Check out Mavic Zap, the first electronic shifting from 30 years ago

Electronic shifting has been one of the biggest developments in the cycling world over recent years, so let’s take a look back at some of the earliest designs, not from Shimano, SRAM or Campagnolo, but from Mavic.

> Complete guide to electronic gears: your bike's shifting, indexing and charging explained

These days, electronic shifting – where you change gears using electronic switches instead of levers that control mechanical cables – is all over the place in the road biking world (and elsewhere too). For a start, it rules the pro peloton but beyond that, SRAM makes electronic shifting available from fourth-ranking Apex upwards. Campagnolo offers Super Record Wireless and now Super Record S Wireless components, FSA has its K-Force WE electronic drivetrain, and plenty of cheaper electronic shift systems are now coming along from Chinese brands like L-Twoo and Wheeltop.

> Check out our review of Wheeltop EDS-TX Wireless Carbon Electronic Shifters and Derailleurs

Shimano introduced Di2 (Digital Integrated Intelligence) trekking components as far back as 2001 but it added electronic shifting to its dedicated road lineup in the 2009 product year, and that’s when things really started moving forward. These days, it offers Di2 electronic components on the road down to third-tier 105. Is there more to come? Almost certainly.

Pics from Mavic

Back in the 1990s, the groupset landscape was very different from today. Unlikely as it might seem now, France’s Mavic, best known for its wheels, was an electronic shift pioneer. In 1992 it developed an electrically controlled derailleur that was tested by the Once and RMO teams in the Tour de France.

The following year Mavic launched its ZMS – Zap Mavic System – the first microprocessor-driven rear derailleur (the front derailleur still used a cable). Not surprisingly, it wasn’t electronic shifting as we know it today. You changed gear via two buttons positioned on the handlebar, a microprocessor in the bar sending the information to a solenoid (a type of electromagnet) in the rear derailleur.

When the solenoid activated, it released a ratcheting bar that controlled the movement of the derailleur. That bar only moved when you were pedalling, though.

One of the beauties of electronic shifting is that it’s relatively easy to install multiple switches that do the same job. For example, Shimano offers sprint shifters and climbing shifters, and SRAM offers Blips that you can position wherever you like to make changing gear simple when the normal shifters are out of reach. This can be a real boon in time trials where you can have shifters on both the base bar and the extensions.

Chris Boardman used Mavic’s electronic shifting to help secure the yellow jersey by winning the prologues (short time trials) of the Tour de France in both 1994 and 1997 while riding for GAN. Mavic eventually decided that Zap wasn’t up to the required standard and production was suspended, but it had entered the world of electronic components and continued with its derailleur R&D.

Mavic took another step in this direction in 1999 with the birth of the Mektronic electronic system. Here Mavic ditched the wires and went with digitally-coded radio waves to send the signals between components. Controls were built into hand grips and a multi-function onboard computer attached to the handlebar showed your speed, the distance you’d covered, your elapsed time, the sprocket the chain was on, and so on.

You couldn’t argue that Mektronic was the finished article as far as electronic shifting is concerned. It was only the rear derailleur that was electronic, for example, and many people found that it wasn’t exactly slick.

Control power came from a battery but power for shifting came from the chain. Although Mektronic had its fans, shifts could be slow and it was discontinued as a result of reliability issues. Mavic doesn’t make shifters or derailleurs these days.

Still, wireless electronic shifting back in the last century; it was an important milestone and it took years for rivals to take the idea further forward.

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