Are you sure that's "glue"? Actually, never mind...

Did you get a actual paint job or is it their primer?

Did it come In with that blob on it? If so, it seems kind of suspect.

Any thoughts on Shimano derailleurs being sold on Aliexpress? Are they genuine or I am better off finding something locally on CL or OfferUp? Looking to repurpose my donor bike into flatbar hybrid/gravel bike and about to pull trigger on this:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804342561266.html

On similar note, Tektro brake pads. Saw in comments that people were wondering if they are genuine or good fakes - it was hard to guess.

Nice! The gold chain and the gold labelling on the erx gruppo go rather well together. Also, I'm a fan of the previous generation Shimano cranks aesthetically. I like the lines and the combination of gloss black and matte on the 105 crank. Have fun!

I asked Chris. It's an IS 52/40 with 45° bearing interface in the frame. The bearing is 7mm tall. Good to know because there's also headset bearings with 8mm height. I got a Cane Creek 10 Series lower headset bearing. Those are durable enough and pretty cheap. I'm using one in my gravel bike which lasts ages already. Also, they come with a glass fiber plastic crown race which is easy to put on. I'll take that opportunity and finally cut my fork down enough to lose that spacer I still got sitting on my stem. Luckily, on the rim brake frame I can just pull the fork out. I just have to loosen the cable clamp bolt on the front brake.

I too bought aftermarket batteries because I purchased the groupset without them. I am now at roughly 9000 shifts according to the app (although I'm not sure if this has been reset somewhere along the way when doing firmware updates). I've clocked around 1700km on this groupset and I've just charged it for the second time like 100km ago. So I think it's roughly on par with Sram AXS groups when it comes to batter life.

What is slightly annoying is that while the battery level is correctly displayed in the app, I still get a low battery level warning every time the groupset connects to my Wahoo when starting a ride. It's a bug that apparently still hasn't been fixed. Unless one of you guys knows something I don't?