[jacquesm]

Modern bikes are surprisingly hard to work on. More and more complex systems such as hydraulic disc brakes, electronically actuated gear changers and so on. Bike mechanics - especially for e-bikes - routinely use computers for diagnostic purposes. A typical e-bike has 5 to 10 CPUs in it.

[vanilla_nut]

True, but one important caveat: modern road and e bikes are hard to work on. Some hybrids, too, though hydraulics aren’t crazy to maintain yourself.

There are manufacturers out there, like Surly and Rivendell, who still make bikes that are easy to maintain yourself. Touring bikes are usually a good bet. Mountain bikes and gravel bikes from 5 years ago, too, but top-of-the line models used for competitions in both sports are increasingly moving toward tomfoolery like electronic shifters.

[mauvehaus]

Having bike toured, I agree that touring bikes hit a sweet spot for performance/maintainability ratio, but that's a very intentional choice on the part of the folks who make them.

You get that by speccing good, but not top-end uber-fancy parts and building 26" wheels with solid, but easily replaceable parts. And a good saddle.

As for the other ends of that spectrum, I'm going to paraphrase a quote I heard about GM cars years ago: a Walmart bike will run like shit longer than a bike with electronic shifting will run at all.

[jacquesm]

The importance of a good saddle can not be overstated. It is the most important part of any bike for longer distance cycling. I do very regular 128 km rides (once per week at least, sometimes twice per week) on my e-bike and without a good saddle that would be impossible.

[jacquesm]

As far as I'm concerned they're totally useless, finicky, easy to break, vulnerable cabling, need to be charged. An indexed cable switcher is ultra reliable and just as precise (assuming you adjust the cable once every year or so if used heavily).

[wl]

That has not been my experience with Di2. No cable stretch means no need to adjust anything—not to mention no more lubing cables. Perfect shifting every time with no adjustment needed is the opposite of finicky. Multishift, shifting with the tap of a button, and hood buttons are quite useful. Charging the battery 2-3x a year is a small price to pay for all of this.

[jacquesm]

Ok. Ymmv apparently, had a Di2 bike near me bought by a friend, nothing but trouble. Eventually they dropped the Di2 system and installed a nice mechanical system and the bike has been fine ever since. That's a pretty low sample count and it is of course possible that that was a lemon. But the bike itself (a Bulls, top of the line model) is pretty good and the rest of the parts held up just fine.

[mauvehaus]

If you stick to all but the bleeding edge of bicycles, they're easy to maintain.

If you don't buy anything with electronics, the worst you'll have to deal with are hydraulic brakes. Which have been on cars for how many decades?

You've been able to get them on bikes for 20 years, and motorcycles (which have similar packaging and space/routing constraints to bicycles) far longer. They just aren't that hard to work on. At the risk of getting into no true Scotsman territory, are there any decent bike shops that can't fix them? Fifteen years ago, I'd forgive a shop that couldn't deal with them. It's table stakes now.