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Messages - FredDias2018

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Component Deals & Selection / ENLEE frame protection
« on: February 11, 2026, 06:34:05 PM »
so, i've been running ENLEE frame protection for the past couple of weeks and i can say i'm impressed. it was extremely easy to install, very stretchy when blasting it with a blow dryer, and seems to do its job. i wouldn't install it without heat though. also, i bought the one with a topographic map because i thought it'd look cool, but my frame is dark blue so it came out horrible  :(
anyway, does anyone have long term experience with this brand, or another inexpensive alternative?

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: Ali express disc brake pads, recommendations
« on: January 09, 2026, 06:53:46 PM »
So, i'd tried the bucklos resin pads before and they work pretty good, even more so if you take the price into account. As such, i've started running the bucklos BRP-01 metallic copper pads on my spare bike to test them out, and i just want to say they're the best shimano B01S format pads i've tried so far. i'm running them on a frankenstein setup, with old tektro auriga comp levers and tektro TKD32 calipers. It was always a 2 finger brake with mediocre power (entry level brakes innit), and while i'm probably gonna use 2 fingers sometimes, since the levers are a bit long and 2 fingers sit better on them, it's the first time i've been able to do steep technical trails with only one finger on the brake with no issues. even with a 160mm front rotor, i can lift the rear wheel with 1 finger while sitting with the seat all the way down. They're much better than shimano semi metallics, and they blow the stock tektros out of the water. in terms of bite from cold they're great honestly, even when it's ~10 degrees celsius they brake nicely from cold, and their performance when warmed up is great. Their heat resistance is good too. Also, since they're copper based metallics, i was expecting them to feel a bit ''sandy/rough'', but they feel as smooth as resins, run dead quiet and have great modulation. for 4.01 euros a set, imo they're the best value pads i've ever bought. 10/10 would buy again, i'm gonna buy a shimano XT format copper set to run on my race bike too. next, i'm gonna try their sintered pads on the guinea pig bike when these wear out.

Edit: after testing them in muddy conditions at right above freezing, i've found that they can be a tiny bit noisy when they're wet and under 2-3 degrees celsius. As with any metallic pad, in very cold and wet conditions you do have to build a tiny bit of heat, when you do they stop making noise. This doesn't happen when it's dry, even if they're very cold they bite right away.

TLDR: bucklos gold copper pads are incredible, 10/10 best value pads i've ever bought

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: Ali express disc brake pads, recommendations
« on: January 05, 2026, 07:36:22 PM »
Quote from: alfiomotrambo on December 10, 2025, 07:15:32 AM
Anyone have experience with these? https://it.aliexpress.com/item/1005007370770955.html

I saw them on sale recently, the price and review seems great but can you trust during hard descend?

bucklos pads generally tend to be decent, the compound on the finned ones looks somewhat similar to their green ceramic pads, just with fins and a slightly darker colour for some reason (imo fins are a faff, i'd personally just run the ones without them). i haven't tried their ceramic compound yet, but for a road bike they should be good, wouldn't run them on an mtb though. i'm going to be fitting some of their B01S gold copper pads to my spare bike on wednesday, i'll see if they're any good. currently running shimano B05S resin, so it will be a good baseline, even if the new ones are going to be copper-based metallics. i'm also running their resin pads on my shimano xt 2 pots, and they are perfectly adequate, about as good as the shimano G05A and for like 6x cheaper.

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: Shimano chains ~ Aliexpress
« on: December 28, 2025, 06:50:41 PM »
chains in general from aliexpress are best avoided in my opinion. shimano ones are usually fake and the real ones are more expensive than locally bought, and then you have brands like VG sports which frankly suck. YBN chains are pretty good, but for the price you're better off just getting a sram chain locally.

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: LTWOO TX or other cheap 12sp MTB derailleurs
« on: December 09, 2025, 07:36:33 PM »
so, just received and installed the Ltwoo TX rear mech. shifts great, feels good, we'll see how it does. still waiting on my rockshox sidluxe to come back from warranty so i can't ride my bike right now. i'm definitely curious to see how it performs, for 45 euros it seems like it was a steal.

Edit: first impressions are amazing, it shifts perfectly. the shifter also feels very clicky, not mushy at all, beats the hell out of Shimano Deore. I'd say the shifter feels a bit like a Sram SX shifter, maybe a little better, it's nice and clicky, but of course it's not as good as something that costs 3x more. the derailleur also has zero lateral play, unlike most sram eagle mechs. build quality feels great. we shall see how it holds up. As for the clutch, there's very little chain slap, in fact, i'd say the clutch is better than a Sram GX, it's very good. And it's adjustable too, so that's nice. Loving it so far.

Edit 2: the big paddle on the shifter does have a little lateral play, so i'd say the shifter is really on the cheaper feeling side, it does feel very clicky and not mushy at all though. if i was assembling it now, i think i'd pair a sram SX shifter with an L-twoo TX derailleur.

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: Ali express disc brake pads, recommendations
« on: December 08, 2025, 01:56:47 PM »
speaking of shimano style ''B01S'' pads, i've had a great experience with tektro E10.11 and P20.11 pads. i find them much better than the equivalent shimano ones. i've ordered Bucklos resin pads for my cross country race bike with shimano XT and copper based metallics for my old bike, we'll see how well they do.

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: IIIPRO E4 4-Piston Hydraulic MTB Brakes - Are they to be trusted?
« on: December 08, 2025, 09:28:47 AM »
Quote from: Skepsist on December 08, 2025, 07:07:03 AM
I've tried ZTTO 2.3mm Rotors on both the R2X4 and the Speedone Solider (E4). It works without rubbing and since those rotos dont bend easily it will stay like that. But keep in mind that setup will be more difficult and you should definetly reset your pistons before that. Magura Brakes have serious problems with rubbing on those disc rotors and for shimano i had to let out a little bit of oil. Hope Tech 4 V4 had no problems at all.
My R2X4 is still not leaking btw. not sure if im just lucky.
if things start to leak around the barb i usually just use vaseline to seal it. works on shimano, so it would probably work on these olive-less brakes too  8)

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: IIIPRO E4 4-Piston Hydraulic MTB Brakes - Are they to be trusted?
« on: December 07, 2025, 06:54:36 PM »
Quote from: Tijoe on December 07, 2025, 03:06:24 PM
FredDias2018.  Nice to see others looking into the versatility of these Chinese 4-piston calipers.

For a IIIPro E4 caliper, I have all of the critical dimensions measured and hand sketched out in a rough drawing.    Base on the first caliper measurements I took,  my number crunching supported that the IIIPro caliper is designed to run a 1.8mm wide rotor.   Except, other calipers I measured do have a wider "B" width.

Then things became more complicated.   I have on hand, 4 sets of IIIPro E4 brakes (8calipers) a new set of Hope Tech Duo E4 lever and calipers, a new set of Frog Wake brakes, and the new Wheeltop 4-piston calipers.

I took your picture of your caliper and added "A" and "B" to your measurements.

Then I measured these 2 dimensions on some of the calipers I have off of bikes right now.

Brand                 A                      B
hope Tech Duo    3.6mm         11.75mm
IIIPro  E4  (1)     4.0mm            11.2mm
IIIPro  E4  (2)     4.0mm            11.36mm
IIIPro  E4  (3)     4.0mm            11.38mm
IIIPro  E4  (4)     4.0mm            11.5mm
Frog Wake         4.25mm           11.6mm
Wheeltop            4mm               11.5mm

I need to make a better drawing of the housing bores and dimensions I measured so everyone can see how the measurements relate to rotor thickness and pad clearances.

I will be using a 2.3mm wide rotor with the Hope Tech E4 calipers, but based on my current "gut feel", I think that these Chinese versions of the E-4 based calipers could run 2.0mm wide rotors, but 2.3mm wide rotors might lead to the pads rubbing, and make the calipers very sensitive to any non-parallelism between the pads and rotor.   

As soon as some Dot5.1 compatible 16mm Square o-rings arrive, I will attempt to get a IIIPro caliper to work and fit one on a 2.3 rotor and use the Hope Tech lever
to actuate a IIIPro E4 caliper filled with DOT 5.1 fluid.
interesting. also, will you get a brand new hope tech lever? because if it comes dry from the factory you can just run them on mineral oil with zero problems, in fact, i've found that it even seems to make it last longer because of the seals and stuff

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: IIIPRO E4 4-Piston Hydraulic MTB Brakes - Are they to be trusted?
« on: December 07, 2025, 06:31:49 AM »
Quote from: Tijoe on August 25, 2025, 03:54:56 PM
Have fellow forum members been reading the thread about the Magene brake failure?  In the recent Magene injured person thread, it "appears" that the design isn't capable of stopping a bike when the pads are worn down to metal. 

Has anyone with IIIPro brakes installed, worn their pads down below 1/4 thickness, or to the metal on their IIIPro calipers?

After reading the Magene failure thread, I started reflecting on the 3 caliper failures I have had on my IIIPros, and wonder if the IIIPros  levers/calipers could have a similar deficiency.   In hindsight, the 3 calipers lost braking force when the pads still had about 1/4 pad thickness left, as well as they started to leak around the seals.

Since then, I have installed my 2 remaining failed calipers (One has had new Hope 16mm seals installed and is back in service.) on a bench front-brake set up I put together.   After these calipers had new pads installed, and the pistons retracted back into the calibers, and they sat for a few weeks,  The 2 calipers are working again with the original seals and no leaks.

Just fishing to see if anyone else has had similar experiences, and what they have done to investigate.

hi, just wondering, what is the thickness of the rotors you're using? because on the 4 piston hope clones, the spacing between the two inner sides of the caliper is unusually wide at 11.6mm instead of the standard 11mm for most brands. these ones are from frogwake, but the caliper shell is the same as IIIPro/Zrace, the only differences are the pistons and caps. all of these shells use the same functional dimensions with only minor differences, like bleed ports, and banjos. As such, it's reasonable to assume that they would need a ~0.6mm thicker rotor than a standard caliper, which we can assume uses a 1.8mm rotor with 11mm of spacing. from what i've seen and experienced, these always have a very long dead stroke out of the box (which you can eliminate by pumping the brakes without a rotor to bring the pistons in), which could be because of that extra space. as such, i'd run these with 2.3mm rotors only, with a thinner rotor the pistons are very far out, and have little support. i think that's why they leak

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: Frog Wake FV4 MTB Brakes
« on: December 02, 2025, 06:54:56 AM »
Quote from: Skepsist on December 01, 2025, 08:07:04 AM
Heyo very interested to hear if those brakes are any good.
Still running fine with the R2X4. Even bleeding them after cutting the hose was fine.
Currently thinking about building a bikepark bike based on the Fastwork DH Frame. Those FrogWake brakes look like a good idea for that.
They still use mineral oil right?
yes, they use mineral oil. i like the lebycle oil, it's very cheap and has never failed me. also, i personally think DOT fluid is a faff. even brakes which supposedly take DOT can be ran on mineral oil if DOT fluid has never been used in them. for example, you can buy sram brakes that come bone dry from the factory, and just fill them with mineral oil and run them that way. never had issues.

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Component Deals & Selection / Re: LTWOO TX or other cheap 12sp MTB derailleurs
« on: December 02, 2025, 06:42:00 AM »
Quote from: TribesMan on May 04, 2024, 03:58:32 PM
I fitted Ltwoo TX 1x12s on my 2017 Canyon Spectral.
Upgrading from 1x11s SRAM GX.

I combined it with 9-50T ZTTO ULT cassette and YBN 12s chain.

Shifting performance itself is good, I can't say its any worse than GX.
It is reliable, predictable, shifts OK under load.
Indexing is good, easy to setup.

Quality of the components seems good.
The only thing that is a bit "iffy" is the cable guide on the derailleur, it is plastic and looks like it could break easily if something would hit the derailleur. Will see how it holds up...

What bothers me is the ergonomics of the levers, GX has much nicer position of the levers.
On TX you have to place your finger in a bit weird position to shift.

I did not experience any chain drops so far, but I do not run extremely aggressive trails.
My riding is mostly XC.


As someone with very large hands, the sram lever positioning is way too cramped for me, i was running an XX1 lever with a gx derailleur on my race bike. the ltwoo thumb lever sits much lower, i'll run it this season and then see if i like it, but it seems very good

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29er / Re: Chinese 29er Carbon Full Suspension Frame---MFM100
« on: November 26, 2025, 06:41:00 AM »
does anyone know what frame bearings this bike takes? just wondering, so that i have spare parts for my bike in the future. would scott spark bearings fit?

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29er / Re: Epic Evo Clone
« on: November 26, 2025, 06:30:26 AM »
Quote from: miguel0w on August 19, 2025, 09:44:38 AM
Now TRIFOX is also selling this bike frame, but I think there's a mistake in their ad. According to their description, the frame weighs 1270g in size 17 and 1330g in size 19. There's also a variation in the rear wheel width of only 2.25g. The official name for the brand's model is TRAIL II PRO.

Will TRIFOX's after-sales service be better than AIRWOLF?

https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005009648450462.html?spm=a2g0o.best.0.0.771522ae7lfSn0&afTraceInfo=1005009648450462__pc__pcBestMore2Love__G703WDj__1755614321811&_gl=1

i wouldn't bet on it, their shipping arrangements are sketchy at best and they sometimes ghost you on whatsapp

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29er / Re: Chinese Carbon 29er Pic Thread.
« on: August 08, 2025, 05:23:46 PM »
My trifox MFM100 race bike build. the bike feels nice, it's a great quality frame all things considered, but i think it's overpriced, and trifox were very dishonest with me. i paid ~135 euros extra for the duty paid option and DPD shipping, and they sent it through UPS without sorting out the taxes. i had to pay an eye-watering 250 euros in taxes and extra fees. i ended up paying 1000 euros for the frame, bars and accessories. safe to say i'll never buy from them again.

Edit: they've surprisingly given me the shipping cost back after a *lot* of back and forth. ended up paying some 900 euros for the frame, bars, bottom bracket, shock hardware, and some other stuff

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