Combined Shape Bike IQ

Gear Detection

Bike IQ knows what gear you are in and shows it while you ride. If you have a Shimano Di2 or SRAM AXS groupset it reads the position directly. If you do not, it works the gear out from how you are pedalling, on any bike, with nothing extra to buy.

Gear detection works on the free version, both ways. There is nothing to unlock.

With an Electronic Groupset

Pair a Shimano Di2 or SRAM AXS groupset and Bike IQ reads the gear straight off the bike. Every shift appears as you make it, with no lag and nothing to calibrate, because the derailleur is telling the app where it just moved to.

You also get what only the groupset knows: battery levels for the derailleurs and shifters, so you find out you are low at home rather than halfway up a climb. Pairing is the same as any other sensor, described in Bluetooth Sensor Pairing. No head unit is involved, and Bike IQ never changes how your groupset is configured. It only listens.

On Bike IQ Pro, the buttons on those shifters become controls. Ring the bell, mark a lap, open the map or pause the ride without moving your hands.

Without One

Most bikes do not have an electronic groupset, and they do not need one here. Bike IQ compares how fast you are going with how fast you are pedalling. That ratio only comes out one way for each gear on your bike, so the app can tell which one you are in, and it sees the change the moment you shift.

Two things make that hold up on the road rather than just on paper. Gears at the small end of one chainring and the big end of the other can produce almost the same ratio, so Bike IQ waits for a shift to settle before calling it, instead of flickering between the two. And it reads each steady stretch of pedalling as a whole rather than judging every instant on its own, so a moment of freewheeling or a rough patch of road does not invent a shift you did not make.

It needs one thing from you: the gearing on the bike. Pick your bike from the catalogue when you add it and the chainrings and cassette are filled in for you. See Bike Profiles to check or change them.

What You See

  • On the ride screen: your cassette laid out with the current cog marked, so you can see at a glance how much is left before you run out of gears on a climb.
  • Tooth Count or Gear Index: label each cog by the number of teeth on it, or by its position number, whichever you think in. It is the Labels setting under Configuration → Ride Settings → Ride Interface → Gears.
  • In the ride report: every shift is recorded with the rest of your ride, so you can look back at which gears you spent a climb in and where you were pushing a gear that was too big. See Ride Report.

How Accurate Is It?

With Di2 or AXS it is not an estimate at all: the gear on screen is the gear the derailleur reports.

Without a groupset it is worked out rather than measured, so treat it as a very good read rather than a certainty. It is at its best when you are pedalling steadily, which is most of a ride. It is least sure in the moment right after a front shift, and while you are coasting, since a bike that is not being pedalled is not telling anyone anything about its gearing. A bike with an unusual or heavily worn drivetrain, or with gearing that does not match what is set in its profile, will be read less reliably.

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