Given that I've recently had some issues with failures & warranty on high-end Chiner parts, and getting burned by aliexpress dealers, I definitely see a market for PP helping facilitate high-end sales. There's a lot of brands selling stuff that rivals elite-tier western-market parts (Cybrei, Seka, Magene, Farsports, Craft, EXS) but at that point you are reaching deep into the pockets.

In the past (for me any way), the psychology driving my strategy for buying Chiner parts was that perceived risk of getting a dud part was high, so the price needed to be cheap enough to mitigate loss aversion. But this mentality caps how much you're willing to spend on parts, and in turn, limits maximum quality that is marketable.

If you can have some assurances that the dealer will have integrity/good service, and will work with you on warranty issues, then you're going to increase how much money people are willing put on the line.

It's more or less an exact copy of Campagnolo's Hydro Shifters internally. Having worked on the Campy shifters, I can say that even the modular hydro unit looks identical maybe except for a few minor details. I've been running Ultra Shift in many iterations and it has gotten better every time. The 12sp generation has super light and smooth action. If you can shift it comfortably in the drops very much depends on bar shape and hand size. I have no problem shifting these in the drops.
I've also never had issues with riding these offroad. Campy has been used by quite a few pros in CX back in the rim brake days. With all that said, I dunno what level of quality the LTWOO internals are. Copying stuff is one thing. Doing it well is another.

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.

For anyone looking for more reviews of this bike I can +1 on the quality of this frame.
It's not a race oriented ride (probably due to the longer chain stays) but it sure is comfortable, stable and good for longer rides.

Can I prod you and @GratiotGravel on this? I've spent a good amount of time over the last week in search of a CX frame, researching the geometry of pretty much every chiner gravel frame...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 haven’t looked too deeply but the crack definitely runs through the shifter bolt.

At this point the shifters are actually the last remaining LTWOO parts from the group-set. I ditched the derailleurs for ultegra and the calipers for z-race a while ago. I’ve managed to source some deeply discounted dura ace R9020 shifters from FB marketplace, so I’m looking forward to installing those soon 

The youtuber PeakTorque has been testing lateral stiffness of several wheels, where he measures rim deflection when placing a weight on the rim of a wheel oriented parallel to the ground, supported at the axle. In these tests, carbon-spoked rims tend to be laterally stiffer than metal spoked wheels. If you look at his Winspace Hyper D67 review video, you will see his graph with the most updated results.

This form of lateral stiffness supposedly translates to wheel flop under load (the kind that causes brake rub). Whether lateral stiffness should be maximized or optimized, or if it has anything to do with how "responsive" the wheel feels is something we can argue over, but it's clear that this way of measuring lateral stiffness is widespread in the industry. Personally I question if this measurement translates well to the wheel flop caused by pedaling, which is sensitive to spoke lacing patterns.

The flip side to high lateral stiffness is that you lose bump compliance in corners. This is because steel spokes stretch more than carbon spokes (by an order of magnitude!) I personally think this is really important in racing, where it's much more important to be able to comfortably rail through corners with rough asphalt, than to save 100 grams or so. Back in the day (10 years ago or so) an old teammate of mine worked at HED, who told me about how HED believed in moderating spoke tension and using a higher spoke angle--specifically pointing at how Zipp at the time would run high spoke tensions with rear wheels laced radially on one side. (I can attest that Zipp wheels from this time felt stiff and zippy as hell, but wagged under pedaling load like a dog). He said that the difference in handling characteristic supposedly driven by these construction differences is why Mark Cavendish insisted on racing debadged HED Stingers over the sponsor wheels when he raced for Columbia Highroad.

Spoke stretch is also a safety issue, carbon spoked wheels (many with open spoke holes in their hubs) theoretically have a higher risk of de-tensioning a spoke or two over a bump and dislodging a spoke nipple from the hub. By comparison, metal spoked wheels are less likely to catastrophically detension.

For this reason, I chose to go with ICAN aero wheels with CX ray spokes for my most recent wheelset. I probably will go for a carbon spoke wheelset in the future, but the proven metal spoke design seemed like a safe choice for the wheelset I've chosen to ride full-time until I decide to buck up and buy a "racing wheelset"

I just wanted to update this thread with some recent discussion from the Weight Weenies Seka thread.

Seka has announced they have stopped sending frames to Cycling100, even those destined to fulfill open orders on C100. At the same time, there were people on WW with open orders who claimed to have been ghosted by C100 following requests to cancel their orders. A few users have shared that C100 has eventually promised to return order payments since the announcement, but it seems there are others who are still in limbo

Seka, on the other hand, is offering a 30% discount to individuals with unfulfilled orders with C100, which is a bit less than the cost of the deposit. The big catch is that they are only accepting payment via bank transfer for these orders. It remains to be seen if their upcoming webstore will also only accept bank transfers, or will accept more conventional forms of payment.

I urge people considering to buy from Seka's upcoming webstore to approach buying a frame through them with cautious optimism. While yes, much of the blame for the sourcing issues people have faced is pegged on Cycling100, Seka's retail store is also unproven. Fundamentally, what went wrong with Cycling100 is that they promised unrealistic lead times.
Seka's production is clearly dynamic. Users who order the same color frame seem to get their orders all at once, suggesting that Seka produces their frames in batches of one color and/or version.  I think Seka themselves are better equipped for quoting lead times than a retailer is, but ultimately it depends on their ability to maintain a stable production line and have good production forecasting. If they don't, then I would expect people's experience with Seka's store to mirror that of Cycling100. I am not suggesting that this will be the case, but I want to urge people to not assume that everything will be perfect going forward.

Because of this, I urge everyone to always use payment methods with buyer protection when buying bike parts internationally, and know your payment method's buyer-protection policies well enough to use them. I say "internationally" because these issues are not restricted to Seka, or even the Chiner-space. I've had to dispute charges from a European retailer before. Whenever you buy goods from abroad, you basically can no longer count on legal protections, because even if they are there, trying to use them is almost always more expensive than taking the loss.

Some of you may find what I say regarding buyer protection obvious. Based on the discourse I saw on WeightWeenies, it is not obvious to everyone, so I hope to broadcast this message as broadly as possible.

Forms of useful buyer protection:

AliExpress--when you buy on AliEx, you get 90 days starting the day your item ships (I believe the moment a tracking number is created) to make a buyer protection claim for non-receipt of your items. There is indeed a store carrying Seka on AliEx, the 10 week lead time is dangerously close to the 90 day protection window. Users from Weight Weenies have reported waiting 6 months or more for frames ordered through this store, which far exceeds the protection window.

Credit card charge dispute--if you use a major credit card like American Express and Visa to make your purchase, you have up to 120 days after the charge to start a charge dispute for non-receipt of goods. You can start this process by calling or emailing your credit card's customer service. Some CC companies like AmEx will be more likely to side with customers than others in cases where you dispute for receiving goods not-as-described, so choose your CC wisely and read their buyer protection terms and conditions before making a purchase.

PayPal--Buyers using PayPal have until 180 days after purchase to file a dispute for non-receipt of goods or goods received not-as-described. I believe PayPal have the strongest buyer protection in these cases. Incidentally, Cycling100 was actually dropped by PayPal for having too many disputes over delayed delivery during the pandemic.

For all of these choices, they depend on you actually filing the dispute on time. If you use one of these payment methods and don't have your frame in hand by the time the dispute window closes, you need to start your dispute no matter what, or at the very least contact your payment service's customer service and explain your situation if you anticipate receiving your goods just after the deadline.

Forms of payment with NO buyer protection:
-Debit cards
-Bank transfer
-Wire/money order
-Crypto

If you use any of these, you are at the mercy of the seller. Again, do not count on any other country's legal system to help you recover your money.

I look forward to seeing Seka's store open soon. I myself hope to buy a direct-mount hanger for my bike from them. But as they open, I urge everyone to approach buying a Seka with a conservative attitude.

Update 6/16/23:
Looks like C100 is actually refunding everyone for non-deliveries. Many users on WW now reporting receiving their refunds.

I've bought 3 cassettes from SROAD, all shimano-lockring style, I believe the old design, and honestly had a fine time with them.

I run an 11s/11-32 on my road bike, 11s/10-42 on my commuter bike, and 10s/11-36 on my cross bike. I've run them with mechanical SRAM road, 1x-road/gravel, and MTB derailleurs, as well as LTWOO's R9 derailleur, and a Shimano Ultegra R8000 rear derailleur. They all do fine.

They do NOT shift as nice as Shimano. They are loud, and are more prone to rough shifts. But they have been seriously ok. No breaking of teeth. The shifts happen, and they are smooth enough for me. On my road bike I've had the occasional "slippery" shift when my rear derailleur wasn't set up right, but that's the worst of it.