recos for reliable chinese groupsets (FD-RD-shifters-brakes)?

[Serge_K]

I have several friends looking to buy a decent road bike in Europe (France & Germany) and everything they send me looks overpriced, in the 1000-1400 eur range. So i'm wondering how low i can go building good enough chinese carbon road bikes.
Any reco for either rim brake groups (11 speed or more), or full hydro disc groups (11 speed or more), along w price ranges?
i'm not going to recommend them to build ltwoo er9 bikes, goes without saying. and i assume they wont have full cable integration (easier maintenance, tweaks, better shifting...).

I'm thinking of getting them to buy a new chinese frame & group, 2nd hand alloy wheelset, put gp5000 tyres w TPU tubes, and upgrade the wheels down the road.

thanks!

[TidyDinosaur]

Just get a second hand Ultegra 11sp hydraulic groupset. The people with more money are trying to get rid of them to get the latest and greatest. Should be around 400-450 for an entire groupset with crank, cassette and chain. So even less without the crank.

[00Garza]

Unless you wait for the big sales, building a chinese frame is not incredibly cheap.
Plus factor in cost of having it built or buying tools to build it yourself.

A "cheap" carbon road frame is about $600.
Full hydro group is going to be about another $400-$500.
Cheap carbon wheels about $400 or more.
Then all the other pieces you'll need add up as well. (bars, stem, saddle, bar tape, tires, bottle cages, etc.)

EDIT: to answer your actual question, I do like the Ltwoo hdyro group on my gravel bike. If I were to build up a road bike I'd go with their R9 hydro 2x11 group.

[rasch]

I have several friends looking to buy a decent road bike in Europe (France & Germany) and everything they send me looks overpriced, in the 1000-1400 eur range. So i'm wondering how low i can go building good enough chinese carbon road bikes.
Any reco for either rim brake groups (11 speed or more), or full hydro disc groups (11 speed or more), along w price ranges?
i'm not going to recommend them to build ltwoo er9 bikes, goes without saying. and i assume they wont have full cable integration (easier maintenance, tweaks, better shifting...).

I'm thinking of getting them to buy a new chinese frame & group, 2nd hand alloy wheelset, put gp5000 tyres w TPU tubes, and upgrade the wheels down the road.

thanks!

Honestly? Fly to Portugal spend some days there, order in a Decathlon a Van Rysel with Carbon Frame, with Tiagra hydraulic for 1400euro. Best value for money, no headaches and warranty in any decathlon. U can upgrade the wheels later.

Chinese frame etc is only worth it for the project (or for customisation if u are picky). That or if u try to do a groupbuy to have more power of negotiation. I can hop on for a gravel one too here for BE.

[kwantani]

get a full bike: Java Fuoco for cheap:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806141971861.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.84909Uhr9Uhr4l&algo_pvid=ab02bfb4-dacb-49d8-80a5-85439f6cff53&algo_exp_id=ab02bfb4-dacb-49d8-80a5-85439f6cff53-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%211060.00%211060.00%21%21%211060.00%211060.00%21%402103080517217879821223673eebe3%2112000036779622448%21sea%21US%212269827435%21&curPageLogUid=4Nw4b3xnTthO&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A

[rasch]

Thanks for the answers so far.
- On second hand Ultegra: labour intensive, and probably out of budget. if it were my bike though, agreed 100%.
- On Portugal decathlon arbitrage: love the idea. it's 400 eur more in france, looks like. If it were 1100 or 1200, it'd be a deal hard to pass on. At 1400, it's not bad, but it's not great. The tyres are probably trash, the cassette is 32 not 34, for some reason they put 48-34 and not 50-34, i dont see the point of that; it's 10 speed. But yeah, a full carbon bike w 28C tyres & hydro Shiamano group, turn key, for that price, with the backing of decathlon, this isn't bad at all.
- On group buy: i'll keep it in mind!
- On Ltwoo R9 2x11, i'll have a look at that! What's a good price for that w / w/o shipping? Are the shifters compatible with Shimano FD/RD?
- On Java Fuoco - i clicked on the link and saw c.1200 eur bike (good) and c.450 eur shipping to France (not good ). What are you guys seeing?

If you you such kind of customisation, better to build them.

About Ltwoo R9 I suspect you'll want them hydraulic, which is around 180/200... Considering a new full 105 is around 500 all-in I don't see why u would even consider an ltwoo.

Every time I am going down that rabbit hole, I end up in the same conclusion. Sth off the shelf is usually cheaper, more reliable if you cope with customisation later (like wheels). 

I took a look lately at the Twitter bikes. Again, not perfect, decent pricing, but it's only worth it if bought "bulk", just like Java, because of shipping cost.

Last build I made was around 1.6k€ but with a lot of tight control and a 105 11s for 190€.

[rasch]

190 was second hand. I got full - crank, cassete, shifters, rotors etc etc. It was a nice deal , but I screwed already one of the shifters ahahah but that was my fault.


Full 105 - here is 599, but every now and then they have promos. https://www.vaneycksport.com/en/shimano-groupset-11-speed-105-r7020-disc-short-cage.html


you can also find it cheaper on Ali- https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006653718580.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.3.3b1bUT68UT68z9&algo_pvid=42f967af-7959-4882-9752-bf462d88db1d&algo_exp_id=42f967af-7959-4882-9752-bf462d88db1d-1&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21EUR%21998.52%21489.86%21%21%217710.56%213782.65%21%40211b813f17218335512304096e8a0a%2112000037974985689%21sea%21BE%21128886434%21X&curPageLogUid=IEgRyg83miKe&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A

[jonathanf2]

Even though I'm using LTwoo ER9 electronic groupsets on both my road bikes, I just don't like LTwoo mechanical stuff. For example the plastic down shift levers are prone to breaking and the Ltwoo FD is an annoying kludge.

I'd rather using mechanical 105 and pair it up with some Juin Tech F1s calipers or go with Sensah hydraulic shifters paired with Shimano front/rear derailleurs. I never had any issues with Sensah mechanical shifters.

[00Garza]

Sensah Team Pro and shimano mechs seems like a good compromise.
Regular Sensah is Sram compatible I believe.

[jonathanf2]

Sensah 11/12 speed Team Pro shifters can be used with with any current 11/12 Shimano road derailleurs. In fact I like the haptics of the Sensah left FD trim with super firm shifts/trim. Going this route opens you up using everything from GRX, 105, Ultegra in either 1x or 2x.

[rasch]

If you really consider a non-hydraulic disc brake bike, I would then go search for a  second  hand rim brake bike...

They are dirty cheap now and you can get smashing deals.

That or open the wallet. In any case, if it's not for u, you won't feel it. Unless you plan on selling your services like I do to make some cash. But again, be ready for some headaches with that.

[jonathanf2]

Sensah Official Store on AliEx. At least if you have any issues, you can hopefully get direct support from them.

[00Garza]

If you’re going rim brake, you can get 105 11s groups on Ali for cheap.

Shimano 105 R7000 Groupset 2x11s Road Bike Set Front Derailleur Rear Derailleur SS GS Shifter Cassette HG601 Road Bicycle Set
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMuNriu

[rasch]

I guess it's sth for FR. I can order to PT and BE. Above 150 there are likely customs though.

[kwantani]

Java Fuoco looks about right. From USA, I paid around ~usd1k for the bike, around ~usd250 for shipping. I understand in EU shipping is higher. Keep in mind, other than the 105 12psd mech group, the crankset and wheelset is kind of heavy (50mm deep aero carbon rim, steel spokes), the bike will be around 9-9.5kg.

Thanks for the answers so far.
- On second hand Ultegra: labour intensive, and probably out of budget. if it were my bike though, agreed 100%.
- On Portugal decathlon arbitrage: love the idea. it's 400 eur more in france, looks like. If it were 1100 or 1200, it'd be a deal hard to pass on. At 1400, it's not bad, but it's not great. The tyres are probably trash, the cassette is 32 not 34, for some reason they put 48-34 and not 50-34, i dont see the point of that; it's 10 speed. But yeah, a full carbon bike w 28C tyres & hydro Shiamano group, turn key, for that price, with the backing of decathlon, this isn't bad at all.
- On group buy: i'll keep it in mind!
- On Ltwoo R9 2x11, i'll have a look at that! What's a good price for that w / w/o shipping? Are the shifters compatible with Shimano FD/RD?
- On Java Fuoco - i clicked on the link and saw c.1200 eur bike (good) and c.450 eur shipping to France (not good ). What are you guys seeing?