Chinertown
Chinese Carbon Road Bikes => Road Bike Frames, Wheels & Components => Topic started by: casper.f on March 19, 2025, 10:36:13 AM
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I myself live in EU and as title suggests, a budget-concious rider that (thinks) know's bike, in the market for a bike.
I feel like the current Ltwoo ERX-ER9 and Wheeltop EDS topic's are way too cluttered, hence this poll.
Thanks to everyone who voted ;D
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For my case i went franken Sram (sram + shimano mix)
Originally i built a tri bike with mechanical 1x Shimano 11sp r7000 with microshift bar shifters.
My wheelset are HG with 11-28 shimano cassette.
Then i upgraded my tri bike with just blips + Sram Rival axs + 12sp shimano cog.
Because my wheelset are HG, i build my 2nd bike which is a road bike but also uses same mix, where my RD is shared across both bike (for sram, its easy to move the RD around. And my roadbike also uses blips (the brifter is only for brakes).
Currently for Tri bike, Sram axs + blips is the easiest to set up (chinese groupo dont have electronic solution easily available in market for tri bike yet)
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I bought an Ltwoo eGR for my gravel bike almost a year ago. It's been rock solid. I've heard very few (almost no) complaints about the eGR, and I have zero complaints of my own.
I kept up with the threads for their er9/erX road groupset and the feedback was a lot more mixed. However, a lot of that was from the first few months to year of release, and it seems like they slowly improved on the big reliability problems areas of water ingress and random gremlins. The tail end of the first gen models seemed to garner fewer complaints. Now there's a new gen coming out which promises to carry forward the reliability gains with a few minor improvements.
They just went on fire sale and I couldn't help but buy an eR9 groupset. It appears that I'll be getting one of the v2 (v3?) versions of it, but that is poorly documented from the seller and even Ltwoo themselves. For right at or below $300 it's a great deal, as long as it doesn't die prematurely.
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A few minor points:
- if your post subject mentions eletronic, doesn't make sense the poll has mechanical. In any case I voted mechanical. Though I love electronic, the word "budget" is a bit of a grey area when we talk about 150€ vs 400€
- if you live in the EU and you need a full groupset, chinese e-groupsets become way too close to 105 di2 or sram rival etap to justify whatever
- in my view, chinese groupsets make sense only for upgrades on 9-10-11 speeds. For 12s bikes, assuming it's a new bike, better to buy di2 directly
- living in the EU, please consider that most likely you will pay customs
Talking about budget, I was recently challenged to build the most budget conscious price/quality bike. I have a number I'd like to beat but won't be easy ahah
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You'll ride more and troubleshoot less with 105 Di2/Rival.
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I'm all in with Chinese electronic groupsets. Selectable cassette speeds (LTwoo/Wheeltop) and I do like LTwoo's use of easy to find 14500 batteries. Version 1 eR9/X had bugs, but the eGR ironed out most those issues. I'm going out on a limb and say version 3 eR9/X is probably solid. For mechanical I prefer Shimano, it just works. SRAM has too much proprietary shit that I have no interest, though I do like UDH, just not SRAM's ulterior motive for it's use (for their proprietary RD). Though if I was a serious racer, I'd probably stick with Di2 or AXS due to easier parts accessibility.
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When it's not broken and assuming you can get it for cheap, the ER9 is great.
What you consider "budget" is debatable though.
You can build a mechanical bike for hundreds less. If you get mechanical disc brakes you can even get Shimano second hand for peanuts and have bomb proof shifting.
Electronic gears are nice, but a perfectly tuned mechanical bike is also good, and much more resilient.
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SRAM has too much proprietary shit that I have no interest
I happily run Sram Rival AXS with an Ali cassette from ZTTO, old used carbon GXP cranks, a Magene PM, Shimano chainrings and a KMC chain. No need to run flattop chains and XDR-cassettes if you don’t want to.
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When it's not broken and assuming you can get it for cheap, the ER9 is great.
What you consider "budget" is debatable though.
You can build a mechanical bike for hundreds less. If you get mechanical disc brakes you can even get Shimano second hand for peanuts and have bomb proof shifting.
Electronic gears are nice, but a perfectly tuned mechanical bike is also good, and much more resilient.
Shimano mechanical has bomb proof shifting up until the shifters decide they're hungry for your cables-not ideal for internal routing, especially without end to end cable housing.
ETA, UDH is awesome for Shimano as well-Ali is full of low cost direct mount hangers in many different axle thread pitches.
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Shimano mechanical has bomb proof shifting up until the shifters decide they're hungry for your cables-not ideal for internal routing, especially without end to end cable housing.
Agreed. I wouldn't build mechanical fully integrated bikes anymore. I assume the bike is only partially integrated, which makes it shift and brake better, and much easier to travel with, maintain, service, and so on. If you assume that the bike shop services your bike at least some of the time, the simpler, humbler bike ends up much, much cheaper over its life time. Trouble shooting anything on a fully integrated bike takes multiple times longer, unfortunately. So when you price stuff, financially, even if you assume your own time costs 5 bucks an hour, the simpler bike will be much cheaper, easier to live with and so on.
It's quite likely that my next bike won't be fully integrated. At the very least, i'd want to have hoses routed under the stem and not inside the stem. I think it's a logical evolution (cheaper in labour, simpler, easier to travel with...).
Also, when something electronic fails, it goes in the bin, and even if ER9, a new RD costs ~150 eur (or more). Meanwhile, that can be the cost of the entire groupset... And i've never had shimano / sram mechanical randomly die on me.
Basically, if i were to model something with discounted cash flows and probability weighted events like electronics component failure, service, brain damage from having to source parts down the road and so on, the mechanical, simpler bike would win by a lot.
Therefore, depends on what "budget" means in the 1st place. And i'm saying this after 15 integrated bikes. Someone who's never had a pretty fully integrated bike probably wants one because it's pretty, it was my starting point on this forum 1000+ messages ago :)
Funny how things and life tend to go full circle :)
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I totally agree with you, @Serge.
IMO there’s actually very few if any reason for electronic shifting other that the ease of building fully integrated bikes with it and the vanity of having less cables showing in general. Sure satellite shifters are nice. Sure, it’s a nice gimmick to be able to swap pages on your head unit with buttons on the shifters. But none of that is something that I truly miss on my mechanical bikes. Hydro disc brakes are the single biggest milestone. Whatever you may think of them, they’re just better and make braking safer. I love my rim brake bike but there’s just no denying that. Electronic shifting is nice to have but really absolutely unnecessary.
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A few minor points:
- if your post subject mentions eletronic, doesn't make sense the poll has mechanical. In any case I voted mechanical. Though I love electronic, the word "budget" is a bit of a grey area when we talk about 150€ vs 400€
- if you live in the EU and you need a full groupset, chinese e-groupsets become way too close to 105 di2 or sram rival etap to justify whatever
Agreed, but paying €400 for an unreliable electronic groupser is worse then paying €150 for a reliable mechanical groupset.
My intention for this option was: "Chinese electronic groupsets arent worth it, but 105 Di2 is not a viable option in a "value-oriented build"
I personaly am looking for a €+-2500 bike build. Shimano Di2 is possible when pairing it with a entry-level elitewheels pair of wheels and a tantan frame instead of a nice pair of wheels from the likes of Peter and frame from the likes of speeder.
And what do you mean by saying "chinese e-groupsets become way too close to 105 di2 or sram rival etap to justify whatever"
The performance of the chinese options is way to close to justify the premuim of 105
Or
The price of of the chinese options is way to close to justify the hassle of chinese options?
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Tech is to young IMO so I will wait a few more years until they refine it for now will stick to the usual brands!
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Agreed, but paying €400 for an unreliable electronic groupser is worse then paying €150 for a reliable mechanical groupset.
My intention for this option was: "Chinese electronic groupsets arent worth it, but 105 Di2 is not a viable option in a "value-oriented build"
I personaly am looking for a €+-2500 bike build. Shimano Di2 is possible when pairing it with a entry-level elitewheels pair of wheels and a tantan frame instead of a nice pair of wheels from the likes of Peter and frame from the likes of speeder.
And what do you mean by saying "chinese e-groupsets become way too close to 105 di2 or sram rival etap to justify whatever"
The performance of the chinese options is way to close to justify the premuim of 105
Or
The price of of the chinese options is way to close to justify the hassle of chinese options?
For me, value for money is in mechanical hydraulic groupsets. 105 7020 in second hand or ltwoo R9 hydraulic.
A full 105 di2 costs around 900EUR. A full chinese eletronic groupset will cost you probably 700€. Of course you can play a bit "more" on the parts of china builds but well a full 105 di2 will always be reliable, resellable etc.
With 2.5K you can get a western brand bike with di2 and add elite wheels. But you need to search a bit and maybe you can't have the handlebar you want, but it'll still be a western brand bike.
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105 di2 if you want 12 speed without even thinking, weight is not far off Ultegra and it will be hassle free forever. The chinese groupos although I am happy to exist them need another iteration I think and personally also drop their price to low 600 or 500 euros because 105 di2 costs really not a lot more today.
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I paid 700USD for Di2 on Aliexpress. Delivered to the US in 10 days.
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I paid 700USD for Di2 on Aliexpress. Delivered to the US in 10 days.
Including what exactly? A few weeks ago, i could only find 105 di2 for 1k eur in Europe, with components i wouldnt want to run (wrong crank arm length, heavy cassette, wrong gearing (cassette size & chainring size).
700 USD is 650 odd eur. It's not a price available in EU, afaik. That'd be killer. I'd probably get shimano and sell the brand new components i dont want.
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Serge, I misspoke, I paid 780.00 USD shipped. That is without crank, cassette, chain, rotors. Everything came bubble wrapped, no Shimano boxes. All small parts included and the brakes and hydro lines were pre-filled.
Still, I think its a fair comparison to chinese groupsets, because neither WT or Ltwoo offer cranks or consumables. I’ve owned both, and think they are decent sub 500.00 groups
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Including what exactly? A few weeks ago, i could only find 105 di2 for 1k eur in Europe, with components i wouldnt want to run (wrong crank arm length, heavy cassette, wrong gearing (cassette size & chainring size).
700 USD is 650 odd eur. It's not a price available in EU, afaik. That'd be killer. I'd probably get shimano and sell the brand new components i dont want.
You have it in aliexpress for 730... U will probably need to pay customs though hahaha
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I suckered myself into going down the evil path of Wheetop EDS. (Very early OX adopter) I recently ordered another EDS OX, removable battery version for a total of $205 USD. This will be the 5 set I have purchased. During the ongoing Aliexpress Anniversary sale I ordered the latest generation EDS TX, with the 8100 calipers, carbon levers, and carbon cage for $426 USD. ($100 less than I paid for the older version EDS TX I purchased last year and run on my gravel bike.)
- I have posted all the problems I have encountered in other threads. Overall I have been very satisfied with Wheeltop products.
- Eventually, when US customs figures out how to get rid of the $800 De Minimis exemption, and charge full tariffs on everything brought into the US, I believe that prices will become cost prohibitive, and I will stop making as many purchased from China.
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For my personal fitness/DIY bike use, I'd still get LTwoo and/or possibly Wheeltop especially since prices are dropping. Parts are easy to come by now via multiple sellers and I can run a mix of different cassettes. I have LTwoo eR9 running on two bikes with 11 and 12 speed and I have eGR running 11 speed as well. I can just pull out any cassette from the parts bin and it's good to go. I want my bikes as flexible as possible. At least with my LTwoo groupsets I have most the bugs and quirks figured out.
If I were a bike tourer/camper, I'd stay mechanical for serviceability or if I was a hardcore racer, I'd stick with Di2 or AXS for best performance. So it really depends on your usage.
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I'd originally assumed that I'd be going 105 Di2 for my next build, but honestly availability seems really poor in Europe at present. And good luck getting your hands on any Sram AXS. Ultegra is too pricy for me, so... back I come to the L-TWOO Erx which is looking increasingly tempting.
Being able to run it 11 or 12 speeds also allows me to use a lot of parts from my spares box that would otherwise be redundant and I can step up to 12 speed at some point in the future when things wear out.
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Serge, I misspoke, I paid 780.00 USD shipped. That is without crank, cassette, chain, rotors. Everything came bubble wrapped, no Shimano boxes. All small parts included and the brakes and hydro lines were pre-filled.
Still, I think its a fair comparison to chinese groupsets, because neither WT or Ltwoo offer cranks or consumables. I’ve owned both, and think they are decent sub 500.00 groups
With current coupons it can be had at $670 shipped + taxed to the USA, or may be less depending on the tax situation. Worth paying that extra over WT or LTW
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That sounds right. When I say “780.00” thats what I paid with shipping and taxes.
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Serge, I misspoke, I paid 780.00 USD shipped. That is without crank, cassette, chain, rotors. Everything came bubble wrapped, no Shimano boxes. All small parts included and the brakes and hydro lines were pre-filled.
This is the exact package I just ordered from Ltwoo, an Ltwoo eR9, RD, FD, battery pack w/ all cables (no cells, but those are cheap in Ltwoo world), Shifters, brake calipers w/ hoses and all hardware (no rotors), no cassette, no crank, no chainring. No fancy package, all items bubblewrapped. My total was $305 including shipping and tax.
So, less than half of what Shimano 105 costs. But, the savings continue since I can pair it with any wheelset and cassette with a little more confidence.
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Ltwoo ER9, i'd say 350€ sometimes even less and have two groups that just work.
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This is the exact package I just ordered from Ltwoo, an Ltwoo eR9, RD, FD, battery pack w/ all cables (no cells, but those are cheap in Ltwoo world), Shifters, brake calipers w/ hoses and all hardware (no rotors), no cassette, no crank, no chainring. No fancy package, all items bubblewrapped. My total was $305 including shipping and tax.
So, less than half of what Shimano 105 costs. But, the savings continue since I can pair it with any wheelset and cassette with a little more confidence.
That’s totally worth it at that price. I paid just under 400USD for ER9 back in JAN.
I have ran:
SRAM Force (previous gen)
Ultegra and DA 11spd Di2
Wheeltop EDS TX (rim brake)
Ltwoo ER9
105 Di2
All of these on different bikes. SRAM is the groupset I have enjoyed the least. Di2 has been the most reliable and trouble free. Wheeltop is slow and finicky to set up but it works. Also love going from 11-12spd on the same frame.
ER9 was the easiest and fastest groupset swap I ever did. Worked almost identical to my Ultegra 8070 series Di2. I did not put enough miles on it to assess its reliablility. Its up for consideration for any future builds.
I mostly chose Shimano because I thought price was decent and it does what I need it to do.