The hook of a really good advert is the ability to suck the unsuspecting consumer in and making you seriously consider splurging on a purchase that you’ve never really ever considered until the fateful click of the mouse that led you to that page. I was scouring the internet for a good deal on new brake rotors and pads for my road bike not looking for expensive electronic wireless shifting but searching this particular website by biggest sale reductions had been my undoing.

Suddenly I was looking at a glossy picture of a Shimano XT Di2 rear mech with the big red 37% OFF banner next to it. Well it would have been rude not to have thoroughly read the whole page……. Now I’d been vaguely aware that Shimano had rolled out its Di2 shifting tech into its MTB groupsets but I’d certainly never really read much about it or taken much notice of it until now…… well I guess you can tell what direction this is going in. So a few days later a rather non-descript box turned up bearing the legend XT Di2 upgrade kit on the side. In the box you get all the bits needed to ditch your shifter cable and enter a wireless wonderland of modern gear changing convivence. (I should really be writing Shimano’s marketing blurbs!)

So in the box you get a new rear derailleur and shifter, a battery pack for the derailleur and a charger for the battery along with a cable to plug into a usb-c port, the final item is a new 12 speed quick-link for the chain. What you don’t really get is any instructions, you get a sheet with a QR code to scan which takes you to the Shimano website. Not wanting to bother with the hassle of doing this I took the easy way out and watched a quick tutorial on YouTube which made the whole process look remarkably easy.

Now I’m not proposing to cover the installation process in detail but it really was as easy as the video made it look. After unbolting the old derailleur, shifter and yanking the now redundant cable unceremoniously out of the frame fitting the new bits, pairing the mech with the wireless shifter and adjusting it all took under half and hour. I did save a bit of time by already having the Shimano e-tube app on my phone and thanks to several sessions dialling in my road bikes Di2 shifting the adjustment process was already familiar to me but its really not difficult. You don’t even need to have the mobile app, the adjustment is possible from the shifter itself, but personally I think using the e-tube app is quicker and an overall simpler process. The shifter unit comes with the 2 coin batteries it uses pre-installed and Shimano reckons they should last 12 – 24 months in normal use. The main battery which is tucked away inside the body of the derailleur can’t be charged when installed, you need to pop it out and plug it into its dedicated charger. After 3 or 4 longish rides it’s still showing as fully charged on the status screen of the app so I’m not sure how long that’s going to last between charges but it looks like it will last a fair few rides.

Anyway lets get on to the bit we’ve all been waiting for, how does it ride and do I think it’s worth the money? What struck me most on the first ride was how quiet the drivetrain was. Spinning up a long fire road climb the bike was eerily silent. swapping between the cogs was quick and clean, a quick press of the button results in a the chain moving up or down the cassette with the minimum of fuss. I’ve given the new system a fair bit of abuse over the last month deliberately shifting up the cassette under as much power as my twiglet like legs will produce and its never missed a shift. The ‘feel’ of the shifter does take a little bit of getting used to. The definite mechanical click of the old cable actuated system isn’t present in the same way, and the first time I rode it I found I was occasionally shifting two cogs at once because I’d hit the button a bit too hard and held it too long. This I later found out is a specific feature on the XT Di2 shifter called the ‘double click’, a light press swaps you one cog and a firmer press gives you two. If you hold the button down the chain will ramp up and down the cassette till you release the button which is great for those panic ‘oh jeez I’m in the completely wrong gear’ moments but can catch you out the first time you use it. By the second ride I’d got used to it and it was no longer a problem. The only other reservation I have is having to get used to keeping an eye on the battery level, there is a coloured LED light on the mech which I think will turn amber when the battery is approaching low levels but its not very obvious and I can foresee it catching people out because the battery life is so good folk are just going to forget to check it before a big day out and then find the gears are going to stop working. I’m going to try and get into the routine of charging the battery to full at least once a month as part of my routine maintenance schedule. I’m also going to get some spare coin batteries for the shifter and keep them in my riding pack just in case.

The question of value for money is harder to quantify and will really depend on how much disposable income you like to throw at your riding pleasure. The complete Di2 upgrade kit cost me £409.41 delivered and that was with a whopping 37% off. For me personally that was just the right side of a ‘lets spoil myself’ purchase for something that I didn’t really need. If it hadn’t have been quite heavily discounted then I’m 99% sure I wouldn’t have bought it. I love the way it rides and I think the shifting is most certainly a step up from the SLX setup it replaced. The SLX worked fine and had never let me down but the Di2 is another level up and I can’t see myself wanting to swap back to a cable system anytime soon. At the time of writing this if you where building a new bike and thinking about fitting an XT 12 speed drivetrain the cable actuated system would set you back approximately £240 in parts in the UK. The Di2 kit is still available from a couple of retailers at the just over £400 price I paid. There is also now a slightly cheaper Deore Di2 option that will cost you about £359 which as ever is a bit heavier and doesn’t have all the adjustability and functionality of the more costly XT and XTR options, as the saying goes you pays your money and you make your own choices. Personally having tasted the wireless fruit it’s a price differential I’d pay again, but as my riding friend Ian did bluntly tell me I am something of a Tart when it comes to my bikes.