Better hold off on the Magene QED electronic groupset

[JustinFox]

I went back to read the messages from my Chinese contact, I guess the cyclist who crashed survived. I tend to skim the details!

Come on man. There's a massive difference between a rider losing their life vs. what's actually happened here.

"I tend to skim the details" then make shit up and post absolute crap on a global forum to instil fear in people for what? Likes?

You sir are a royal muppet and I'm a muppet for sharing your post to other riders (as well as a cyclist in the industry) who are excited about trying the Magene groupset. Do better, please.

[frewster]

Agreed. This is a huge oversight on your part to rush and share something so serious without, at the very least, reading it closely first.

[jonathanf2]

I have a guy sending me messages in Chinese that get translated to English and sometimes poorly. I have to use a translator to read each message. Either way the dude still ended up in the hospital with broken bones. As detailed in the video, Magene's shifters didn't fully engage pistons on worn brake pads on independent tests from authorized Magene mechanics.

Next time I hear news of a life threatening bike component, I'll make sure not to say anything. 

[Tijoe]

Since the person that crashed was using a lightweight rotor, is there any information stated where they took a close look at his rotors to see if they were by chance glazed due to a combination of heat and some sort of surface contamination?   I recently experienced on one of my rotors that it was glazed, and I had to use sandpaper and rough up the surfaces in order get the brake pads to stop the bike.  In my case, the pads are resin, and were only 1/2 way worn.  Kinda of spooky to pull the brake lever super hard without them bottoming out and have no stopping power.

Some of this story reminds me of a problem I had with my Wheeltop EDS TX brake levers that for some unknown reason would lock up solid at the levers.  After this happened 3 times, and I came very very close to crashing on a descent, I replaced them.  Wheeltop had no interest in helping me to discover why this was happening.   (I believe that the pistons in the lever housing jam somehow.  The levers are still sitting in a parts bin. 

[cyruscycles]

Magene sent a technician to inspect his bike while he was still in the hospital and bought him a wheelchair. Magene cited worn resin brake pads(they still had lots of braking material left) on lightweight rotors and the groupset not being installed by an authorized service center. Magene said once the brakes were bled and had new pads, the brakes worked fine.

The rotor brand released testing showing that the resin pads work fine on their lightweight rotors with resin pads worn all the way down. Pads shouldn't fail in an on/off way. When the pad is worn off, the calipers should still squeeze the metal backing plate against the rotor and slow you down while squealing to warn you.

There are videos of mechanics showing that the QED calipers don't grip the rotor when worn down completely, while SRAM, Shimano, and LTwoo calipers do. Perhaps calipers without enough travel + a poor DIY bleed + half worn resin pads + lightweight rotor = randomly losing your brakes?

Video overview with a chinese speaker where I got this information from:

[Sakizashi]

This is some scary shit. The levers don't displace the fluid needed to actuate the brakes properly, or the design doesn't allow for pads to advance as they wear properly. I would heavily bet on the latter, but there could be many causes. One is simply that the bladder isn't flexible enough and requires more vacuum to maintain its displaced state than the the system can hold (e.g., the system is not well sealed compared to the bladder's static properties). In practice, all of these systems require some air to be present in the system, as otherwise, a perfect bladder material would be needed; however, you also don't want too much air. It's also possible that the system is consistently hard to bleed, but that seems unlikely. Further, the videos showing that the mechanics can easily replicate this in the stand suggest it's a design issue. This would be a recall if it were to happen in the US or EU.

Perhaps Magene recognizes that they have some product design issues to address, which is why they decided to focus on China before entering those markets where regulators and consumers have historically been less forgiving. I hope the chinese cyclists continue to hold them accountable and that they roll out fixes, etc.

Some of this story reminds me of a problem I had with my Wheeltop EDS TX brake levers that for some unknown reason would lock up solid at the levers.  After this happened 3 times, and I came very very close to crashing on a descent, I replaced them.  Wheeltop had no interest in helping me to discover why this was happening.   (I believe that the pistons in the lever housing jam somehow.  The levers are still sitting in a parts bin. 

Your type of failure, though no less scary, is more common. While it is also possible that the levers are physically jamming, I expect someone else to have observed this issue and replicated it, especially since you experienced the problem with both levers. The lack of return is likely due to the design of the wheel top system. Still, I wouldn't immediately consider this a design issue that needs a recall, as it could be an installation issue, bleeding, or even a case of using the wrong hydraulic fluid--conditions potentially which make the wheeltop design a poor one to avoid buying, but not a dangerous one.

I guess what I am saying is that your wheeltop issue was bad, but this is next-level bad.

[toxin]

Were the test on other brands of brakes with the whole braking system, including the levers, or was it a swap of calipers with Magene levers?

[Sakizashi]

Were the test on other brands of brakes with the whole braking system, including the levers, or was it a swap of calipers with Magene levers?

There is both in the video. A lot of B-roll footage shows Chinese mechanics sanding down brake pads and testing them, demonstrating that even in the stand, the Magene ones still have a gap between them. They tested a Magene lever with an Ultegra caliper and it also had the same problem.

[toxin]

Ah my bad, haven't got around to watching yet, will shut up until I do

[zxcvbnmjm]

I have a guy sending me messages in Chinese that get translated to English and sometimes poorly. I have to use a translator to read each message. Either way the dude still ended up in the hospital with broken bones. As detailed in the video, Magene's shifters didn't fully engage pistons on worn brake pads on independent tests from authorized Magene mechanics.

Next time I hear news of a life threatening bike component, I'll make sure not to say anything. 

Maybe try use Deepseek(or Chatgpt) for translations. It will do a much better job than any translator app

[toxin]

The way there are some people excusing it in youtube comments is kinda crazy to me too

[kbernstein]

From my experiences with magene products, I often find them unpolished (but dangerous like that is a first...), dogshit customer support or just with asshole proprietary designs. None of their stuff looks too good to me, it's baffling that they're seen as one of the more trustworthy chinese companies. I'm already avoiding their products but I had serious hope they would give us some much needed competition as Ltwoo is getting too comfortable too. Looks like real progress will take some more time.

[Arcoril]

From my experiences with magene products, I often find them unpolished (but dangerous like that is a first...), dogshit customer support or just with asshole proprietary designs. None of their stuff looks too good to me, it's baffling that they're seen as one of the more trustworthy chinese companies. I'm already avoiding their products but I had serious hope they would give us some much needed competition as Ltwoo is getting too comfortable too. Looks like real progress will take some more time.

Marketing is powerful stuff. They have an actual US storefront and their product pages use proper English and not auto-translated gibberish. That's basically all you need to look credible.

I've never had trouble with my LTWOO groupsets but keeping up with all their revisions and lack of support is tedious. I'm hoping Wheeltop keeps improving because on paper their groupsets are everything I'm looking for.

[Johny.LM]

You really should edit or take down your original post.
If I were Magene, I’d already be thinking about sending you a legal notice.
There’s a huge difference between death and injury, you need to be very careful with your wording.
Throwing around unverified claims like that could easily land you in serious legal trouble. 

[Sakizashi]

IDK, I imagine Magene’s legal team has bigger fish to fry right now. I still cant wrap my head around how this happened other than thinking they made a late material or design change and didn’t retest even basic scenarios.

That said—In the spirit of transparency, I would also edit the previous post from death to “almost died” or “had serious injuries” or something that is actually truthful.

I am pretty cavalier with mixing and matching parts on my own builds, but NGL, this has me wondering whether its a good idea to use aftermarket calipers to finish off my LTK266 build or if I should just stick with the boring sram ones.