TanTan TT-X38 Build

[Sebastian]

Sounds like that's the culprit. I'll look to swap the rings - use any from Ali?

I'm using ZRACE chainrings in the 52/36 combination and I'll be moving these over to my new crankset. I'm not sure I'd recommend them, though. They don't shift particularly smooth with LTWOO er9. It does shift but the ramps on the big ring seem to not be working that well. Again, this might also have to do with me using an 11sp chain with these rings? I dunno. I have a set of original SRAM rings in 50/34 lying around and maybe I put them on just to see if shifting improves.

[lantz]

Ah, yeah - I'm using a 12sp chain with 10/11 chainrings.

I bought some rings from this us-made company literally called USAMade https://usamadeco.com/ - attractive prices and I appreciate someone trying to challenge the industry a bit, esp. from domestic soil.

Since they are so affordable, figured I'd take a swing at Ovals, haha.

This bike is never going to work correctly because I won't stop fucking with it hehe.

[leon.y]

First 100k done. No real issues apart from fit. I needed to dial the saddle in and refine the position. I tried a 170 crank on this one mainly cuz I got it cheap and there can be a benefit to shorter cranks. I absolutely hate it. I got 175s on all my other bikes and it just feels like I got no leverage on the crankarms when standing up and sprinting up hills. So that will have to go. I found a used sram crank. Luckily I won't have to get another BB. The dub BBs are merely BB30 BBs with a delrin spacer left and right. So just pop these out and put a BB30 crank in and maybe readjust spacing. Also the pedals will have to go. I got so used to the Assioma pedals on my other bike that I'm gonna get a pair of Look Keo-like pedals. The Time pedals feel just way too loose and are giving me anxiety to accidently clip out.

The bike feels great and plenty fast. I got very windy autumn weather here atm. So it's hard to tell just how quick it is. It feels slightly more suceptible to cross winds than my VB-R218. The bars are a pleasant surprise. They feel super solid, very stiff and very comfy. I love the hood shape of the LTWOO. The hands just fall in place. The bike is actually very very comfy which might have to do with the wheels and wide tires. Also, the corner grip with these wheels is off the charts. It's crazy how planted it feels around bends.

The handling is more neutral and a lot more forgiving than my VB-R218. That's no surprise as the 218 has a very steep steering angle and super aggressive steering characteristic. This one is a bit more muted.

The only issue I got is with the front wheel. I get disc rub when standing up. And the rotor has slight play on the hub interface when I rock the front wheel back and forth under braking despite the lockring being torqued down. A bit of research reveals that this seems to be a common issue with centerlock. It might have to do also with the cheap color matched lockrings that I got on Aliexpress. Not sure. I'll get it sorted. It's annoying. This is the first centerlock wheelset that I got. I had 6 bolt interface hubs on my gravel bike where I never had troubles like this. Makes me wonder just what exactly the alleged benefit of centerlock is supposed to be apart from creating another standard.

There's really not anything bad I can say about the LTWOO er9. It just works super reliable. I rode in bad weather. The group got covered in road grime. I washed the bike afterwards. Everything seems solid. So far.

Looks really nice, the color is great! How do you like the wheels? I'm considering getting them as well, pretty much with the same setup with 28mm Tufo's.

[Sebastian]

I’ve only done around 250k so far. Finally put 175mm cranks and Look pedals on there so I don’t feel like riding a child’s bike anymore. :-)
But it’s raining here all the time atm. So either Im running my VB-R 218 on the turbo or my gravel bike with full length mudguards. But it’ll be more dry this week. So hopefully I’ll have the chance to test it a bit more.

These Tufos and Tufo tires in general are a bit of a revelation to me. I’m running the Thundero gravel on my other bike which honestly is the best gravel tire I’ve ever ridden. Tufo has a bad reputation which stems mainly from their low end tubulars. But I think they’re massively underrated.

The wheels are plenty fast. I’m still on the fence as to whether I find them stiff enough. More riding needed. Build quality is very good. Labels are cheap vinyl stickers. I don’t really mind. They are very good value for money. But bear in mind that 28s come very wide on these. And because of the huge internal width you can’t really put on anything smaller than 28s. But these wheels and 28c tires feels is the goldilocks standard for me. Plenty fast and yet super comfy. And the tires match the rims in width pretty much exactly, so it should still be aero.

[Frank]

Short follow-up on my steerer tube issue: I opened a dispute on Aliexpress and after 3 weeks of sending photos, documents about acceptable tolerances etc. I got a refund of 100 Euro + 20 Euro because the seller sent me a cockpit of the wrong size (400x100 instead of 420x90). Now I'm going to cut the steerer, sand down the areas which are out of specs the most and then send the fork to a carbon repair guy who will produce and glue in an alloy insert to strengthen the steerer.
Btw this is my frame (chameleon blue/purple & matt black):

[lantz]

Quick update on my build:

Replaced the handlebars with "The One" copies - lost a bit more on the steerer so I'm a bit more slammed - all in all, they're great. Kind of wish the hardware as black, but whatever.

Swapped my Praxis 52/36 11spd rings with "USAMade" oval "sharktooth" rings - 50/34 - first time on ovals and first time trying this american-made brand that aims to offer value on par with asian makers here in the US and gotta say - they're pretty rad. Really like the feel and they shift super well!

I'd say the bike is as close to "done" as it's gonna get. Need to bleed the brakes out a bit more (did a full hose drain and swap when I swapped bars) and give it a nice clean/proper photoshoot haha.

I've got the eRX mostly dialed in, as well, although I get an occassional skip in the 7/8 cogs, just need to tune it up a smidge, I wager.

[coffeebreak]

Quick update on my build:

Replaced the handlebars with "The One" copies - lost a bit more on the steerer so I'm a bit more slammed - all in all, they're great. Kind of wish the hardware as black, but whatever.

Nice and clean! Well done. How do you like that saddle?

[patliean1]

Great looking bike. Sadly I had to disassembled my x38 so I could use the groupset and saddle on my Yishun R086D.

I'm very tempted rebuild my x38 next spring to see if my feelings about its riding dynamics will changed. Perhaps give the frame a proper paint job, face the caliper mounts, and use decent headset bearings. The frame is just too aero and good looking to sit in a box collecting dust.

[Sebastian]

Quick update on mine. I'm approaching 500km and I've ironed out all the small details and issues. Currently where I live, it's either dark, raining or snowing so I've been riding this bike pretty much exclusively on the trainer for the last few weeks.

I faced the disc brake mounts and now the brakes are perfectly free of rub. I bought this little tool from Icetoolz that I really was quite skeptical about. But it worked a treat. It's nowhere near to what workshops are using but it's way better than using sandpaper.
Also, I swapped the cheap lockrings for original ones from Shimano. I can still rock the rotors back and forth on the hubs. I used a washer on the front. That improved the issue but it didn't completely stop it. At this point, I'm just going to accept that that's how it is with Centerlock rotors apparently. Still, if you're used to 6 bolt rotors which obviously stay put where they are, are lighter and cheaper, it's a bit hard to accept honestly. I could have bought the wheelset with 6 bolt hubs, had I wanted to. Looking back, I wish I did.

Speaking of the hubs. After just two rides in the wet, the front hub started sounding super rough. I popped away the bearing seals to find that they were bone dry. I greased them but it's too late I reckon. I will be able to ride them a bit longer but I guess the bearing races and balls are already corroded to the point where grease will only delay the inevitable. They're regular 6802s and easy to replace. This is a 500 EUR wheelset after all, so I guess it was bound to happen.

I put on 175mm Sram cranks and these super cheap pedals from Xpedo (I know, the name). These are real gems. They are rock solid. They have a very wide range of adjustment and they are only around 230g whilst having a very wide platform. They are identical in size with the Favero Assiomas I have on my other bike so they feel like home to me. And they cost just 40 EUR. If you like the Look pedal standard, these are a steal.

All in all, I'm super happy with the bike. I will eventually upgrade it to 12sp bc I do notice it compared to my 12sp road bike. There are one or two gear jumps which are a tad too big for my liking.

The LTWOO groupset is just super easy to live with. I like it a lot. It shifts very smooth and never really skips a beat. The only criticism I really have is the tactile feel of the shifter buttons. It's too vague for my liking. And shifting feels slow at times. You get used to it and it's not really a deal breaker. But I'm used to Campy Record 12sp on my other bike which is probably the most direct feeling mechanical drivetrain there is. The moment you move the paddle is when the shift happens. Compare that to clicking a button, waiting for the ECU to compute the command and only then does the derailleur move, it just feels slow. It all happens in milliseconds but it's still noticeably slower. Still, I take this over having to route 2 shift cables and 2 brake lines through a headset bearing any day.

Sorry for the huge photos. After the lates update, iOS won't let me resize the images anymore.

[Mic553]

I can still rock the rotors back and forth on the hubs.

That's definitely not normal and could even be a savety risk. The rotors shouldn't just hold from the teeth but from pressure induced friction.

[TidyDinosaur]

That's definitely not normal and could even be a savety risk. The rotors shouldn't just hold from the teeth but from pressure induced friction.

Yes, I have 4 bikes with centerlock rotors and used a lot of different wheelsets, and they all were rock solid...

[Sebastian]

The rotors are not loose by any means. They do not rattle or anything like that. It takes a considerable amount of force, rolling the bike back and forth whilst pulling the brake. If I do that and try hard, I can make the rotor move on the splines despite the lockring being torqued down. It obviously never happens during riding because braking force only ever occurs in one direction, unless you track stand or do trial riding.

The internet is virtually full of users reporting exactly that same problem. Just google it and you'll find plenty of examples with all sorts of rotor and wheel combinations in MTB and road cycling alike. And like I said, a representative of DT Swiss literally told a user on a German MTB forum to ignore it, saying that it wasn't a safety risk.

Also, I've checked on two other bikes of friends of mine only to find that their wheels have that same issue. One of them being an Elite Wheels Edge wheelset, the other one a gravel bike. Both said, they've never even realised that this was possible.

[TidyDinosaur]

The rotors are not loose by any means. They do not rattle or anything like that. It takes a considerable amount of force, rolling the bike back and forth whilst pulling the brake. If I do that and try hard, I can make the rotor move on the splines despite the lockring being torqued down. It obviously never happens during riding because braking force only ever occurs in one direction, unless you track stand or do trial riding.

The internet is virtually full of users reporting exactly that same problem. Just google it and you'll find plenty of examples with all sorts of rotor and wheel combinations in MTB and road cycling alike. And like I said, a representative of DT Swiss literally told a user on a German MTB forum to ignore it, saying that it wasn't a safety risk.

Also, I've checked on two other bikes of friends of mine only to find that their wheels have that same issue. One of them being an Elite Wheels Edge wheelset, the other one a gravel bike. Both said, they've never even realised that this was possible.

Oh, OK, that's something else I also have some slight play on the wheel when I press the brakes and wiggle the front wheel while on the ground. I guess it's just a combination of the play in rotor and pads fitting.

[joegal]

The rotors are not loose by any means. They do not rattle or anything like that. It takes a considerable amount of force, rolling the bike back and forth whilst pulling the brake. If I do that and try hard, I can make the rotor move on the splines despite the lockring being torqued down. It obviously never happens during riding because braking force only ever occurs in one direction, unless you track stand or do trial riding.

The internet is virtually full of users reporting exactly that same problem. Just google it and you'll find plenty of examples with all sorts of rotor and wheel combinations in MTB and road cycling alike. And like I said, a representative of DT Swiss literally told a user on a German MTB forum to ignore it, saying that it wasn't a safety risk.

Also, I've checked on two other bikes of friends of mine only to find that their wheels have that same issue. One of them being an Elite Wheels Edge wheelset, the other one a gravel bike. Both said, they've never even realised that this was possible.

Are you sure that the play is coming from the centerlock?
I also notice the play you mention, but it results from pad movement in the calipers on my Bikes (105 Disc r7000 and r8150 disc).

Or can you actually rotate your rotors by hand on the centerlock interface?

[Sebastian]

I'm 100% sure it's the rotors. I got pad movement on my gravel bike for instance and I'm aware of that. But I can clearly see that the wheel is moving whilst the rotor is not, meaning I can rotate the rotor on the hub, if only by the tiniest amount. But still. Also, because this issue exists, you can get micro shims from Jagwire and Tune to alleviate exactly this problem. And while I found that it helps, it doesn't completely stop it.