Tripping the DA Electric

b_149.jpg Any mention of electric and drivetrains reminds me of the time I rode home from Seward Park with Joe Barrato. Joe’s a local racer, been around forever, and his Mavic Mektronic failed one night in the rain at Seward Park (the Seattle Thursday night crit). He was stuck in the 53 x 17, or maybe 19, all the way home and cursed it the entire time – every permutation of the various curse words was heard, including some entirely new ones. Out of sympathy, I climbed in the big ring with him and the Mavic Mektronic was never seen or heard from again. It became a don’t ask/don’t tell subject and he may have smashed it with a rock, buried it, or sold it on Ebay.

The ghosts of Mektronic past may not come to visit Shimano, there’s no doubt they’ve got the engineering staff, but skepticism remains until any shifting system survives a Seattle rainy season. And that’s not even considering the noise it makes when you’re riding with your brohams, the newsgroup supposition that electric shifting is a myth, or that it’s arrival may result in a factory-burning uprising from the commuter masses.

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