I actually found some decent deals for like-new dura ace calipers on eBay. Now that the cycling bubble has burst, there are a lot of top quality shimano components on sale.

I installed a more recent copy of XG calipers on my ER9 bike and they work really well. On more recent copies of the calipers, someone on YT posted a review showing they fixed the oil port hole by making it slightly bigger. The only other reason I swapped to those calipers was due to having problems running a 140mm rear rotor with LTWOO calipers. The 140mm adapter plate was refusing to line up properly. With XG caliper no adapter was necessary.

My bikes are definitely starting to look like an mis mash of components!

huh, thats pretty cool

I like AliEx for little things like this.

FYI - the ZRace XG calipers have been working fine at least for road. Nothing wrong with LTwoo calipers and they might be better if aero is a priority, but since I focus more on climbing I prefer the weight drop of the XG calipers. I've been using them on both my mechanical Ultegra and ER9 bikes with no problems so far.

I'm just curious, were those recent race blowouts with hookless wheels on 25mm internal width wheels? At least on my gravel bike running 25mm internal width on 38c tires, that tire is on so tight even if it were to break the bead, I don't see the tire coming off. It was already hard getting them on and I was able to bead the tire with just a regular floor pump. Hookless at least for gravel has been great for me.

I would consider hookless on my road bikes, but I tend to prefer 25c tires since I feel more agile road climbing at that width.

The iiiPro post and flat mount brakes share similar components like bleed screw. I'm curious if I could use the post mount brakes on a gravel build for more stopping power.

I am really split. I am fine doing some work on the frame but really want to avoid needing to replace it right away. Spcycles has some of the same molds as Velobuild. Is their quality any better?

I like SPcycle. They're straight forward and ship fast. Only downside is that my frame didn't come with plastic guide tubes (easy to route though) and the paint easily scratches. I would buy from them again if they had a frameset I wanted.

Has anyone considered building or has built a 1x road or light gravel bike (like 32c tires) using the eGR? It might be fun to build an lightweight climbing frame with the groupset.

Could you share photos of the relevant area of the RD and a link with the things you've applied?

It's nothing fancy. I just used Elmer's rubber cement glue with a brush that I coated around the battery cable. Plus a $2 USD packet of dielectric grease from the auto store that I applied with a toothpick. It just looks like gunk around the cable, I'm not sure there's anything worth looking at.