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Shimano 11-Speed Dura-Ace “Battle Injection Domination” Spied on Japanese Cycling Website

2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted
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2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted

Making the rounds on a few forums and found on a Japanese website are some pretty darn shiny bike parts labeled Dura-Ace. The hilarious Google translation is an exercise in futility other than the obvious, that it’s 11-speed. Shimano’s official statement is that these are prototype parts and that some new road stuff will be announced June 1…that’s about all we can say on it.

But we can talk about other things…like how all of DT Swiss’ road wheels (and, we found out today, some mountain bike wheels, which bolsters the rumors from Open founders Vroomen and Kessler) will be 11-speed for 2013. Just for fun, I asked Mavic if they were changing anything to accommodate potential 11-speed groups and our contact said he couldn’t speak to that directly but that their freehub bodies are already slightly longer than most, which is why you always need that easily lost spacer ring behind Shimano and SRAM cassettes on their wheels. That, and they might be introducing some new wheels in June, too. Times, they is a changin’.

Form your own conclusions…

2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted 2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted

2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted 2013 Shimano Dura-Ace prototypes spotted

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pud
pud
12 years ago

*mad stampede* as dentists rush to unload their “old” 10 speed groups.

Meshkat
Meshkat
12 years ago

Earth shattering!

HelloWorld
HelloWorld
12 years ago

WEBSITE Text Translation (Via Excite):
While the season of bicycle road race got into stride, the major global company of part manufacture and SHIMANO threw the new style gearbox for races under development into the battle.In the business team race “J pro tour” performed in the Gumma cycle sport center (Gumma Prefecture blowing all town) on the 21st, it was attached secretly to the machine of the player of the SHIMANO racing, and complete running was achieved.This new style part that is proud of an 11 steps of rear gear had a high possibility that a leading player will use it at Tour de France which will open in June, and the London Olympic Games in August, and development greeted the final stage towards “world hegemony.”

The 11-step gearbox of the rumor appeared [ the ] at last.As for this new style part on which the name of the highest-class component “Dura ace” of SHIMANO was stamped, a design change of the main portions is made with Black at two-tone finish of silver, and the hood of a gearshift is also two-tone coloring.Although the formal comment of SHIMANO was not obtained for the unpublished product, according to the industry participant, this is regarded as a world’s first battle injection.

Although the Dura ace was controlling the race of the highest peaks, such as Tour de France, in the world in the past repeatedly, as for a current model, ten steps of ??s change gear.The rival’s Italy contribution ??? had already marketed an 11-step gear, and it lagged behind.For this reason, the observation that the Dura ace also undergoes a full model change this year, and forms 11 step is flowing.

HelloWorld
HelloWorld
12 years ago

I hate change in design where the only purpose is planned obsolescence.

BBB
BBB
12 years ago

No one will be going faster. There will be just more people having problems with indexing their gears 😉

Masher
Masher
12 years ago

Finally I can have my 11-21 straight block!

Meta
Meta
12 years ago

Keep up those useless comments about how expensive this is, and the rubbish talk about obsolescence, and how you are envious of dentists and doctors, and computer scientists, and engineers. Stop bitching and head over to ebay and buy some old stuff.

Patrick
Patrick
12 years ago

This is absolutely gorgeous. As a mechanic I swoon over stuff like this. I get awesome discounts on things that I will never be able to afford. As far as planned obsolescence, you can still get parts all the way back to 5 speed. I think any new innovation in cycling should be more than welcomed. Campy has had 11 speed, but Shimano is way ahead of the game!

A Stray Velo
A Stray Velo
12 years ago

That crankset is very very ugly…

The RD looks nice.

Brakes look odd…

The pic of the shifter is terrible so it’s a bit hard to see if they improved on the shape at all.

All in all…not to excited if I have to base my opinion just on looks.

john
john
12 years ago

can a crank get any uglier?

Mark
Mark
12 years ago

That is way to polished to be pre-production prototype Dura Ace. That is finished product for sure! Nice!

cory
cory
12 years ago

re: john
no.

The Dude
12 years ago

@pud: like

Brandon
Brandon
12 years ago

I’m fine with the change in technology, but that really is about the ugliest crankset I’ve ever seen. The rest of it looks pretty good to me, though.

carl
carl
12 years ago

What’s with the huge gap between spider arms on the crank? We have four arms very close together and then…. nothing? Oh, I guess with a $400 uber-stiff chainring we don’t have to have all of those spider arms, do we?

Fisho
Fisho
12 years ago

11 speed fine, as long as they release hydro disc brakes with it and not string us along. Then I will still wait 3 years until it trickles down to Ultegra.

WV Cycling
12 years ago

Will Di2 just be getting a firmware upgrade or change of the brain?

Dojester
Dojester
12 years ago

I asked myself the same questions about the crank but if you look at it again it looks like they placed the gaps in the dead spot in the pedal stroke. Also it looks like the BCD is shorter, could it be a single crank for standard and compact gearing?

Chris
Chris
12 years ago

WV Cycling: I would venture to guess Di2 will be completely revamped, considering Ui2 is using a newer, better wiring setup.

Dojester: That’s actually a really good observation. I would love for them to switch to a single BCD spec to cover standard and compact. This might be why they appear to have a new bolt pattern, so you have to buy their new rings to switch between the two.

Robert
Robert
12 years ago

The brake caliper looks to have gone to a symmetric dual pivot configuration, which has to be an improvement over the odd asymmetric arrangement we have had to put up with all these years.

Shimano are rather late to the 4-arm spider party, but the apparently uneven bolt spacing does look interesting. @Dojester could well be right about the reason for this.

Not much point speculating about a new Di2 at this point, as the rear derailleur picture clearly shows this is a mechanical system.

MaLóL
MaLóL
12 years ago

the main question hasn’t been asked yet; have shimano adopted BB30 finally, so they can make cranks with aluminium axles, yes or no? The rest I couldn’t care less. I´m not saying i will not jump to 11 speed, I´m saying that I´m still with 9 and not gonna upgrade no matter what. Give me a decent 105 Di2, or disc brakes for road, or integrated battery on the frame, or gear info integrated on my garmin, or power metering by shimano, or inside hub light transmision, or cardan transmision, or spd with smaller cleat, or carbon fiber or full black look, or full carbon disc wheels, or a copy of sram yaw front der, or hidraulic brakes, or tubeless wheels, or lighter than campy or sram groupsets or…

I gave you enough ideas shimano, now, as someone already said in this website before; dear shimano, please go forward, not sideways. Forward is a good direction, sideways is for stupid dentist and doctor.

best regards.

Mark W.
Mark W.
12 years ago

the crank makes me laugh quite a bit because no matter how nice it is, how wild looking it is, how much stiffer, how much weigh was cut out, or how much better gear ratios you can get. The pro’s will still be riding 7800 SRM crank sets because they have to make weight and they like seeing their power output.

Shimano you need to make a crank that plays ball with at least SRM, for god sakes an 9 year old crank design was what the tour was won on. I know you guys can make a better crank that mates with power meters, i mean even campy started to play ball with SRM.

Also, no one brought it up but, does this mean your guys are going to finally make your own cyclo cross chain rings since you are doing proprietary bolting ?

Chris
Chris
12 years ago

The crankset reminds me of the Thun cranks from the 90s. Not good.

Nick
Nick
12 years ago

That rear derailleur is sexy. I likely will never buy any of this, but I will surely enjoy building up bikes with it for others.

The Rude Awakener
The Rude Awakener
12 years ago

That CRANK reminds me of an 80’s era robot (like Johhny 5). F*** ugly!

Gyro2
Gyro2
12 years ago

Love the look of the new crank, nice machining and makes all tose fugly carbon cranks look, well, fugly. Nice looking group Shimano, and no, hey will not be oing to jokerville Bb30 design.

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