Background

I think for the purposes of a review, it's worthwhile to know what I've used in the past. My first "Real Road Bike" was mechanical Campy Record 11. You know, real. As I got into cross, I moved all my bikes (even road) to SRAM 1x, because that's what you're supposed use in cross, and having backup pieces to pull from a road bike is helpful when things break. This last road season, I tried Di2 for the first time and was stunned. The setup is so easy – once you plug everything in, it just works. And as long as you've got a charge, it consistently functions up to a very high standard for silent, perfect shifting. The first shift you make with Di2 is the same as the 10,000th. The real difference-maker, though (at least in a road context) is the quality of the front derailleur relative to its mechanical peers – it's in a different league. I decided halfway through the season that Di2 is the right way to shift a racing bike* and committed to it.

The Primary Objection

The main thing I hear from folks about Di2 in the cross context is, "sure, that sounds nice, but it's crazy expensive. I race what I can replace."

I get that. Cross stuff doesn't need to be fancy to work well, you definitely don't need Di2 to win a race. You don't even need SRAM Force – a mix of Apex and Rival is just fine for 100% of people's needs. Pros aren’t gaining or losing places because they have Force or Rival or whatever, and especially in a 1x context, all the clutched RDs work about the same.

That said, putting together and maintaining an Ultegra Di2 bike isn’t that much more expensive than going with SRAM Force 1.