You could use different calipers - as long as it’s shimano road compatible (i.e. mineral oil), it should be ltwoo compatible. Quite a few sellers on aliexpress bundle the ltwoo shifters with zrace xg calipers which use a regular flat mount interface and are much lighter.

Hi, I'm currently building a new bike with this groupset and I have two questions.

• The front derailleur seems to have 4 speeds instead of 2(I'm new to bikes so please let me know if I'm just stupid and this is normal) - i.e. it clicks 3 times when shifting up and 3 times when shifting down and I'm not sure if I did something wrong with the setup. Shouldn't it be just 1 click down and 1 click up?
• When I try to shift front derailleur to the big chainring, the chain get's stuck in between derailleur cage and chainring - see the pictures in attachment(not sure if it's clearly visible). I haven't lube the chain yet - can that cause it or something else is wrong?

• Those are trim positions to prevent chain rub on the front derailleur when in crosschained gear combos. See https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=CR8jyNgoS0U for a good little visualization (remove the space in the URL - youtube links are really weird on this forum.)
• The chain getting stuck between the front derailleur and the chainring is how shifts happen - the chain is forced into the big chainring which picks it up and deposits it onto the teeth. Of course, this only happens when pedaling - nothing will happen if the crank isn't rotating.

These impressed me enough that I'm using them on my road and gravel bikes: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805834827357.html

Ltwoo hydro thumb shifters can be reached from the drops. They are different than the mechanical version.
I’d suggest the GR9 11 speed over the 12. It’s just easier to tune and keep tuned.

Seconded on both counts. The GRT downshift lever is actually very well placed on the hydraulic shifters and the little bit that curves down is very comfy to use from the drops, flared or not. 12 speeds with precision is frankly too much to demand of a cheap groupset (and maybe even more expensive ones, given the behavior of Shimano and SRAM...), and I have trouble keeping my 12 speed GRT set properly indexed, it's very sensitive to temperature and cable stretch in ways that none of my 11 speed groupsets ever were.

I've had my FE-02 since October 2021 and have put almost exactly 1,500 miles on it. I initially built it up with 700x42mm tires which handled well but weren't wide enough for the riding I do on this bike, so I swapped to 700x50mm Gravelking SK's which measured about 52mm on 25mm internal rims. This was good volume but put my center of mass too high for comfortable handling, and toe overlap with my size 43 shoes was also really bad with this setup. Currently I'm running 650b with tires still measuring about 52mm, and this is the best compromise for handling and tire volume I've found thus far.

Wheels/tires aside, the geometry is very stable without being too upright, which I like; it's definitely not on the progressive end of the spectrum with respect to headtube/seattube angle or anything, it's much more similar to my road bike than my mountain bike. The handling isn't as razor-sharp as my road bike either, and I wouldn't use this as bike for primarily road riding - I've had my road bike wheels (700x32mm tires) on the FE-02 for winter riding and the handling didn't really change from its 650b setup. Not that the handling is bad, I am using it right now as my main winter ride since it has full length fenders on it, just that I don't have the same sense of being one with the bike that I do on my Tarmac SL6.

Lastly, the construction quality of the frame/fork is very good and I've not had any issues running cables/wires/hoses through the downtube; the chainstays are REALLY narrow so care must be taken not to wedge internal cable routing tools in there (it sucks to get them out....). I've even been able to run a dropper post on it with Di2 - see my post history - and doing this would be even easier with mechanical shifting since there's no battery in the way. The dropper really enhances the ability of this frame to tackle rougher downhill terrain and I find myself using it a lot during regular descents too, as it offers a comfortable yet very aero position. I've ridden this bike on some truly dreadful terrain, including completely offroad bikepacking out in the woods where me + luggage + bike weighed close to 120 kg all told, and it's performed great. The frame isn't light but you get durability in return, it seems.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend this frame if you're in the market for a burly, big-tire-clearance gravel bike.

That’s an FE-02 which, as has been pointed out, is not a 696. I own this frame (pretty sure I ordered it from the exact same link) and it’s been a super solid frame for a heavy-duty gravel bike.

I like electronic shifting, but I don't like DOT fluid, which means I have to use Di2. On my road bike, it took all of 10 minutes to install 105 Di2, but on my gravel bike I very much like also having a dropper post, which makes installation of the battery a problem. My goal with this post is to describe how I solved this problem on my Flyxii FE-02 frame, but the process should work for many other frames.

You will need:

• Internal cable routing tool and an old cable (or just 2x cable routing kits)
• A frame with a headtube large enough that you can a fit Di2 battery in while tilting it into the downtube
• Bubble wrap and tape
• Zip ties, with a length approximately 2.5-3x the diameter of the downtube of whatever bike you're working on

The process

• Drop out the fork and remove headset bearings. Remove all hoses/cables from the downtube to prevent the Di2 wires from getting snagged or tangled. Remove any cable routing guide near the bottom bracket; the holes this leaves will be valuable for cable routing.
• Route the cable routing tool through the top or bottom of the headset, whichever direction is easiest to insert the battery from. If you have 2 cable routing tools, use one for the front and one for the rear; otherwise use the tool to route an old brake or shift cable from the headset through to the rear derailleur. If possible, route these under the bottom bracket.
• Wrap the Di2 battery in 3-4 layers of bubble wrap and tape to keep it in place. I used silicon self-fusing tape but any durable tape should work. Wrap several zipties around the battery in different directions. I used 8 zipties, spaced a quarter turn apart (i.e. 2 pointing in each direction).
• Attach the Di2 wires to the cable routing wires (I used a little strip of packing tape which worked fine) and the battery. Pull the wires down into the downtube - make sure to do this evenly, i.e. pull the front and rear wires the same amount. It should be pretty easy to do this up until the battery has to go in the downtube. Lever the battery into the downtube, putting a little spin on it to get the zipties in a sort of spiral pattern.
• Pull the battery down the downtube - this should be pretty easy until the bottle cage rivnuts are encountered. Your rear (and maybe front) Di2 wire should be long enough to be pulled out the bottom bracket cable routing holes and a bit more force can be used to pull on those to get the battery down past the rivnuts. Eventually the battery should make its way down almost all the way to the bottom bracket.
• Finish routing the Di2 wires and tape them to the frame. Shake the frame to make sure the battery is secure and doesn't make any noise. If it does, you can push out the battery back through the headtube with a long, thin dowel or some other tool. Take a light that fits in the headtube, shine it down the downtube, and look through the bottom bracket holes to make sure there's enough space to run a brake hose and dropper cable.
• Route brake hose and dropper cable as normal. I found this easiest to do by using the aforementioned light in the headtube, and carefully pulling the magnetized end of the cable routing tool past the battery. Doing this blind wouldn't be fun. After they get past the battery, I recommend routing the brake hose below the bottom bracket and the dropper cable above it, but this is more frame-dependent than anything.

Things that don't work:

• Fitting the battery down the seattube below the dropper. This is what I tried first, but the battery has to sit down far enough that it blocks the port for the front derailleur wire, so the battery has to be shifted to the side to make room. Unfortunately, this blocks the needed space for the dropper cable, and also fouls on the rivnuts for the seattube bottle cage and derailleur mount. I got my battery stuck in the seattube and had to route 4 brake cables through the bottom bracket, up through the seattube past the battery, and use the heads of the cables to pry it loose. 0/10, would not recommend.
• Putting the battery in the downtube without zipties: there needs to be a lot of bubble wrap to prevent the battery from moving, but little enough bubble wrap to allow it to be inserted into the headtube and get past the bottle cage rivnuts. I don't think this is possible, and if it is, it's far more practical to use zipties. Just for fun, I tried it, and the battery got snagged on the rivnuts and I had to fashion a tool to yank out the battery. Again, not recommended.