Just my initial thoughts on the EDS RA6000 (carbon rim brake) groupset. Up front, it’s working well for my intended purposes and after 6 days of continuous riding I am quite happy with the product for the price. Time will tell how good of a groupset it actually is.
For a good overview of the groupset, I found Ribble Valley Cyclist’s review to be helpful:
I received my group a week early, which was a surprise. No damage to the packaging. Everything appeared to be in order. Not a lot of instructions or extra parts. It’s basically a mini grouppo, bring your own crankset, chain and cassette. I pre downloaded the app. For the first two days, I fumbled my way through the app, set up and tuning. Translations to English are not the best but if you are familiar with working on bikes most of it should be self explanatory.
I set the group up on a 14yro near mint Tarmac Elite frame that I’m using on my turbo during the winter months. The rest of the year its my “training, travel, take to work bike”. Despite it’s age the bike performs really well. I had brand new 105 R7000 before I put the EDS on. Running 50-34 compact cranks and 11-32 cassette.
Set up using the “Initial Calibration” feature on the app is really simple. Mount everything, add the chain, set the RD on the smallest sprocket and move it slightly inboard till it rubs the next gear. Back it off and set the limit screw. Function test by moving through the gears and set the high limit screw. All done.
I got some chatter in some of the middle gears. Took me a while to figure out the “fine tuning” feature but once I got it sorted, fine tuning has actually gotten pretty easy. I recommend moving up or down in increments of +/-50. You’ll know really quickly if its going in the right direction.
Performance wise, I am comparing this group to SRAM AXS Force (previous gen), Ultegra Di2 11spd, and Dura-Ace Di2 11spd. I have thousands of miles on all three of those groups and have my opinions on all of them. My opinion is that Di2 has always “worked”. I’ve never had an issue with Ultegra or DA. Tuning, cassette, chainring swaps, all easy. Battery life, never an issue. SRAM, worked great, hoods were a bit big, it was noisy and it took me a year to figure out how to prevent the dreaded FD overshift… but it was still a solid group.
EDS in comparison to these groups “feels” to me ever so slightly slower in shifting. Not like in a detrimental way, it’s just what I perceive to feel. I am only using it in “Casual mode”. I tested “Race mode” in the stand and it shifted much faster but it would skip 2-3 gears. Also, Race mode is supposed to drain the battery quicker. In Race mode it didn’t seem like the FD shifted any quicker.
Over the last 6 days I’ve ridden between 20-30 miles each day. No missed shifts, no chatter (after fine tuning) or hang ups. Riding hilly undulating routes with constant shifting. It was surprisingly good with zero issues. Felt better than my SRAM Force if I can be honest. The paddles for shifting are decent but don’t provide positive “click” like Shimano or SRAM when making gear changes. Set up of the FD was easier than the RD and far easier than SRAM’s FD. I set it one time, fine tuned it and have had no chain drops. The FD is slow but it works with no drama.
Hoods in my opinion are ugly but functional. They “work” but lack any real thought or ergo design behind them. On the other hand, they are bigger than Shimano’s hoods and smaller than SRAM’s. The rubber is pretty good too.
I did not take any weight measurements, however when I unboxed the group, each component felt heavier than I expected. On the bike, it didn’t affect the overall bike weight by a large margin. Both batteries came with about an 80% charge. I charged them to 100% before started my tests. After one week the RD is at 70% and the FD is at 75%. I plan to ride until I hit 20% before recharging.
Couple of concerns and annoyances. Spare parts, battery replacements, hoods are not available. Every time you want to connect to check battery life or make changes to the group, you have to wake the system with the charging cable plugged into a power source. There is no external wake feature.
I plan on putting the miles only this group over the summer. As issues arise or anything happens of concern I’ll update this thread. In the meantime, I think if it continues to work as is I will try it out with a 12spd set up in the fall.
