JRA
Well-Known Member
I have not been happy with the shifting on my LUNA Z1 since day 1. I blame it on the internal cable routing that is pretty much the standard today. The fact that now the cable is completely housed creates friction that makes the gear changes sluggish, especially in the middle cogs of the cassette where the cable tension is fairly neutral. To this end I had enough and started to look at electronic shifting options. I have avoided them in the past although they have been around for quite awhile due to their cost mostly but the new SRAM T-Type peaked my interest but to get into that was $1500 for the groupo as well as I would need a new bike with a UDH so all in upwards of $6k. Not in my budget I'm afraid.
I had seen the Archer system in a few articles and didn't really pay much attention to it. However upon doing some research it seemed to me like they have been making some now for awhile with many positive YT videos as to the fact that they do in fact work. Over the years they have made improvements also and the Gen 2 has a battery pack instead of individual cells and the shifter pod was redesigned over the Gen 1. So I decided to give it a go and as it turns out I am glad that I did.
For $429 it is arguably the cheapest entrant into electronic shifting especially if you factor in that it will work with any cassette in any speed config and also with any derailleur so it should work with about any derailleur type bike out either MTB and also road bikes with the remote shifters made for drop bars. There are comprehensive instructions on their site in how to set it up and I recommend following them closely and not making assumptions during installation. I am not known for doing that and so spent extra time on this but doing it again would be a less than half hour affair to remove the old shifter/housing, install the D1x and shift pod and use the app to clock the derailleur to the cassette. It helps to have the bike elevated somehow for this because you need to be able to pedal the bike in order to determine if the chain is settled properly on each cog using the app. Having a throttle for this seemed like it helped for me but not necessary. Pairing the shift pod to the shifter mech is easy also and once set they are married for life and no other Archer will be able to interfere with them. One thing I do recommend is to save your final configuration in the saved wheel category of the app because if you don't it will revert back to 0 basically if you go back to make some fine adjustments, ask me how I know!
Immediately upon riding at the first shift I could tell how crisp it was and continuing on every shift, even under some load, performed flawlessly up and down the cassette. There are some options lke the ability to perform multiple shifts that I haven't experimented with but will at some point but at this time just one click of the paddle per shift works fine. The shift paddle itself is probably not going to be much different of a placement than most shift pods however I have been using grip shift for years and it is going to take me a bit more time to get used to it.
As time goes on and the chain and cassette start to wear you can go back and fine tune any of the shift points so I will track that as the miles roll up. Also they make claims as to battery life for both the shift mech and the pod and I started out fully charged on both and will try and track their run time. There are little blinking lights that will show if they are coming to the end of their charge as well as if the systems are on. The Gen 2 activates by movement and the amount it takes can be adjusted in the app also.
I had seen the Archer system in a few articles and didn't really pay much attention to it. However upon doing some research it seemed to me like they have been making some now for awhile with many positive YT videos as to the fact that they do in fact work. Over the years they have made improvements also and the Gen 2 has a battery pack instead of individual cells and the shifter pod was redesigned over the Gen 1. So I decided to give it a go and as it turns out I am glad that I did.
For $429 it is arguably the cheapest entrant into electronic shifting especially if you factor in that it will work with any cassette in any speed config and also with any derailleur so it should work with about any derailleur type bike out either MTB and also road bikes with the remote shifters made for drop bars. There are comprehensive instructions on their site in how to set it up and I recommend following them closely and not making assumptions during installation. I am not known for doing that and so spent extra time on this but doing it again would be a less than half hour affair to remove the old shifter/housing, install the D1x and shift pod and use the app to clock the derailleur to the cassette. It helps to have the bike elevated somehow for this because you need to be able to pedal the bike in order to determine if the chain is settled properly on each cog using the app. Having a throttle for this seemed like it helped for me but not necessary. Pairing the shift pod to the shifter mech is easy also and once set they are married for life and no other Archer will be able to interfere with them. One thing I do recommend is to save your final configuration in the saved wheel category of the app because if you don't it will revert back to 0 basically if you go back to make some fine adjustments, ask me how I know!
Immediately upon riding at the first shift I could tell how crisp it was and continuing on every shift, even under some load, performed flawlessly up and down the cassette. There are some options lke the ability to perform multiple shifts that I haven't experimented with but will at some point but at this time just one click of the paddle per shift works fine. The shift paddle itself is probably not going to be much different of a placement than most shift pods however I have been using grip shift for years and it is going to take me a bit more time to get used to it.
As time goes on and the chain and cassette start to wear you can go back and fine tune any of the shift points so I will track that as the miles roll up. Also they make claims as to battery life for both the shift mech and the pod and I started out fully charged on both and will try and track their run time. There are little blinking lights that will show if they are coming to the end of their charge as well as if the systems are on. The Gen 2 activates by movement and the amount it takes can be adjusted in the app also.
