Is this budget electronic groupset a Shimano and SRAM killer? L-Twoo of China launches new semi-wireless eRX groupset

lawrencefalk wrote:

Will it be reliable and work out of the box?

Youtuber Trace Velo regularly gets these new groupsets when they are first released and often finds problems that need modifications to work properly. These companies seem to use youtubers as product testers as they often update their products within a few months.

Personally I have no interest in anything more modern than mechanical 8sp but I always enjoy his videos. There are plenty of other channels covering these products but not all of them are that objective.

But the > £1700 firms paid for the all the design & investment up front.

If the £1500 firms are just copying the design, of course it will be cheaper, but they're not innovating a cheaper design.

And then who does the design investment part if the > £1700 firm goes out of business saying theres no profit in this stuff for us anymore.

Exactly. 

All very good points, but based on the premise that the price difference is purely in the R&D. Which is naive.

I remember a few years back, I was racing for a team, and the subject of team bike groupsets came up. Riders were polled, would they prefer mechanical Dura Ace or Ultegra Di2? The feedback was heavily Di2. 

Team bikes turned up with Ultegra mechanical. On asking why I was told that the Ultegra mechanical group was available to the team (from bike factory) at £80 a bike (minus cranks). Too good (cheap) to not do. Opened my eyes to the true cost of these things. 

To think that the big boys are putting anyone other than their shareholders first is foolish to say the least.

Investment into what? Two stepper motors, a few electric cables and software to control it so complex a clever 14 year old could write it? Why does a single Di2 cable have to cost £20, when exactly the same cable but without the Shimano logo on it, in my local electrical supply store costs a few pennies? Electronic groupsets are cheaper to manufacture than mechanical ones. 

The cheaper price is always easy to appreciate. It's sometimes more difficult to understand the way in which Chinese companies simply rip off the IP of other companies. I always find that Googling "landwind" and looking at the pictures helps.

Ha, A Chinese Land Rover. I bet that thing must be so unreliable and poorly bui, oh wait!

That's short sighted.
The world doens't only excist of 'serious cyclists'. There's plenty of people who don't have the budget, or who simply don't want to spend the premium prices from the top bands.

Budget is budget, yes, but the thing is that if you choose wisely, there's a lot of good stuff avaliable for budget prices.

My Microshift Advent group has been marvelous, and only spending €25 for a new cassette at the beginning of a new season just makes it even better.
Decathlon bikes from their mid to top range are also budget, but extremely good value. Their bikes are equiped well AND ride superbly, as is evidenced form the reviews on this site and others.
And there are many examples like those.

there's a lot of good stuff avaliable for budget prices
True - even Big S produces them, and I have bored previously on the excellent and cheap Sora 9-speed. I had Ultegra 9 speed when it was top end and it was no better than recent Sora. I know that because I still have it on my 'best' titanium Merlin, which is still great despite the rim brakes.

I suspect the only real difference between this and the branded options is the profit margin.

In that case the cost per unit would go up as distributors would want their cut of the profits 

The way they are letting you have it cheaper than mainstream competitors is by cutting out the middleman and selling direct to consumer.

For a product to survive, a good aftersales support infrastructure has to be in place

cyclists cling to familiarity

Very true- I cling very hard to Shimano myself after decades of use of excellent kit. However, I am wary of Ultegra Bonded Pasta Cranks!

FSA WE egroup has been invisible in the wild. If L-twoo can get product out there they could do ok.

Cargo-cultism?  The 1950's called and want their lazy stereotypes back. 

It wasn't lazy, it was a very carefully considered metaphor. And it's been in use way before the 1950s.  If you're going to be snarky at least be correct. 

LTwoo is famous for copying every other bike product. If you look at their product line, everything "resembles" something else. They get it to look the same, but it won't perform and won't last. They have such a bad reputation for "borrowing" technology, that even other Chinese companies will no longer work with them.