The aim was to get something similar in style to a Canyon Grizl. I wanted lots of tyre clearance, and with significant difference to a road bike. For style I wanted something striking, and I like to be able to refer to my bikes by the colour (I already have predominately green (commuter), white (race), blue (winter) and red (old race) bikes. This one will most definitely be known as "Yellow"). It will be used for hitting local gravel and offroad paths, and potentially bike-packing at a future date.
I'm not the most experienced at ordered from China, so kept to AliExpress, and generally brands/shops that had a good number of orders, or where online recommendations exist. I've got previous experience with L-Twoo groupsets (Blue is on eR9). I try to build with some level of ease-of-maintainence in mind, so I tend to avoid fully-integrated headsets, and will always go for screw-in bottom brackets.
Parts ListSome parts were either from stock in the garage, or sourced locally/UK;
- Bar Tape (black/yellow)
- Deore XT 12S chain and quicklink
- Deore M540 pedals
- Continental Race King 29x2.0 tyres
- Silca Sealant
- Tubeless Rim Tape
- Tubeless valves
- Internal cable damping
- 160mm Discs and Centre-lock adaptors
- 2 x 14500 3.7V 800aAh cells
- Carbon-style frame protection stickers
- Garmin Mount
- Elite Bottle Cages
Issues during build;
1) The drive-side stay on the frame is very narrow, and internal routing of cables/wires is very hard. Getting the power wire to the rear mech ultimately required me to grease the head of it up (the L-Twoo cables have a very slightly larger head than comparable Di2) and drag it through attached to a brake cable.
2) The L-Twoo brake calipers refused to bleed. I suspect the bleed port nipples were not sealing (there is no o-ring that I can see, it's just a metal grub screw, and I definitely caught one leaking at least twice). I ultimately swapped to the ZRACE XG, which were far nicer to work with, and bled first time. Also slightly lighter!
3) Most stuff arrived (to the UK) within a couple of weeks of order. The Elite Wheels took 6 weeks from order to arrival. Still well within delivery expectations, but slightly frustrating as the final build was waiting on them. I have ridden this multiple times on a diferent wheelset, but today I finished the final build as shown. I've spent this afternoon setting them up on tubeless (along with a fair amount of swearing, obviously)
4) Not an issue, but a note in L-Twoo installation. Most issues I've heard of seem to be around water ingress on the mech power cables. I pre-emptively add extra protection here with liquid electrical tape (
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liquid-Electrical-Tape-Insulating-Black-125ml/dp/B0CX58Y6VF ). This has served well on the eR9-equipped Blue bike (which has done several hundred miles in Yorkshire rain), and I have confidence that the same process will work here.
Really happy with how it looks, and handles. The final fit is based on my road bikes, with a bit more height at the front. Final weight (with pedals, bottle cages, Garmin mount and sealant) is 9.2kg, and a lot of that is the tyres (705g each as listed weight). Clearances on the frame are fine with these tyres, though I doubt I could size up to 2.1/2.2 on the rear, the limit being the clearances on the rear stays near the bottom bracket. It's done about 250km of mixed terrain on the other wheelset, with no issues. I much prefer the feel of the eGr shifters compared to the eR9...they have a far more tactile feel to the shift buttons, and the hoods are slightly chunkier (I find eR9 hoods a little too narrow). I went with a 46T max on the rear as that is the max stated capacity of the eGr. I _think_ it could take something bigger, but I don't really feel a need for it...42-46 is a far more generous gear than I'm used to.
Final cost is about £1500 + import tax. The import tax is a little tricky to determine, as some stuff came with other items not directly related to the build, and the entire package was taxed. If they had come separately, I probably would not have been charged! I didn't do amazingly well at the AliExpress price game (for example, if I was ordered now there are some better deals on that I got). On top of this I also ordered some spare parts (mech hangers, bar tape, some inner tubes for get-home emergencies) and some accessories (like a bar bag).
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