Shimano wants to make your bike as smart as your car

I would like to see American magazines taking a more critical look at these lights. Like virtually all bike front lights sold in the USA, the Garmin UT800 has a circular beam, making it pretty much useless for anything. Proper bike lights have asymmetric projection beams that put the light on the road, not up into the sky. Unfortunately an American bicyclists who wants one of those lights is pretty much obligated to import one from Germany, where bicycle lighting is a matter of law. It seems really weird that these very bright, very expensive flashlights are the only thing available in US bike shops.

Do you not have a modern car, with their many buttons on the steering wheel?

I agree with you but Shimano has kind of built their entire business in the bicycle market on planned obsolescence, changing the number of gears to make equipment incompatible every few years and then making the highest end shifting electronic (and incompatible with prior versions) when they reached the practical limits of chain width for bicycles (they tried introducing a new standard chain size for bicycles that required replacing all the drive train components but that got rejected by the market, also they had more competitors back then). On the other hand Shimano dominates the bicycle market for bicycle components now and it's still only a tiny portion of their business - they sell a lot more fishing equipment.

None of this is particularly new, but it is being refined.

The R9170 Dura-Ace hydraulic system isn't even complete yet, the power meter crankset is only starting to materialise.

Yet it does represent the 2nd proper generation of electronic shifting and hydraulic braking on road bikes.

None of what is in the article is new, but it is being polished and brought together better. One of the things that I have enjoyed is that with a Wahoo bike computer (or the forthcoming Hammerhead Android based computer), it's now possible to grab your bike... go out and put in a long ride, and without any hassle or prep for your power, heart, cadence, and speed to all be recorded, accurately, auto-uploaded to Strava on your return, and during the ride the buttons on the Shimano R9170 hood can control the screen on the GPS, and the electronic shifting means tired hands on seriously long rides are far less of a problem.

This is now a reality, it's there. That's my daily steed.

That style of bike is also now the default choice of the endurance rider. They learned a few years ago of the benefits of all-weather braking that doesn't fade, electronic shifting to spare the hand.

The fear of flat batteries within Di2 is just not there. If you top up every few months... you'll be fine. You'd need to be doing events like the TransAm or Transcontinental and training on the bike and failing to charge... to even stand a chance at experiencing a flat battery.

Re: the accident alert in the Garmin, I tried a See Sense rear lamp that has this feature and it's pointless. Nothing more than a headline grabber. Far better on lighting just to buy something with a solid bright red light that operates on bog standard AAA batteries and is cheap, my favourite being the GBP 15 Moon Pulsar. For front light I favour Lumicycle, but for rear give me super reliable and easy to find batteries for.

This stuff is all very nice. It's currently top dollar for the Dura-Ace end of the range, but is available in cheaper groupsets, and is also starting to emerge with the Alfine internal hub gear systems. Meaning: It is moving down the range and becoming common.

Cycles will also nearly all go power-assist. They too are maturing at a great rate, and even avid cyclists like myself who have ridden one is now tempted.

Cycles will go electric in all ways. The future is here.

If you're interested, other recent changes in cycling:

+ Frames geometries are changing, the emergence of 3d printing is making bottom bracket and dropout clusters lighter, stronger and more capable

+ Tyres are fatter and lower pressure https://www.schwalbe.com/gb/road-reader/schwalbe-g-one-allro...

+ Tyres are becoming tubeless, like car tyres, with puncture filling gloop to handle everything short of a side-wall failure (but then you can just insert a tube to get you home) https://roadcyclinguk.com/gear/buyers-guide-go-tubeless.html...

+ Wheels are getting wider whilst still being aero, and accommodating aero with fatter tyres, helped by disc brakes (allows rims, forks and frames to evolve). Check out Enve SES AR 4.5 wheels https://enve.com/products/ses-4-5-ar/

+ Disc brakes are changing frames so that axles are thru-frame for quick and easy wheel changes and consistent brake alignment https://cyclingtips.com/2015/10/road-bikes-are-headed-toward...

+ Gravel bikes are the new road bikes, striking a balance between cyclocross and road they are adventure or "super versatile" bikes that are fast and have the potential to take a gravel trail occasionally http://road.cc/content/buyers-guide/217893-18-best-2017-grav...

+ Bike bags are moving from panniers to under saddle and on the bar, check out Apidura for examples of this. Bike-packing is very on-trend right now https://www.apidura.com/

+ Riding is changing from sportif to weekend and overnight, and clothing is changing too into lightweight and adaptive wear, Rapha Brevet range is an example of this, especially their insulated gilet and jacket http://www.rapha.cc/gb/en/shop/brevet/category/brevet

+ Most anticipated new product is probably the Hammerhead computer. Garmin is tolerated and not loved, Wahoo is pretty good but not yet feature complete https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/03/wahoo-elemnt-gps-bike-co... , but the Hammerhead could be excellent and they have the potential to move into Android Wear with some actually excellent apps too https://www.hammerhead.io/

There is nothing in cycling not currently undergoing rapid change. This is an industry overhauling itself to grow it's market by having vehicles and equipment to allow human-assisted transport to be easy, go faster, go farther, be more comfortable, more practical, more lifestyle. This stuff is currently top-end, but it's already moving down and becoming more accessible.

> without the risk of being stolen

There's tech for that, too. ;-)