LTWOO ER9 & ERX - Electronic groepsets

[PineappleExpress234]

I'm really excited for the TT brake and shifters LTWOO had on display at the Shanghai bike show. Maybe I'll be able to build an electric shifting tri bike under 8k aud

[rockerplates.de]

Well, especially as a triathlet i would stay away from ltwoo on my racebike..not many races i participate and loads of training...thrown away if you have a faulty whatever....
i mean, this is so typical chinese...they ignore the problems, give you a hard time when something is defective , do not change it fast and after loosing trust in the brand due to lacking reliability, they try to enter triathlon.....?

[Serge_K]

Yeah given the failure rate on the er9/erx, i'd wait a good 2 years after they RELEASE the triathlon version to put it on a race day bike. race bikes have to work on race day, enough things can go wrong without worrying about whether your group will decide to shift that day.
Eventually though, if they do get their act together, it will indeed be great. Should also open the doors to the "order a full custom bike from china straight to your door" market. Everything is in Xiamen, once their groups work, should be very doable to get someone to build you a bike, or at least most of it, the way Trek bikes arrive in shops, for eg (plenty of videos of Trek unboxing on YT).

[Avalius]

The reason why I've sold my EGR group. Travelling for those gravel races can't have an issue at race day. Road bike same but if it happens so be it, a race every week ..

[amacal1]

...if they do get their act together, it will indeed be great. Should also open the doors to the "order a full custom bike from china straight to your door" market. Everything is in Xiamen, once their groups work, should be very doable to get someone to build you a bike, or at least most of it, the way Trek bikes arrive in shops, for eg (plenty of videos of Trek unboxing on YT).

Don't forget the market pressure on SRAM and Shimano to price their stuff more reasonably or at least offer lower-end electronic parts. Ocme economies of scale kick in, there's no reason why electronic parts should command such a premium price compared to mechanical groupsets. There's SO many small precise parts that need to fit and function perfectly in order for a 10-11-12 speed groupset to shift reliably, and do so over hundreds and thousands of miles of use. I can't wrap my head around why that is the cheaper option, other than it's tried and true, they have supply networks all in place, the design and engineering for manufacturing is all in place already, etc. etc. and momentum carries it all forward.

[toxin]

Purely because ppl are willing to pay more for electronic

[ricedaddy]

There might be some R&D costs that went into electronic group sets they are still trying to pay off, even if manufacturing should be cheaper than mechanical

[Serge_K]

There might be some R&D costs that went into electronic group sets they are still trying to pay off, even if manufacturing should be cheaper than mechanical

That's wishful thinking unfortunately. These companies have been patent trolling for years, it's been the new rule of the game for many years. A friend used to be an intellectual property lawyer in London, representing the likes of Amazon. It is impossible to imagine how cunning these companies are at preventing competition. Amazon for example has patented so much shit related to conveyor belts that it's almost impossible to achieve their efficiency without tripping patents. Is it fair? Absolutely not.
SRAM and Shimano do essentially the same thing.
At these price levels, it's pure price gouging. Especially when you consider the price difference between OEM pricing and retail pricing, especially on Shimano.

[Mattpl]

Hi i have problem with er9 one of you have simillar problem.
Problem is happend again (5 rides and 2 same situation), same situation, straight road without any holes, and system go down. This happend with some combination of front from 1 to second and on rear and back. After plug charger system turn on (new battery). happend when i tried to shift both derailleurs at the same time??
Front from big to small and back vice versa.?

[rockerplates.de]

Yeah given the failure rate on the er9/erx, i'd wait a good 2 years after they RELEASE the triathlon version to put it on a race day bike. race bikes have to work on race day, enough things can go wrong without worrying about whether your group will decide to shift that day.
Eventually though, if they do get their act together, it will indeed be great. Should also open the doors to the "order a full custom bike from china straight to your door" market. Everything is in Xiamen, once their groups work, should be very doable to get someone to build you a bike, or at least most of it, the way Trek bikes arrive in shops, for eg (plenty of videos of Trek unboxing on YT).

Well, frankly speaking, that is a common chinese problem and i have only worked with one company on complete different level: DJI

We started the business with them and they listened to our reviews, tips etc....the founders rolemodel was steve jobs...we started with them when they had 7 employees...look at them now..
Ltwoo ist just another chinese company who does not know, how big the potencial would be, if they would erase issues immediately, even better, not having those issues...at the end, they are money driven and do not understand, that spending this little extra money in making the product perfect NOW would skyrocket sales...
With launching these product too early, they basically destroyed the brand..yes, all the aliexpres cheapo guys buy the stuff, but the quantity comes from manufacturers and distributors. And we will see, if all those electronic groupsets do hurt any patents, when the big player lawyers come into the game...
We did end up very disappointed with the way ltwoo treated our problems...they do not trust us and wanted to see videos of the broken product? yeah...a dead product makes a great video...

[rockerplates.de]

Don't forget the market pressure on SRAM and Shimano to price their stuff more reasonably or at least offer lower-end electronic parts. Ocme economies of scale kick in, there's no reason why electronic parts should command such a premium price compared to mechanical groupsets. There's SO many small precise parts that need to fit and function perfectly in order for a 10-11-12 speed groupset to shift reliably, and do so over hundreds and thousands of miles of use. I can't wrap my head around why that is the cheaper option, other than it's tried and true, they have supply networks all in place, the design and engineering for manufacturing is all in place already, etc. etc. and momentum carries it all forward.

well, you buy an insurance for having a great day on a bike not breaking down somewhere or dnf a race, that is what people pay for: TRUST in the brand....of course, i do know guys who buy stuff because its cheap and they would never admit, that they have trouble with it...

[jonathanf2]

On the plus side of LTwoo's missteps, it's allowed more Chinese groupset competition to catch up. Wheeltop and soon Magene will also be in the electronic groupset market. I haven't heard anything from Sensah, but if they do make an electronic groupset there will be four potential players. Whoever can step up quality and customer service will own the Chinese cycling market which is on the rise.

I think within the next 3-5 years one of these companies will come out on top. Also that's the number that was thrown around for a Chinese sponsored cycling team to enter the World Tour. That means one of these manufacturers will really need to step up reliability if they want to represent.

[amacal1]

well, you buy an insurance for having a great day on a bike not breaking down somewhere or dnf a race, that is what people pay for: TRUST in the brand....of course, i do know guys who buy stuff because its cheap and they would never admit, that they have trouble with it...

That's assuming that Shimano and SRAM components never have issues, which is far from the case. I wasn't really paying attention when the first electronic group sets became common, but others comment that they had their issues, even on race days. I would assume they still do, to a much lesser degree, though the rare times they still have issues the problems are probably more quickly and painlessly corrected.

Also, engineering and design missteps are still non unheard of for the big boys, as stories of Shimano's delaminating cranks caused many people huge headaches and even injuries.

But I wasn't talking about the upper end of the market. I was talking about the mid and lower tiers, where electronic geoupsets can really shine on a price/performance ratio, but Shimano and SRAM keep the tech walled off to only high performance and super high price because they have no real reason not to price it as such. Now, perhaps, they'll have a reason.

[Serge_K]

On Shimano failing, the Nero podcast that just came out, Chris flew across Australia for a race and his di2 died at the start of the race.
I feel everyone who has SRAM has several stories about groups running out of juice. The batteries on SRAM are notoriously bad.
The documentary Icarus that was so interesting about the guy doping for the haute route event. He dnfed because his di2 died.
Maybe the morale of the story is to run mechanical.
But my hope is that L-TWOO will improve their products. Maybe in 3 years they will make stuff that's just as reliable as the big guys. I hope so.

[jonathanf2]

Just a heads up with the ER9. I found if shifting maybe 3-4 gears without pedaling, you can derail the chain and jam it on the RD cage. I also ended up scruffing up the inner cage plate. I'm way too OCD, so I removed it, sanded it down and repainted the cage matte black with some paint primer.

It does make me wish there were some optional cage replacements in case of major damage.