I'd go with eTap personally.

new ultegra di2 vs old? pros and cons?

Define "new" and "old".

^^^This. If you do any winter cycling, see how the buttons work* with your favorite gloves/mittens.

*...or don't
:banana:


It's another compelling reason to check out eTap imho.

I finished a winter 200k in 34f temps using Di2 with my fingers almost in fists because I pulled the lining of my glove in past the fingers and couldn't/didn't sort it out. I don't personally think the two buttons are hard to distinguish with mittens. YMMV

that was my first thought. Shimano is very quick to tell you your chainline sucks. that was the main reason I liked di2: crisp Shimano shifting, but you didn't have to adjust the FD indexing when you were cross-chained. I did enjoy it but it wasn't mind-blowing for me. mechanical shifting is pretty excellent these days. depends what your priorities are though; it's more set and forget, that's for sure. if you hate bike maintenance or aren't skilled with it, it's 100% the way to go.

Agreed: I've got mechanical on one and electronic on the other. Find mechanical much more tactile, but I bore of changing cables and fine tuning indexing. "Fresh" mechanical is excellent; 8 weeks down the line, less so....

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sealed cables :banana:

I've switched almost entirely over to using sealed cable systems. As you say, they keep their performance for much longer than non-sealed systems. They are more expensive than non-sealed systems, but mechanical shifters/derailleurs plus a lifetime supply of sealed cables is still less expensive than electronic shifters/derailleurs.

I feel like I have enough gadgets I have to charge. I know you don't have to charge battery that often but sometimes I just want to go on a ride and not worry about plugging anything in.

Curious though, how long is the battery life on these?

Depends on how much you ride. My wife's Di2 gravel bike probably gets charged twice a year. I think riding every day you could still easily get a couple months.

I charge mine about once/quarter.

So to update my thread...

I got a really good deal on a 9150 upgrade kit from a nice forum member here a couple of months ago, but wasn't able to get it installed until yesterday.

Went out for a 40k ride and have to say that for me, it's absolutely one of the best upgrades I've made to my bike.

I had the shifting set to semi-syncro mode, which I think I will stick with. Haven't tried full-syncro yet, but I don't see much point, although it might be useful in winter to cut down on shifting when wearing thick gloves.

Not having to trim the front derailleur is extremely nice. Just shift the big ring and you're good.

The buttons on the 9150 shifters are plenty tactile with nice enough travel, and it's pretty cool to be able to change the pages on my Garmin with the hood buttons.

Finally, don't underestimate the addictive nature of the sound from that front derailleur when you make a shift. That's pretty damn cool.

All in all, it's almost like having a completely new bike to ride. Been saving up for quite some time to buy this gruppo and it's certainly been worth the wait.

I have mechanical groups on all but one bike at the moment. I have had di2 on a few bikes and liked it, but I didn’t really love it. I just received a bike with etap and I like it better than di2. New mechanical groups are great and you’ll never run out of battery power.

The way I look at it, wine bottles with a screw top is arguably an improvement over corks. But I don't think I've ever bought a bottle of wine because of the screw top. Some things are just wrong just because. Like banana emojis. :banana: and butts :butt: