Sensah Electronic Groupset (14 speed?)

[RDY]

Anyone else feeling very disillusioned with chinese electronic groupsets? I had such high hopes they could make the perfect consumer friendly ecosystem with complete mix and match parts, replaceable batteries etc and adjustable gears. And instead there's always a major dealbreaker to me, either it's not a true mix and match and have incompatibilities, have weird standard bits, have subpar clearance, and the dumbest one yet being locked to 12 or 14 speeds. While not really being that competitively priced in the west compared to 105...  I really hope the magene QED being locked to 12 speed is not true

So you expected Chinese electronic groupsets to be perfect, operating with no experience and tiny budgets (relative to Shimano & SRAM or even Campag)?  Shimano and SRAM have been at it 20 years (15 in the case of SRAM), and stuff is far from perfect, and features are largely determined by what OEMs, and industry & internal politics / agendas dictate.  Expecting the Chinese businesses to be free of those concerns is naive in the extreme.

Shimano and SRAM might sell at a 20:1 OEM to retail ratio, for their high end groupsets (much higher for lower end).  Magene will probably be looking at an OEM to retail ratio of more than 50:1.  They also have a great chance of taking a BIG chunk out of Shimano (and SRAM) in China, so will do everything they can to facilitate that .. including 'simplyifying' compatibility.  Maybe they'll include 11s compatibility, but 10s won't happen and 13s would likely only be enabled later if and when SRAM and Shimano 13s hits a high market share.

Also the biggest issue with Chinese stuff has been software.  Shimano's is garbage, and shows its 20 year old roots.  SRAM's is adequate, to put it kindly.

And then there's the sea of ridiculously unworthy, broad patents - like SRAM's battery ones.

[kbernstein]

So you expected Chinese electronic groupsets to be perfect, operating with no experience and tiny budgets (relative to Shimano & SRAM or even Campag)?  Shimano and SRAM have been at it 20 years (15 in the case of SRAM), and stuff is far from perfect, and features are largely determined by what OEMs, and industry & internal politics / agendas dictate.  Expecting the Chinese businesses to be free of those concerns is naive in the extreme.

Perfect? No, I never said that. Initial quirks to be ironed out were to be expected. I wanted them to be consumer friendly, which isn't a very high bar considering how scummy sram and shimano are. Individual gear adjustment, replaceable AA batteries (or whatever the seatpost uses), USB C charging, standard hose fittings etc... Not quite asking for open source software but this is where I think they should have absolutely excelled at. Running the drivetrain of your choice is a banger selling point for me
How can I take sensah seriously if they actually go ahead with that terrible software locked 14 speed?

I still have hopes for LTWOO and magene 

[wibidi]

Took a closer look at the cassette and this curbed my excitement a bit. Due to bad gear distribution it doesn't offer any meaningful advantage over the SRAM XPLR 13 speed cassette despite the extra gear.

From the screenshot cog sizes appear to be 10-11-12-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-32-36-40-46. Compared to the XPLR cassette that's only unhelpful finer increments in the lower gears.

So there's uselessly tight jumps in the lower gears - 32-36 (13%), 36-40 (11%) and annoyingly big jumps in the lower/mid part of the cassette - 13-15 (15%), 24-28 (17%).

For me this cassette doesn't seem very useful for road 1x.


The following would be better gear distributions (if possible spoke clearance-wise):

10-11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-28-33-39-46   (SRAM 12 speed 10-33 cassette + 39-46)

10-11-12-13-14-16-18-20-22-25-28-33-39-46

11-12-13-14-15-16-18-20-22-25-28-33-39-46   (there are UDH frames which only have clearance for up to a 46T 1x chainring, in this case some people would want a 10T cog)

10-11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-27-31-36-42   (for road 1x I wouldn't need more than about 400% range)

[makl]

In this context, I find the ekar 9-42 cassette very well suited for 1-by 13 speed road drivetrains!

[Serge_K]

Also the biggest issue with Chinese stuff has been software.  Shimano's is garbage, and shows its 20 year old roots.  SRAM's is adequate, to put it kindly.

Do you mean that Chinese software is better, or worse? Issue implies bad, right?
Because I'm actually super happy with the ltwoo software. The fact i can, with 1 click, choose the # of gears is wonderful (11s seems to be easier to calibrate and live with than 12s), and the app works super well. Gear protect to avoid cross chaining is awesome, and the suuuuuper fine adjustment of individual gears works wonders. Which, for anyone wondering about ER9/X, you must make peace with the fact you'll spend time adjusting gears, because it's completely agnostic to everything (# gears, chainrings, cassettes), so it takes time to get it to shift just right. But it can shift just right.
I have a friend on DA di2, he found out 2 weeks there was an app for it His drivetrain often goes clunk clunk, he's not the best add for DA He's a complete Luddite, we like him.

[Dareios]

In this context, I find the ekar 9-42 cassette very well suited for 1-by 13 speed road drivetrains!

This, I think they have actually figured it out when it comes to 1x road drivetrains. When they launch WRL Ekar later that year that will probably gain some traction.

[Edopizzo]

In this context, I find the ekar 9-42 cassette very well suited for 1-by 13 speed road drivetrains!

My only problem with this is the 9 tooth, I'd rather go 10-46 for the same range

[makl]

in my experience, The 9T cog is not really an issue. I don't feel (!) any disadvantage in terms of efficiency. Although I'm using Powermeters on all bikes, it's hard to actually measure any differences in real world conditions...

Running 10-46 with a larger front chain ring would increase the gaps between gears (due to the larger front ring), which would be noticable...