Electronic shifting, tubeless etc...are bikes getting too complicated?

A friend of mine rides tubeless and I have seen both sides of th argument for them now. On one ride he punctured twice and I only knew about it because the rider behind him (luckily not me) was sprayed slightly. On both times it was a quick check, still presure in the tyre and we carried on. On another ride we all heard the noise as his tyre had split and sealant was all over the road. No way of sealing or plugging it and rather than putting an inner tube in, with all the resultant mess, he decided to call his wife to come pick him up. After the first incident I was impressed and interested in the possibility of going tubeless now I think I will stick with inner tubes.

Top tip for tubeless tyres.  A couple of years ago I was replacing the sealant on my gravel bike. Thought I'd do this in the garden as it had the potential to be messy.

Always make sure you shake the bottle of Stans before refilling the tyres, but crucially, make sure the cap is fully closed. 

Face like a plasterer's radio... 😉

I have been enjoying learning about my hydraulic disk brakes (luckily Hope) and low pressure tubeless set up.

My disks require much less maintenance than my XT levered Curve cantilevers, but more than my ceramic xtr Vs (Nokon cabled for even more ease, after after initial setup). After obtaining the corrct bleed kit I can do a yearly change of fluid, hygroscopic fill, and then a later bleed, and I'm getting better at this, and will over the years. Cleaning, lubricating and working it into the piston seals for servicing was initially unexpected, but as often, effort is rewarded. Not grinding through my precious Mavic xc717s is appreciated.

After some horrible experiences changing tubeless tyres, I reduced the quantity of rim tape, from two and a bit to one and a bit wraps, making it much easier, with less hilarity for the better half. And pulling the beads out of the well as much as possible means I only need to pressurise the essential bottle once.  I still carry a tube (heavy) and levers, (I cannot not be me) but in three and a bit years have never even thought of fitting it, not that I could have done it out there before figuring out the tape thing.  Watching holes seal just puts a smug grin on my face, and I took great enjoyment needing to use my one and only anchovy. The noise of the bead seating still terrifies me.

As with everything bicycle, a learning experience and effort is rewarded. I need my bike too much to leave it with the LBS.

Rohloff is agricultural simplicity itself.

My brother's bikes have all the electronic gizmos you could want and disc brakes too boot. Strangely my analogue bike, all cantilever brakes and pesky cable actuated gears still gets to the top of the hill first...

If a cyclist wants to do their own maintenence, then frankly I'd say yes.. bike maintenece is getting more complex. But that's where your choice and voice as a customer comes in, you pays your money...

A few years ago, replacing a gear/brake cable, brake pads or an innertube was easy, required not much more than pliers, a screwdriver and a couple of levers. 

Now, personally I don't think about doing my hydralic brakes myself, gear control is battery operated and any issues there are again a job for the LBS, tubeless tyres were a steep learning curve when they came out but besides topping up a couple of times a year reward me with fewer problems thantubes. Things are defo more complex.. (and also more expensive) ... but is all this 'new stuff' better that's the real question... to which I'd probably say on balance, yes. I can now stop better in the wet, have less roadside faff with tyres and bikes look better (subjective) without cables running all over them.  

Saying all of that.. I still want a 'simple' bike for nipping into town on which doesn't cost me much time, effort or money to maintain..

I guess the beauty of modern cycling is that you can be a techno-fiend... some folks love the latest gadgets, equally others prefer it being an 'analogue' pursuit.  My worry is that the manufacturers are pushing us down a digital route (looking at you Shimano), along with a move to disc-brake only wheel upgrades.

I personally cannot see what problem electronic shifting actually addresses over properly set-up and maintained cable shifters, without introducing different issues.

I can see the advantage of discs, but not enough to upgrade my perfectly good and much-loved frameset.

Tubeless seems to introduce a whole host of other issues... sealing the rim to the tyre, topping up sealant etc.  Even if I was running tubeless I'd go out with a tube and levers in case the sealant failed so I really don't see the advantage.  I run tubes at quite low pressures anyway.

my rear wheel had a slight buckle caused by a spoke nipple being pulled out through the rim
Bloody modern rims!

I'm not sure 'complicated' is the right word - just different. I don't think routine maintenance of discs, electronic shifting, or tubeless is innately harder or more frequent than rim brakes, mechanical, or tubes.

I've run electronic on and off for a few years and, on the whole I'm a big fan, and haven't had any major problems, one flat battery aside (though that was 100% user error). Ditto tubeless, which I now wouldn't go without. Yes, I've had 1 ride-ending sidewall cut, but that's in 2 years, and truth be told, I think that would have finished off a tubed tyre as well, as it was too long to boot.

On road, I'm a bit agnostic on discs, but given you have to go out of your way to get rim brakes these days, that's a moot point. Actually, having issues with hydraulics needing to be bled (often at inconvenient times) was what forced me to learn how to bleed them myself, and it's not a very long or complicated task, even for a very average mechanic like me.

What I do think is that when riders do switch over to the 'new' stuff, it's worth spending a bit of time researching how to maintain them and how to get yourself out of the common pickles.  I can well imagine if tubes were new, for example, plenty of riders complaining about the hassle and difficulty of changing them!

I'm sure we had this debate when Shimano invented indexed gearing and then dual control shifters but the difference for me is that those things were making things easier, not harder. I've run Di2 and tubeless, rim and disc, in both hydro and cable forms. I've had frames with external, partly internal, and fully internal routing. I've had clutched and unclutched mechs. I've done 1x and dealt with various flavours of BB.

For me, I like the simplicity of cable-operated everything, with external cabling. My winter hack did a couple of thousand miles of commuting in all weathers and I never had to change cables, brake blocks, etc. I even prefer TRP Spyres to road hydros and once set up correctly they offer enough power to haul up my considerable bulk on a descent. So the moar hydro, moar electronics, moar integration fashion doesn't even make sense from a practical perspective to me. 

In comparison, when I ran Di2 I remember the rear mech lost contact with the brains of the system, which necessitated removing the crank to get at the B junction box buried in the BB area. That was a good couple of hours work.

Similarly, as a heavy rider, I find that road tubeless doesn't work for me. I still need to ride high pressures (80psi) and despite paying attention to sealant quality and quantity I've never had a puncture seal properly. Maybe I'm just unlucky living in the flinty goodness of chalky Hampshire. 

What all these innovations really do is make work for the LBS and money for the bike manufacturers. We're at the point where cars got to in the early 2000s where suddenly they weren't maintainable with home tools and a Haynes manual. I remember my 2003 Golf needing the front bumper removing to replace a headlight bulb, that's a bit like the major job replacing headset bearings on a bike with integrated routing has become. Ten mins plus an allen key vs a couple of hours and an internal routing kit.

As a home mechanic who also works on other peoples bikes I don't mind the complexity because it generates business, but I can't say I enjoy fettling a modern bike as much as I do one that's cable everything.

I've been thinking this myself over the last few years as tech moves on and I start to wonder if I can afford a new bike. One of the things I love about bikes is (was) the simplicity. When I was young I had a BMX, like a lot of us no doubt, and even in my early teens, I could strip the whole thing down myself (and put it back together, I hasten to add!) When I stepped up to a road bike, the tech wasn't that much different, just the addition of gears, easy to access and exciting to learn. But I could do it myself and the appeal was riding this simple machine, maintained solely by me that brought me so much pleasure. I'd love to get home and tinker away; in fact, I'd tinker even when it wasn't needed, I just enjoyed it so much. I don't look forward to it quite so much any more.

I've absolutley nothing against new tech such as electronic gears or disc brakes - my CX bike has hydraulic disc brakes - but my road bikes are rim brakes. Yes, most agree discs are better and arguably they are, but prior to discs, I never heard anyone complain about rim brakes so much that they demanded discs - apart from carbon clincher rim brakes which are awful. Like it or not, that's the way the industry wants us to go and we've mostly got to bite the bullet - would just like the choice.

My next road bike will no doubt be disc brake as I'll have little choice assuming I want something higher end. Whether it will be electronic gears as well depends firstly on my bank balance and then what the frame choice allows. Factor bikes claim that public demand means all their bikes are electronic gears only. I'd love to see the thousands of emails that demanded it. I don't believe for a minute that angry customers demanded it. I'd guess it's more down to internal cable gears compromising their frame design.

My S-Works Tarmac (admittedly a bit old now, but still a brilliant bike) allowed me to buy the framset and move items across from an older bike and upgrade as and when funds allow. Can't do that anymore. Effectively I have to start again.

As for maintaining bikes myself these days, up to a point, yes, but any future disc brake bike will have to go to the LBS certainly for hydraulic brake maintenance. Maybe I could learn it and shell out for more tools, but I know that it will seem like a hassle rather than a pleasure. Replacing cables and changing brake blocks is child's play in comparison as you can see clearly when blocks are wearing out or cables are looking iffy. I actually enjoy maintaining brakes. Maybe it's psycholgical thinbg as if I know I've done it correctly, I know I'm safe.

So for now, I'll try and stockpile what I can for my current crop of bikes whilst I try and save for what will be the standard in the not too distant future. By the time I get there, some other piece of tech will have take over.

Not to criticise anyone's ability to maintain their own bikes, but pro's often won't need to maintain their own bikes and a lot of people won't know how to maintain their own bikes. Some people don't have the desire to learn either and that's fine too.

Swapping tubed and mechanical for tubeless and and electronic just creates different maintenance requirements. Might be a slightly bigger issue when things go wrong but barring firmware issues on electronic groupsets nothing on tubeless, electronic or hydraulic disc technology is particularly hard to maintain and that maintenance seems less frequent than mechanical cabled systems and tubed tyres.

Like one of the other posters, I've had one puncture that wouldn't seal in 8 years of running road tubeless across numerous bikes and wheels. And it was perfectly easy to swap a tube in when it was clear I'd let the sealant dry out over time forgetting to top it up. It wasn't a call to ask for a car journey.

The anti-electronic argument reminds me of a similar debate back in the 80s when those unreliable carburettors and contact breaker ignitions systems which you coud fix yourself were replaced by sealed electronic ignition and fuel injection, to the cries of "oh, but what happens when it goes wrong".  We soon found that there were no more flooded carburettors, no more wet weather starting problems, or contact points to replace and tweak, whilst the electronics for the most part last the life of the car.  As for missing a ride because your batteries are flat??  Is that really a thing? My only experience of electronic shifting is SRAM, which gives me various warnings (message on my computer plus red led's) long before the battery condition is so low as to cause problems. I have however been stranded by a cable break on a mechanical system.

With disc brakes however, I find these a complete PITA, and high maintenance.  My old Ultegra rim brakes just worked, simple as that. I moved to disc this year, and along with most of my ride buddies using discs, SRAM or Shimano, I face the ongoing challenge of trying to keep the discs quiet, while the pads last 25% of the time of my rim pads and cost more to replace. I would happily return to rim brakes.

I guess the big question as a leisure rider who rides a high tech bike, is do all the expensive innovations make me enjoy my riding more?  In all honesty, probably not.  

I love electronic shifting because it's set and forget but the latest prices from Shimano are taking the p@#s. They pushed ultegra into the unaffordable category over £2k.

Folk should use the bike that works for them. Bike have got more complicated but so has everything else. Stuff is maybe easier to use but harder to fix. Index gear shifting never seemed mechanically satisfying and seems a natural partner for electronic shifting. Friction shifting needs more mechanical empathy, and when got wrong is largely operator error. Which you use depends on your likes and priories; both are equally valid.

I've not gone tubeless but do use plastic tubes (Schwalbe Aerothan) that do seem to roll better than butyl and don't go flat like latex. Again, experiment and see what works best for you.

I love e-shifting and tubeless but both require routine maintenance in a way that previous cycling tech did not. I'm fine with that and can deal with the technicalities but many other people can not. It's best to know what you're getting into.