I have high hopes that this will be more functional than the Ltwoo groups, but the lack of removable battery is an issue for me.  When I moved to an electronic group i didnt think about it, but its been THE factor in me going Sram for my last few builds. Its just way easier to keep a spare battery or two than worry about charging. Well worth spending an extra 10-20min on more fiddley FD setup.

Electronic groupsets have been a game changer for all the bike builds and reviews I do. Especially with SRAM eTap. Literally cuts my bike building time from 3 days down to same day in some cases. During Christmas 2022 you could find SRAM Force D1 mini-groups (Levers, Calipers, Both Derailleurs, Centerline CLX-R Rotors, Batteries, and Charger) for $900 USD.

You can still get the $900 kit here: https://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=113939

Man I'd love to put this on my 2004 CAAD4 just to be that guy. I use this bike in crits so I don't want to drop 1000 on shifty bits, but $600... maybe

The cheapest AXS setup is either getting Rival levers on sale (target <$300 for left and right + brakes) or the Apex AXS exchange lever ($107-$112 list price) + Apex / S300 brake calipers ($39.99/ ea list) and brake bolts ($5.59 / set list) + Flat mount adapter ($19.99 ea) + a Rival Axs 36 / XPLR RD (seem to be plenty of new ones sub $200) + Battery set. Should be really close to $600 for all the hoses + shifty bits. Might be less.

I'm 182cm. I currently have an ICAN A22 (54cm) that I find too aggresive. I had a fit done and was told everything looks good, but I could maybe use a 5mm stem spacer. I'm never really that comfortable on it and my lower back bothers me. I find I'm always on the very back of the handle bars, it feels too long and low.

Can you say more about the lower back pain? Is it something that comes with time on the bike or is it something that shows up in the first 10-20min of riding? What is your handlebar configuration right now?

I am a little surprised by your fitter being OK with your fit, I am guessing your bike is simply too small. Trek would start you on a 58cm on their Emonda and probably size you down to a 56 if you wanted a "race" fit. The A22 is the same length as the 58cm Emonda but 27mm lower.

I was thinking about find a more enduro like frame and have been looking at the Elves Eglath (53cm). This will approximately raise the handle bars about 20mm and the ETT is also ~20mm shorter. Would this be considered a significant change in geometry, or would it be barely noticable? Thanks for any input.

This would be pretty significant change in fit. For most people its a bigger change than their race vs. endurance / gravel fit.

I am seeing a 10mm increase to stack and a 15mm reduction in reach with the Elves frame. However the seat tube angle is steeper which is why you lose the additional 5mm on TT length. This might end up being a problem as it would be close to 8mm of additional setback you would likely need at the seat clamp. Elves doesnt list a setback on their site, so I am not sure you would be able to get the right saddle position. You might want to consider sizing up on the Elves but then stack then might be too high.

If you can, the easy thing would be to raise the bars on your existing by 20mm or so and see if the pain goes away. If you can flip the stem that might be worth trying. If you cant and you have a trainer I suggest cutting some foam and taping it to the ramps of your bars to simulate a higher hand height and seeing if that helps. Adding padding to the ramps is a pretty good way to see if you will be comfortable on the hoods if you were to add in spacers to reduce the height given a similar frame reach. My guess would be that you should try raising the bars before going for a shorter fit.

Looks amazing. This is a textbook light weight build, focusing weight savings on the 2 places where you are likely to see the most gains other than the frame in terms of rims and cranks.

Light Bicycle's pro series rims are the seriously nice. IMO build quality wise up there or better than anyone. I've built and owned a few sets and they are really nice. Very clean bladder removal and patching. Build true with even tensions too.

The Elilee crank looks great, how do you like it? I am torn between it and the SkyPivot. Big difference seems to be the bonded spindle in the Elilee vs. a swapable one on the SkyPivot and a few grams.

If you do end up swapping chains, I recommend getting the Force AXS one to match your cassette. It's one of the most durable road chains you can get, and regularly hits the $30-$35 (USD) price point. I got 10,000+ mostly gravel miles from each of mine before they hit the 0.5% indicator on my Pedros chain tool, though i waxed my chains.

I was perusing the UCI approved frame list today and I think we have the first UCI approved version of this frame: the BAAS Novel Aero. https://baascycling.nl/

The pricing seems pretty fair for fully built bikes and hopefully it means these frames will get more attention via racing and the exposure that it brings. However, it just feels wrong that they would name an open mold bike "Novel Aero." Nothing novel about it.

Vitus bikes have been available on firesale in the US from Planet Cyclery. The prices and stock changes pretty quick but the ZX1-Evo could be a good choice if you are looking for a complete bike: https://planetcyclery.com/vitus-zx1-evo-cr-etap-rival-axs-carbon-bike.

I am not much of crit racer as endurance riding is much more my thing, but I personally would start by playing with fit. To the extent you can, I would play with longer more forward positions vs. drop. Being able to do a really hard like 150% of FTP effort for a few minutes from the aero hoods position, keeping those elbows tucked in will make a much bigger difference than aero tubes. I would balance that with being able to get a sustain a 20-30 sec max effort in a relatively aero position.

The advanced thing would be measure your weight balance on your current bike using a couple of bathroom scales and a wall in your drops or whatever position you would use to chase or hold a wheel when things get spicy. I would try to keep expected the weight balance at the wheels between 60% Rear and 55% Rear. Its hard depending on size, but testing on myself good balance meant it was less work to shift my weight in and out of corners helping me keep the power down and my body in an aero position. Between your desired fit and balance, you should start to rule out some frames.

Lastly worth noting that BB height may impact your ability to pedal through corners. Ideally you want the lowest BB you can run without making pedal contact as that will minimize your frontal area of you and the bike. My rule of thumb is 80mm is the max drop for 165s, 75mm for 170s and so on, assuming you are using Look or Shimano style road pedals and shoes with standard length axles. The A9 and SC49 have a relatively high BB which could be good if you run longer cranks.

I had it in my head for a while that I could develop a better race bike for shorter riders and spent a lot of time on it during the pandemic and had a Ti prototype made before concluding that it wasn't for me. Those were important things I learned doing testing and iterating on designs that I think matter in this context.

I have no experience with any of these as I prefer routing under the bars instead of through and dislike the lack of adjustability of a 1 piece cockpit, but here are some other options:

Avian Canary, this is the superlight one that PandaPodium also sells for the same price:
https://avians.cc/products/avian-canary-handlebar

Avian Falcon, also sold my PandaPodium might be favored because the canary might have some unwanted flex in the drops
https://avians.cc/products/avian-falcon-ii

If I were to buy a one piece I would order the Bigrock Skyline II: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a21n57.1.0.0.2d49523cynkcr2&id=728185998437&ns=1&abbucket=6#detail

I am currently planning a build and will most likely use the soon to be released EXS R175 despite wanting something a little more flared and either a Kalloy Uno or S Works stem to route under the bars using the channels provided. That way i can do maintenance on the front end without cutting the brake hoses.

There is a lot of space between a frame being safe to ride and being the quality you see even on second tier frames from the big brands.

It’s worth thinking about the economics of a replica frame selling for $500 painted up as a Factor or Pinarello. I know that it would cost me about $2000-$3000 USD to get a contract manufacturer to make, design a layup for and test a handlebar. I would guess that a frame would be on the order $10k-$12k. It’s probably a breakeven at 50 units at a factory cost of $300 and 30 at less than $200 to make money on a replica frame. To sell 30 frames, you probably need them to pass basic fatigue and safety tests to make sure you can sell even that many. Your don't have much additional budget for development so other than a 3d scan of each frame size to get the shape right and some basic cad work to smooth out the details from the relatively low resolution of that scan, and then work to get the layup good enough to pass the testing. There isn't much budget for additional work. While external tube shape is the majority of the strength of a tube, thickness still matters for stiffness. Because you are using lower quality materials you will end up with thicker tubes, a really stiff bike, and a heavier frame. Its probably been tested enough that it wont break, but will also likely inherit the flaws of the original design because on the outside, it needs to look like the same.

In the case of Factor, they replaced their headset assemblies and changed the design since the Ostro VAM was pulled from competition in 2021 due to sheared steerer tubes. Are you getting the corrected versions of the parts on the Ostro VAM replica? Are the parts even of sufficient quality to avoid the problems that led to the re-design? Can these replica makers get the details of a C shaped steerer right enough to be reliable in the long run? What about the headset and derailleur hanger hardware? Potential headset issues also track with the flaws seen on Cervelo replicas which also use a non-round steerer.

The Pinarello Dogma F suffers from a surprisingly high incidence of cracked seatstays and chainstays as a result of the asymmetric design. The Velobuild version also seems to have this problem. Plus you get bonus headset problems.

An open mold is usually a little more expensive. But, because it's a clean sheet design, they are going to design it in CAD and run the basic FEA stuff and use the results to iterate the design. They have both a good understanding of where / how to adjust the layup and the freedom to change tube shapes to get the performance they are looking for. It looks more generic, but the engineer and designers are incentivized to maximize compatibility with 3rd party components and make the best riding bike they can within their budget because they are looking to secure sales for dozens of bikes with multiple small brands. As a result, these bikes almost always use forks with round steerers and common headset sizes that are easier to design, to make to a high standard, and possible to source from 3rd parties.

A branded version of one of these open mold frames from a brand that does development like a Cinelli or a Guerciotti might ask for layup adjustment, will do some additional QC and swap out the generic hardware for branded FSA or Deda versions. They might stick them in a wind tunnel to help find the right handlebar and wheels to sell with the frame. They might also swap the fork. These bikes win big races at the U23 and junior levels, cost 3x as much, but generally speaking most reviewers will say they fall short of the mid-range bikes from the big brands.

Is the replica safe to ride? Probably, but the commercial motivations are totally different and there is a reason why the open mold is more likely to have the details sorted. So yes, there is an inherent reason why the replica is likely to be a worse bike.

I don't know for sure, how the sales model works, but i think 10% is pretty much the commission a sourcing agent would charge you to find a product. On the other end, not sure if factory selling agents would make more or less. That vs. the 2x markup you pay a Chinese brand or the 3x markup you pay a "western" relabeling operation is the primary reason why "factory direct" is cheaper.

Aggressively calling out Leon was going to lead to someone posting something personally or culturally insulting, which we got via the comment calling him a "typical Chinese shitbag seller." That probably leads Leon to stop offering deals to members of the forum.