on even though I can, so I just don’t spend the money
Fun fact, that flattop 12s AXS road chain doesn’t even work with their 12s AXS Eagle group, we’ll maybe it works but not officially
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Anyone here had a chance to ride either of the new groupo’s have any thoughts on the changes to braking?
You can’t do that with the new stuff because chainring and and the chain are not compatible. Because 12spd. Everything but the rim brakes is new.
And the TT shifters.
As someone mused before. Is it really necessary to change your FD and shifters?
From a technological stand point, absolutely not. They could have made it backwards compatible. 100% certain of that.
From the stand point of a company who is in the business of making money and not necessarily making people feel happy. Absolutely necessary.
Shimano is a business and they made a business decision. Will everyone be happy with that they did?
No.
Will people stop buying shimano because of this?
No.
Even if it was cross compatible and I could go 12s by only buying the RD and Cassette and being able to reuse my Brifters and crank etc, it’s $112 for the cassette and $410 for the derailleur, IF you can even find them.
I would like to have a 16t in my 11-28 cassette (currently not a huge fan of the gap between 17t and 15t in some scenarios) but for $500 it’s not screaming value to me.
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I am not sure what is your problem.
But the fact the people were using their 10 speed shifters on a 11 speed until they brick it is a sign.
The FACT they allow the TT shifters from 11 speed generation to be use on 12 speed system is also a sign.
But hey.
Keep on the good job of sticking the corporate line.
I am pretty sure you will get sponsored in no time!
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Seems like an unnecessary statement considering mods had to tell people how to behave not even an hour ago. Not agreeing with something doesn’t mean you need to attack the person or make rude comments
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Ditto on bad adjustment of me to the Di2 setup on my GRX bike. I tried and just couldn’t get used to it. I used the e-tube app to turn the buttons into shifting to mimic the SRAM action
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Large paddle = Rear Derailleur, Left for easier, Right for harder (which happens to match the SRAM, but also my experience with shifting paddles for auto racing sims, so it was easy to adopt).
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Small button = Front Derailleur, Left for shift easier (small ring), Right for harder (big ring).
After doing that change, I am happy with the setup and seem to have greatly reduced my mis-shifting.
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Speaking as an engineer, sure, that could have been the #1 priority but at a certain point the technical tradeoff isn’t worth it. No clue whether Shimano made a technical or business decision, but lets be clear sometimes it is better from a technical point-of-view to break backward compatibility.
Big picture Shimano is pretty good on backward compatibility, but my Ultegra 6800 big chainrings wouldn’t work on Ultegra 8000. Whatever.
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Still less than 2000+ you would need to spend if you were upgrading…
but yeah… it not a small amount of money regardless…
I guess i normalize a how $500 on bike parts is a “small amount of money”.
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