this one comes the closest to the CruX in terms of geometry, and has one of the lowest weights for a gravel frame you can find as well. Despite the fact that the evidence is clear--with 2 independent reviewers confirming--that this is a bike that "feels slow", I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how that can be.

@GratiotGravel, are you running the same tires between bikes when making your speed/watts comparison?

Are both of you running big tires, generally speaking?

I've done a teardown of my broken LTWOO brifter to see what's inside. I have the part-1 video up right now on youtube. Interesting finds include that the hydraulic reservoir is a modular part that pops right out.

(What's inside a L-TWOO hydraulic lever? Teardown & anatomy of a failure)


I'm currently putting together a video demoing the rebuild and analyzing/explaining the shift mechanism (hopefully dropping this week), but the short of it is that the shift mechanism is pretty much identical in design to Campy Ultrashift (diagram attached). This is a bad thing IMO. Fundamentally, this is a friction shifter. To hold the cable in place, it uses a friction plate with indexing indents pushed up against the de-tensioning ratchet by a couple of spring washers. You adjust the friction with the screw in the back of the shifter. Shifting feels tough because you have to overcome the friction plate in addition to everything else. I also think it's not suitable for off-road use, where a bump can increase the tension on the cable and spontaneously advance the index, causing a mis-shift

I've done a teardown of my broken LTWOO brifter to see what's inside. I have the part-1 video up right now on youtube. Interesting finds include that the hydraulic reservoir is a modular part that pops right out.

(What's inside a L-TWOO hydraulic lever? Teardown & anatomy of a failure)

I've done a teardown of my broken LTWOO brifter to see what's inside. I have the part-1 video up right now on youtube. Interesting finds include that the hydraulic reservoir is a modular part that pops right out.

(What's inside a L-TWOO hydraulic lever? Teardown & anatomy of a failure)


I'm currently putting together a video demoing the rebuild and analyzing/explaining the shift mechanism (hopefully dropping this week), but the short of it is that the shift mechanism is pretty much identical in design to Campy Ultrashift (diagram attached). This is a bad thing IMO. Fundamentally, this is a friction shifter. To hold the cable in place, it uses a friction plate with indexing indents pushed up against the de-tensioning ratchet by a couple of spring washers. You adjust the friction with the screw in the back of the shifter. Shifting feels tough because you have to overcome the friction plate in addition to everything else. I also think it's not suitable for off-road use, where a bump can increase the tension on the cable and spontaneously advance the index, causing a mis-shift

Thanks for the feedback! I have never worked hands-on with Campy so I've only been able to go off of the material online, which admittedly is sparse, it's good to hear from someone with real-life experience on this.

I guess I'm still on the fence over if this is a "good" indexing design. On one hand (as you illustrate) Campy has a good track record with making it work well, even in off-road applications. On the other hand this friction system design is inherently a zero-sum compromise between shift-action-lightness and indexing security. Meanwhile, Shimano and SRAM's systems use mechanical interference to achieve indexing.