Are modern framesets killing mechanical groupsets?

The latest crop of carbon race bikes pay little heed to mechanical shifting - but does that matter?

Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 chainset fitted to a Canyon Aeroad road bike
(Image credit: Future)

Modern road and gravel bikes are highly engineered objects. It’s commonplace for their release to be accompanied by a white paper, detailing Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling, wind tunnel testing - and data - lots of data. As a result the bikes we ride today are, largely, faster and more comfortable than their predecessors.

Trek Madone SLR road bike

Many high-end race bikes like the latest Trek Madone SLR are now compatible with electronic groupsets only

(Image credit: Trek)

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