Tideacebike

I love the wide fork blades, the seatstays on the other hand could be more sleekly integrated I think. Hard to tell without having it in hand though.

Quote from: Sakizashi on August 29, 2025, 03:36:19 PM

It's also unfair to compare people hacking together an aftermarket solution to a 100% in-house designed one like Magene has here.

I didn't mean to compare someone using a groupset as intended by the manufacturer with the tinkering of shigura - that's why i said that those tinkerers are aware of the.. limitations. Still I remember reading from someone who had to abort his ride and limp home because his brakes were getting really weak...
I only wanted to make the point that a too small reservoir, especially if maybe some other conditions happen to be met, can indeed lead to brake failure. Magene should absolutely design their system that this is impossible though and that's hardly rocket science - I'm looking forward to hopefully conclusive findings on what happened some time down the line.

On recalls: Kudos to Sram for owning their mistake then, that makes me feel reassured as I'm mostly using their stuff - the example of Shimano was just to illustrate that it's not an exclusively Chinese/Magene thing to go "No, there's nothing wrong" and putting people's health at risk with it. Now reading (thanks for the info Justin) it's actually now happening again just leaves me speechless.

Coming from MTB, there might be parallels to the tinkering solution called "Shigura" which describes Shimano brake levers paired with Magura calipers. The problem is that the calipers need much more oil volume than the shimano ones (and compounding that, Magura has 2.0mm brake rotors compared Shimano's 1.8mm), so the reservoir in the levers is too small. So if you use a Shimano rotor and the brake pads (or/and disc) are worn, you are getting to the point that you can no longer build up pressure, because you run out of oil. The tinkerers running this combo normally are aware of this and often bleed the brake at like half-pad-wear (actually overfilling the brake - resetting it like this would pop the reservoir) to not run out of braking juice. So yes, too small a reservoir can lead to brake failure.

That said, I agree that both brakes failing at the same time is still strange. It might be that one brake stopped working properly, leading to the rider compensating and overusing the other one and actually boiling the liquid or destroying/glazing the pads. But that's pure speculation.

At any rate, any trustworthy company would launch a serious investigation after something like this happened. On the other hand, in days of social media and viral stories destroying companies/lives with little regard for truth, I can somewhat understand Magene's "official" reaction to not react in any way that could construed as an admission of guilt. If this happened with Shimano and Sram groupset, they wouldn't react with "Yeah, might be our fault". How long did it take Shimano to admit their cranks were falling apart? I would expect that internally, they are looking into this really carefully, but maybe I'm just naive.  Time will tell.

Wow, thanks a lot for all the answers! This paints a much clearer picture of what is going on there.

Gonna have to have a think on what to do I guess, and whether the (not too big) savings will be worth the anxious wait for me, I can totally feel you Gianpy.

It feels like a different thing for wheels and frames, with the price delta being much higher and duty prepaid giving me peace of mind there (whether that's entirely justified or not..)

But yeah, thanks alot Still very new to this, still learning.

If you ride a bike, you're a cyclist Don't sell yourself short. But I know what you mean.

For 'short' leisure rides, you should be fine with them Based on my experiences I'd just really dread doing a 4h marathon or stage race on them. It might also be that these chinese ones aren't quite as bad, although I think the ride characteristics are inherent to the construction. Also, just for the record, I have seen other riders riding those wheels in competition, so there's that.
But for longer gravel rides, you'd probably be happier with some elite wheels offering more compliance, yes Don't completely discount your old bike though, at least I've seen it written numerous times how comfortable steel frames are supposed to be - although I don't think anywhere near what today's wider tyres offer.

Also, please be careful with the wheels since they are hookless - too high a pressure and you'll blow the tyres off the rim which can be quite catastrophic (if only for your ears, if it happens in the garage). For MTB tubeless that is mostly run below 1,5 bars, that's not issue, but for narrower road tyres it can be.

I haven't dealt with Ican myself, maybe someone else can chime that has. But I'd probably try to just contact them via their homepage.

No experience with these in particular, but I got to test-ride the 6-spoke-wheels made by bike-ahead (probably heard of them since you're in the EU) on a hardtail. They were so stiff it wasn't even funny - I've never ridden such an uncomfortable wheelset before and this was on really mellow forest singletrack with hardly any gradient, so ~15-20kph max. I wouldn't want to ride them anywhere fast and/or technical. Had someone told me before a wheelset can change the ride quality this massively, I don't think I would have believed them.
Also, if you damage a rim, the whole wheel is kaput. Which is obviously less of an issue with these, since they probably won't cost 3k

If you love the style to head to the ice cream parlor, go for it. For 'real' riding, I'd steer clear of them - uncomfortable, badly tracking on off-cambers (too stiff), fatiguing. Obviously, that's also a matter of personal taste, but I'm on Vonoa Spoked Wheels now (Newmen's) and happy with these, so I don't think I'm being a total wuss there. It's probably kinda like the other extreme to textile spokes - love them or hate them.

Edit: Just noted this is the road section - but the wheelset you linked is an MTB one, so I hope my observations are still helpful to you - but even if you use them on the road, they'll still be on the "very stiff and not comfy" end of the scale.

I looked into getting an Ultegra Di2 off Ali (Anrancee or Yiwu), but neither can provide duty prepaid shipping to Europe (Germany in this case). Can anyone from Europe maybe chime in how they handled it? Is there another reputable seller who can provide duty prepaid?

I'm new to all this (apart from a Yoeleo Frame which now needs parts), and the only information about tariffs I could find somewhere is a dubious 3 piece limit per month (Whats a piece? A groupset? An STI/Brake Combo? Will extra spokes for a wheelset make it 3+ pieces?) for private buyers over which you have to pay the (I think) about 50% anti-dumping-tariffs. With the honestly declared value and paying VAT + 4,x% normal tariff on bike parts, the savings already aren't huge....

The sellers would obviously play the game of declaring a lower value, I'm just not much of a gambler tbh. And I'm pretty sure that no duty officer would believe a value of 110 Dollars for a whole groupset, even sans crank.

The currently 'most extreme' XC bike that I know that is being ridden in XCO is the Arc8 Evolve FS, which has a HA of 65°. I have test-ridden it myself, and the very slack head angle doesn't help handling in slow, tight corners. The faster you go, the better it works. I liked it, but I'm not a purebred xc rider. My current bike (Mondraker Raze) which is 150/135 has 65,5° and would be classified as Trail/All Mountain, to put this in perspective.
These new geometries shouldn't be combined with stems longer than 50mm, and the fork should have a lower offset (normally 42 or 44).

Seat angles are a mess of its own, since companies have various ways to measure seat angle (the actual tube angle, the real angle at stack height..) and while their diagrams sometimes let you work out which one they mean, I would always take seat angles with a pinch of salt. For general reference: 75-76° is quite normal today, I have seen extremes of 78°+. My current bike has an 76,5° SA (72° real tube angle) and it works good for me. A bigger rider with more seatpost out might find himself further to the rear than he'd like, as the seat angle slackens the higher you go. Also, it depends on your crank length (shorter -> further back), obviously on your anatomy and your preferences. The old "knee above pedal axle" bike fitting method also has to be dropped with such seat angles.

Having started mtb on an early 29er XC bike with 69° HA, the ride characteristics of the current bikes are vastly superior. Much more stable, much less prone to OTBs. Obviously, dropper posts also play a major part in this - no more hanging off the back. What would have been an downhill/enduro bike geometry 10 years back is downcountry now. So you have a much better bike on the downs (mind you, with less suspension and durability than an enduro, so you shouldn't ride it quite like one) without really giving up anything for it on the way up.

Also please note that this frame has the "old" 142mm rear spacing, not 148mm boost.

Maybe good if you want to use old (8+ years) wheels, but current wheels will not fit.

For me, that'd be way more important than the brake mounts.

The CS121 has boost spacing.