We’ve all been there with an annoying intermittent fault, either on your car or your bike… there is nothing worse, than trying to get a fault diagnosed when the problem just keeps disappearing when you need it to be there. Inconvenient.
Well, on the way out to Calpe in February, my bike box had been bashed, which in turn had sent my derailleur into protect mode aka crash mode – with my lovely mechanic on hand, it was solved without any more issues.
However, cue The Eddie Soens Road Race in March. I wasn’t going very well on the bike anyway, I had (and still have) bursitis in my knee, which affects my training and performance – so I wasn’t expecting a great deal from the race.
I have to say, it is not a race for me, I found it incredibly windy and somewhat boring – I’m just not very good at going around a closed circuit for hours without getting bored. It was a great experience, don’t get me wrong, and I’m honoured to do it.
Around a third into the race and bobs ya uncle, there go my gears… I tried everything to wake them back up, nothing worked and along with them, went my brain.
The headwind was atrocious on one side, I was in a group with all my teammates and was quite content there, but when my gears went, I just couldn’t push the gear quick enough in the headwind to not create gaps. I ended up being dropped – welcome to no man’s land my friend, a place where you will start to consider your life choices.
I carried on pushing for a few more laps until I decided enough was enough and climbed off.
A decision I am not proud of, I have never not finished a race before… and this was how I was starting my season?! What kind of an early April fool’s joke was this!! Onwards and upwards hay.
A couple of days later and off we went to Lanzarote to support our homie in her first IRON MAN 70.3 – what an absolute legend she was (3rd).
Arrive -> derailleur in melt down -> first few days was too windy to ride much -> James’s last day there (had to shoot back for racing) and we managed to get out on a longer ride.
We got halfway into our ride, going uphill of course and my gears went sparko on me… I was fuming – steam was coming out of my ears. James tried to fix them, but they were completely dead – also, this is a new derailleur since The Eddie Soens.
I had to churn all the way up this climb, and I was so angry I rudely dropped my ride pals – but also partly, I couldn’t physically push the gear any slower. I had angry power… was actually quite fun flying along the roads.
On that trip I visited two bike shops and neither of them could diagnose the fault. They plugged it into the programme, they’d updated all the software and had no other ideas. The only thing that brought it back to life was plugging it into the charger to ‘reset’ it.
Back in the UK James checked the bike again with the programme and nothing came up, the battery looked ok and when it was plugged in, it was saying it was healthy – so, off I went to Dave Peck.
Arggggggggggggggg.
Three laps out of… 12 (I think) and my gears died again, I found my team mate to let her know that I wasn’t going to be much use, but would do what I could. As we passed spectators Harriet tried to get information so we could try to reset them while riding – if they were in protect mode, then they should reset while riding. I tried everything.
But… I did not stop racing this time. I sat at the front, and I just went hard for a little while... if I was going hard then I could control the pace of the race a bit, with my one gear front and back, meaning people hopefully wouldn’t go too hard and leave me for dust. I also had some frustration to release.
By some miracle I got round and finished 20th, with fire in my belly.
Sunday evening got me thinking, the mechanics are all doing the one thing they’re taught and using the software to check all the parts, but what if it needed someone to think outside of the box…
So, I did some googling, the problem wasn’t my gears going into protect mode because I had absolutely no life at all – no lights on the junction box.
Turns out, lots of other people have had this issue and after months of going back and forth with Shimano were advised to change their battery. In comes the research, and it turns out that a brain inside the battery had basically fried, but was undiagnosable A. because it was intermittent and B. because the battery itself was healthy and part functioning so every time it was plugged into the software it reset itself, which meant it wasn’t picking up the problem – probably something they should really look to avoid in future models.
Monday comes and off my bike goes to the doctors again… a change of battery and she’s back in full swing!! And I couldn’t be happier. I mean, truth be told – I could have fried the battery brain myself; I had left her on charge once… a few hours too many, but who really knows. I am just so glad my prize possession is fixed.
If you’re having Di2 issues – I advise you to think outside of the box and do some googling, sometimes the problems aren’t obvious and are also undiagnosable.
You may now address me as the Miracle Bike Doctor – for this one problem, otherwise, I know nothing.
Ride bikes, eat cake, be happy :)
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