Quote Originally Posted by SFLiz View Post
Well, it's mostly an indication of my low experience level but because we do ride through quite a bit of hilly terrain, there's a lot of shifting involved on a regular basis throughout our rides. I get a little anxious with the frequent up/down shifting when I'm a little late and there's the announcement of my inadequacies through the squirm-inducing sounds of chain crunching. The digital shifters I tried were so fast at shifting, it forgave my mis-shifts. The shifting felt really nice! After I rode with them, I went back to riding mechanical shifters and it was tough to forget the electronic shifting sensation in comparison.
I'd suggest mastering regular shifting first, working on your skills, before immediately beginning to rely on technology to do it for you. It'll make you a better cyclist.

To that end, I've done a lot of skills coaching, used to coach century riders and Death Ride for TNT and would be happy to take you out and work on skills some day if you want to shoot me a PM. We do have plenty of hills, and I suspect you'll be so much happier with your riding if you work on those skills. I ride very high end bikes and wouldn't dream of putting my money into electronic shifting. I'd rather put it into a super frame or Campy record or great wheels. Not that there's anything wrong with it - and I know there are a few folks here who have it. But all of them were cyclists who had mastered the basic skills before buying the electronic.