After some pre-ride fettling on Saturday afternoon, I had expected to be writing a post asking why micro-adjust on my Ultegra 80x0 Di2 front mech wasn't working. Adjustments work fine on the rear but pressing either button on the front shifter wasn't moving the mech, though the red LED on the Di2 control box would flash. As I was riding an evening/night sportive on Saturday, I figured it wasn't the time to totally screw-up the front shifting so left it alone for another day. However...
About 30km into my sportive, I was happily spinning my way up in hill in the granny ring when suddenly I started to get some horrible chain crunching and I could hear/see the front-mech going in & out, despite not touching the shifter. Thankfully I managed to stop before my chain jammed, so jumped off to look at the front mech.
"Houston, we have a problem..."
From what I can tell, the plastic bit I'm poking with the screwdriver should be attached to the silver bar above it
A quick test showed I was going to spend the rest of the ride in the granny, so I set off with the couple of other riders I'd being working with. Uphill was fine, downhill was okay if I could tuck to carry speed but working on the flat meant 100+ RPM (Di2 doesn't let you go into the two smallest cogs when in the granny). Strava shows I hit 130rpm a few times.
Bar the occasional ghost shift I was going okay and got to the feed station at Powys Castle (80km in) so decide to keep going. As it was dark by then, a bigger group of us left the castle together and headed back through Welshpool. We had to stop at some traffic lights in the middle of town and as we pushed off, I got another massive crunch and then silence as my chain had snapped
I do carry spare missing links but on extracting my multi-tool, I realised it didn't have a chain breaker (doh!) The event did have a mobile mechanic and my luck was in as the car with him in passed me, so I managed to ring him. I was sorted within 10-15 minutes but the group had long gone, so I settled in for the last 25 to 30k on my own. In the dark. Oh, and it rained all the way back to the start as well
TL/DR - From searching, it seems Di2 front-mechs are not user serviceable - is that right? Sigma, Tredz and Certini claim to have them in stock (my first worry I'd be waiting weeks for one) but they are... £199!
Seeing the price this morning got a "Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey" out of me.
I've not swapped any Di2 bits before, so can this be done with just the basic Di2 USB charger for setup via a PC? Is the Di2 cable tool for £4 essential?