Backup and restore your bike settings using e-tube presets

Shimano’s e-Tube project software allows you to read your bike’s settings and store them to a file. This can be useful when you’re replacing broken components, when experimenting with settings and in a number of other situations. In this post we’ll show you how the presets functionality works.

What settings can you backup and restore? Almost everything! From simple button assignments to synchro-shift settings, it’s all there. The only thing I feel is missing are the micro-adjustment settings, hopefully Shimano will add those in a future version of the software.

e-Tube project desktop software

You can use the presets functions using either the Windows application or the mobile app. While the process is very similar, there are subtle differences. I’ll focus on the Windows application in this post and will cover the mobile app later.

Start the Windows application and connect your bike to your computer using the battery charger. Now instead of selecting Connection check, click the Preset button. This will take you to the presets section of the app.

Create settings manually

The presets screen gives you three options: Manually create a settings file, Read settings from the bike and Read settings from a file (on your computer). We will look at these options in the order they appear on screen, starting with Manually create a setting file.

This part of the app will allow you to create a settings file from scratch and then save it to a file or send the settings to your bike directly.

Click the button Manually create setting file and you’ll see the screen below. Here you select the components that you want to store in the settings file. You can select any component, even if you do not have that component installed on your bike.

Note that compatibility rules and unit limits still apply. You will not be able to select more than 6 shift units and mixing 10 and 11 speed derailleurs is also not allowed.

Select the units you would like to include in your settings and click Next.

On this screen you will see the unit name, description and current setting value of the selected units. To change a setting click the grey box (setting value).

For example, to change the shift mode settings for the rear derailleur, you’d click [Set]. Then a new window opens and you can do the required changes.

Once you’ve set up the components as you see fit there are two options. You can either write the settings to your bike, or you can simply save the settings to a file.

Writing the settings to your bike

Click the Writing on the bicycle’s setting file button. The app will now ask you to save the setting file to your computer. Save it anywhere you like.

Now the system will check your bike for installed components. This can take up to a minute so please be patient while the app is working.

If you’re trying to write settings to components that are not installed it will tell you the unit(s) could not be recognized and allow you to store settings for the installed components only.

Next you’ll see a list of settings that will be written to the bike. Click Set and the application will begin writing the settings to your bike.

Do not disconnect the bike or turn off your computer. Afterwards it’ll tell you writing the presets was successful and show you the settings that have been written to the bike.

In case you want to send these settings to a number of other bikes, connect the next bicycle and click Continuous settings. It will now repeat the previous steps to write the same settings to another bike.

This is useful when you are preparing a large number of Di2 bikes for customers or when you want all of your bikes to share the same settings.

Most users will only want to write settings to one bicycle, so click Complete to finish the writing the settings and exit the Preset section.

Writing the presets to a file

If all you want to do is write the selected presets to a file simply click the Save button and the app will ask you where to store the settings.

Reading the settings from the bicycle

Creating a settings file manually is hard work. Most of us do not knows our preferred settings by heart. A lot of users experiment a lot over the course of months to eventually end up at a bike setup they like. This is why it makes sense to read the settings from the bike and back them up.

Click the Reading the settings from the bicycle button and then click Next to start reading the settings. After about a minute you will see the following screen:

Now there are a couple of options, depending on what you want to do. You can save these settings to a file by clicking the Save button. Alternatively you can take the settings read from the bike and change them. Use the Changing settings button for this.

The last option is to use the Writing on the bicycle’s setting file button to save settings to the bike. This may not make much sense as you have just read these settings from the bike. You would generally use this button after having used the Changing settings buttons first.

All of these options work just like described earlier in this post so I won’t go into more detail. If you want to know how they work simply have a look at the Create settings manually section of this post.

Reading a setting file

You can read previously saved settings using the Reading a setting file button. You can then write the settings stored in this file to your bicycle, effectively allowing you to back-up and restore settings.

Click the button and the application will prompt you for a settings file to read. Select your file and click Next. You will see the settings read from the file.

This screen is very similar to the one that follows reading settings from the bicycle. Once again you can choose Changing settings, Writing on the bicycle’s setting file and Save (to a file on your computer). For more information on how these options work, have a look at the Create settings manually section of this post.

Using the mobile app

Yes, you can also do this using the mobile app. I will cover the mobile app in another post, but of course you could always experiment and play with it on your own. You will need a System Information display or Wireless Unit/D-fly in order to use the mobile app.