so today I'm building a disc brake carbon road bike with a 2x12 electronic group set but every single part is from a Chinese manufacturer so this could be one of my best value builds to date so let's dive in my name as always is Luke and welcome back to Trey Stella look at this so I got my silver play button from YouTube in in the post this morning for a hundred thousand sub easy so yeah genuinely I'm so so chuffed with it um yeah it's been a good few years for me to get here but thank you so much to everyone that's like commented subscribed and then and helped me get here um yeah what what a milestone for me personally and I've also got to say thank you to my mother-in-law Kath who when she found out the news she painted me this little picture which is really sweet so thank you Kath I'll stick this up on the wall behind me but yeah genuinely I'm blown away I know I never ever thought it would go this well um yeah surprising anyway enough of that thank you again let's get on to the path right now [Music] right then let's go so yeah the frame is from trifox their x18 it's fully carbon fiber and looks really nice inside and out with fully internal cable routing I've already done a video dedicated to this thing so yeah check that out for some more detail the group set ERX from L2 really tasty looking electronic group set with some nice carbon fiber parts to spice things up um yeah it also offers fully hydraulic disc braking and again I've already done an unboxing on this thing super excited to try this out and see if the hype is real around this group set I've chosen the drive 50d wheel set from Elite Wheels great looking pair of Wheels super lightweight 50 millimeter deep carbon rims and carbon spokes yeah I can't go wrong with these the crank set this carbon fiber Beauty from uh from race work super lightweight at 548 grams and I've really enjoyed using this for the last few months on another bike so I've ripped it off that to where to use on this build the cassette is a 12 speed Chrome owner steel monoblock cassette from a company called s road again really lightweight but also nice and durable thanks to the fully steel construction the BSA bottom bracket is a random one from Ebay that I had lying around yeah made by a company called giancon but the bearings are still nice and smooth so it's going on the build the saddle is this AliExpress carbon special that I've uh yeah I've already used for a few thousand miles on another bike so it's going on this one pedals are from a company called Costello basically identical to the older time espresso 12 pedals but yeah cheap and lightweight the disc rotors are these ones from a company called zedrace and the bar tape is uh yeah this random stuff I found on eBay for three quid now the chain is possibly the only part that's from a sort of a well-recognized western brand is a 12-speed KMC chain although I do have a 12 speed VG Sports chain from AliExpress in the post so that'll be going on as soon as I receive it so yeah apart from the chain and also the tires that are that are from Hutchinson every single part of this build is sourced from a lesser-known Chinese brand I'll cover the total build cost later in the video but rest assured it's pretty Pretty stinking good value um anyway let's get building [Music] right then first up I'm going to cut the steerer tube to length so I'll slap the wheels on to check the height and see how many spaces that I need under the stem I've gone with all three included spaces here with a little extra on top just in case so I'll score a mark on the steerer tube and get it cut now this is a quick tip I learned from one of you lot in the comments actually if you have a spare stem lying around you can use it as a rudimentary cutting guide to help kind of guide the hacksaw blade which is what I've done here so with that cut I can now run the brake hoses through the fork and the frame okay so I've cut this stereo tube to length and the next thing I'm going to start doing is rooting these brake hoses through and you can see I've got a gear cable coming out here and I'll show you what it's for so I was looking at these brake hoses that are attached to the calipers and they've got this little metal piece on the end and for a while I wasn't entirely sure what they were for so I did a bit of Googling and it's for this so you can see this is a gear cable for a sort of Mechanical group set and then at the end of it there it fits quite nicely into a little recess in that metal piece and basically it enables you to pull the brake hoses through quite tough to reach places so that's exactly what I've done fed the gear cable through here out of this and I can pull that through and sort of yeah fit up the breakout so that's a good little hack for you so I'll get this done at the front same for the rear and then I can look to start Plumbing the brake lines into the back of the shifters and then get them mounted onto the bars so let's crack on so pulling the brake hoses through the fork and the frame here yeah really straightforward and with the hoses pulled through I also secured the calipers Loosely in place with the included right and the front and the rear brake calipers are all mounted up and the hoses are pulled through and it was yeah really really straightforward actually especially using this gear cable trick that I showed you and yeah pulling the hoses through there was no obstructions in the frame or anything I didn't have to file any of these holes down it was all super smooth so yeah that was straightforward let me pull this up and I'll show you the cable routing in here okay so let me lift this up with some sort of headset spaces up and you should be able to see underneath this sort of aluminum compression ring and it's really nicely machined I'm not entirely sure what it's called but it helps preload this front bearing this is the hose for the front brake and the one around the other side is the rear brake that's this one here and yeah this all slots together nicely this has some nice chamfered edges on there which is cool so this is really well made and these headset spaces are glass fiber reinforced plastic so everything up the front here slots together nicely yeah shouldn't have any problems with that so now that's then I can root these cables Through The Handlebar so I'll get them mounted up and then I can fit these shifters on so yeah come we interrupt our program to bring you this important message the garage is an absolute mess right now so um I'm filming this in my kitchen so Sirocco are back to sponsor another episode they make some great value cycle kit and I've worn their stuff for years at this point and right now I wear this on pretty much every ride it's their SRX Pro Jersey super lightweight construction and great quality materials this one I'm wearing has been in and out of the wash like 20 30 times by this point and it still looks nearly brand new plastic comes in loads of colors and you can pick it up for like 50 Quid right now and as for the bib shorts It's these every time they're BX bib shorts super comfortable and great padding but if you wanted something a little more budget friendly you can pick up these Aspen bib shorts and one of their M2 jerseys for just over 80 quid now I I hate to say it but Autumn isn't too far away either so you might want to consider some long sleeve jerseys these M4 thermal jerseys are fantastic possibly a cycle best or regile helps keep the rain off and packs up really small or even some bib tights these envelary bib ties are really great and I've worn them over the last two winter seasons but Sirocco do all sorts of Cycle Gear it looks really stylish and it's great value so use my link in the description for 10 off the entire site and it helps me you know with the channel as well which is cool anyway thanks for listening let's get back to it so routing the brake hoses through the bars was very simple and as the shifters Are Wireless like the SRAM etap system you're not routing another two sets of cables or wires for the front and rear derailleur which makes life much easier okay so this is all set up at the front and good to go and yeah it was really straightforward actually you'll see I've left a little bit of room on top of the stereo tube here in case I want to add another headset spacer in the future and if I show you underneath this is the routing for the two brake hoses it's a wireless group set so I only only need to run the brake hoses through the handlebar so that's all good to go yeah really straightforward there there is one slight thing or slight issue I found it's been perfect so far apart from this so now I've tightened this down tightened the headset down the bottom of these headset spaces here this one it does contact the frame slightly so let me see if you can hear it hear that creaking yeah not really ideal maybe if I put a bit of Grease between the two surfaces it would be a bit better but I think in the cupboard there I've got some some spaces some little shims that I could put between these two and maybe raise it up slightly so um I'll see if I can get that done and then we can add the shifters on get them sort of plumbed in and then get the brakes blood so yeah let's crack on okay so I've pulled this apart and unfortunately adding a little metal shim or a tiny little spacer under there isn't going to help it's just the way it Stacks together it's not really feasible so what I'll do is I'll put a little bit of Grease around the sort of the edge of the frame here I think the problem is the paint in this area is just a little bit too thick so I'll put a bit of grease in there to help smooth things out it's honestly not too bad so I'm not particularly bothered about it if I was super obsessive I could pull all this apart and then sand the bottom of this lower spacer just under here and that would solve the problem but I can't really be bothered a few moments later okay I uh I take it back I I can't I can't deal with it it's a little bit too tight you can see it it's it's no good there's too much friction here so I'm going to pull this apart and sand the bottom of this piece here Okay cool so after sanding for a couple of minutes I took off probably less than half a millimeter of material off the bottom of this lower headset spacer there and now yeah no more rubbing that's nice and smooth so I'm glad I took the time to uh yeah do a little bit of sanding on there but with that done let's get these shifters plumbed in so Plumbing in the shift is easy peasy you have barbs olives and nuts once cut to length the Barb goes in the end of the hose then you slide on the nut followed by the olive add a touch of Grease onto the threads and then seat the hose into the back of the shifter and tighten the nut to crush that Olive it's very easy in principle but when you're dealing with integrated bars and tight cable runs it can be a little tricky so take your time and avoid cross threading the nut at all costs Okay cool so these are on the bike took a little bit of time to get them both sort of plumbed in and stuff as it always does but they're all good to go so you can get these breaks bled next and after that we can start adding on the derailleurs and getting all this electronic gubbins fitted into the frame so yeah let's go so bleeding the brakes again pretty straightforward in principle but it can be a bit finicky so rather than going into detail here L2 have a decent video describing how to do it and the instruction manual covers it as well just make sure you have some Shimano mineral oil and a decent bleed kit and yeah you'll be fine okay the shifters have been fitted everything's bled brakes are working so next up let's fit this electronic gubbins onto the bike okay so first thing first I need to fit this battery I need to mount it inside the seat post but unfortunately well it's it's a proprietary seat post shape for this tripox Frame and if I put the battery inside it rattles around in there um a little bit and I need to make sure this is secure so I bought this on eBay it's a kind of a rubber shim for a di2 battery which is essentially an identical width and a similar shape to this L2 battery and this is designed to help it fit into circular seat posts but uh with two shims it's a bit too fat but with one shim it actually fits nice and snugly so I'll get it inserted and I'll show you what I've done okay so that is a secured inside the seat tube it doesn't look particularly pretty but trust me it's it's really wedged in there that's that's not going anywhere so with that done I'll um attach the wires and stick that inside the seat tube and probably just have the wires hanging out the bottom bracket tube and with that done I can get the derailleurious fitted so let's go right this next step was really easy just running the wires through the frame just make sure you do this before installing the bottom bracket and bear in mind one wire is slightly shorter than the other and that's the one for the front derailleur okay so the group set is um yeah it's pretty much on the bike actually so got the battery inside the seat post plugged in the cables and they were dangling out of the sort of bottom bracket hole ran the front derailleur cable back up posted it through this hole into the friendly Railway there and the rear ran it up through the chainstay tube and it came out of the back here and I plugged that into the rear derailleur so let's give it a go this is the front derailleur one so that's all working and the rear yeah same story so that's all yeah all pretty much good to go and you might be able to hear my uh throat is a little bit kind of crusty I've been dealing with a bit of a throat infection which is not been fun but yeah got through it so next up a bottom bracket crank saddle uh chain and bar tape and we're there so yeah um let's crack on this is music for a montage royalty free subscription music services are quite expensive right then here we are all done and it looks very tasty if you ask me the build was pretty straightforward but the real test is how it performs out on the road so let's get a few miles on it and give it a really good Shakedown [Music] okay so I've done about 200 miles and this thing is fantastic right firstly this trifox Frame well to be honest firstly I should have had a shave before I uh before I started filming look at that shadow of a mustache there yeah disgraceful this trifox Frame now at the time of filming it costs 460 quid so it is pretty flipping cheap but full disclosure trifox actually sent me this to review and I'll put the details in the description you can get yourself 10 off if you fancy picking one up and I've also done a full Deep dive episode on this particular frame so you can check that out as well if you fancy it but all in all I am incredibly impressed with this Frame a lot of the cheaper frames that I've dealt with over the years have required some additional work during the build like filing of the cable routing holes or managing poorly fitting seat posts stuff like that that but with this Frame here yeah none of that this has been great it was uh yeah a bit of a dream to work on actually once that headset spacer issue was sorted and I filed that down everything went together really well and the build was yeah super smooth now like I said in the initial episode on this Frame it's yeah very similar in overall shape and geometry to a specialized tarmac sl7 and much like the sl7 that this Frame is sort of inspired by it's a really good middle ground between a full-on arrow and an endurance frame so it's nice and fast and stiff when you need it to be but it's also got some good compliance built into the frame so it's comfortable for kind of all-day riding basically this is a really good all-rounder style of Road frame the included sort of Aero handlebars with this Frame they they also surprised me so most of the cheap carbon handlebars that I've tried have felt pretty flexy in the Sprints when you're holding onto the to the drops but these ones feel nice nice and solid actually so um yeah I've got a lot of faith in those to be honest and the seat post hasn't slipped into the frame at all you'll see I've put some silicon sealant on the interface there to stop any water from getting into the frame on wet rides now try Fox do give you this little rubber gasket here for that purpose but these things never really work so I always put some actual silicon sealant around there prevent any water Ingress into the frame and it's also really easy to remove as well so that's a good hack for you but yeah basically I just put some grip paste on the seat tube put it in and then tighten the clamp up to six or seven newton meters and yeah Bingo it hasn't slipped in at all which is definitely new I'm so used to dealing with slipping seat posts on these cheaper frames so yeah that thing's definitely impress me now I'm sure you'll see it's also about two centimeters above the minimum insertion distance on the seat tube but they're still about five inches inside the frame so yeah I'm definitely not too worried it should be absolutely fine and lastly the saddle clamp up here so the one that comes stock with the frame it only supports standard circular saddle rails but because I run a carbon saddle I've got these oval rails so I put these adapters on the outsider to help it fit but it's been absolutely fine again this is often a problem area on these cheaper frames and these have a tendency to Creak and shift around but this one has been yeah perfect so overall this Frame is very impressive so fair play trifox you've done a really good job actually so yeah if you did want to check this out like I said I'll put the details of like 10 off and stuff in the description and definitely check out my full video on this Frame if you're interested [Music] what can I say the ERX group set has has been great also in case you're not aware this electronic group set costs 537 quid or 437 for the regular aluminum version the closest competitor from Shimano their 105 di2 costs around double that right now if not a bit more so if it's good this group set is a pretty big deal has has been great so without having to deal with cables or wires like do2 installation was incredibly easy indexing the gears for the front and the back it was a yeah really straightforward and I mentioned this during the unboxing for this group set but the companion app you use with this group set is actually really good I used to work in mobile app development and I'm well aware the companion apps for products like this are often a bit neglected and a bit of an afterthought but not here it's yeah really good it's simple to use and intuitive and the the English translations are perfect as well using the app you can index each gear individually on the front and back set high and low limits check battery status and switch between 12 11 and even 10 speed Drive trains which is something even the big boys like SRAM and Shimano can't match the shifter hoods are also incredibly comfortable for me they're nice and narrow kind of reminiscent of the older style SRAM shifters if you're familiar with those so should be pretty good for people with smaller hands as well plus the rubber they use is really nice they just have an air of quality about them they certainly don't feel cheap that's for sure right I've set up the indexing for this in the app and let me show you the shifting performance because it's pretty much perfect so um yeah let's go I'll move down one at a time like so easy peasy all the way down and then back up yeah no problem at all and the speed the speed at which you can change gear is crazy so you can absolutely blast through the gears and all the way back up and indexing every single time is perfect because it's obviously actuated by a little motor in there yeah basically the shifting performance at the back here is yeah it's phenomenal okay so shifting at the front again just super impressive so big ring small ring Big Ring small ring super fast super Snappy and let me show you the trimming feature so I'm in the larger sprockets at the back I'll change up into the biggest Pro sorry the smaller sprockets so basically go down the cassette and you'll hear the chain is now rubbing on the fronti radio but if I press the shift button again if it trims it like that so it doesn't automatically trim it while you're running through the gears like di2 does but they weren't able to actually use that for for patent reasons so this is a pretty good alternative so again I'll click the button yeah automatically trim so all in all shifting front and back yeah like I said pretty phenomenal now there were two big issues that have been highlighted with this group set the first was discovered by GC performance great Channel by the way and Grand over there he installed his ERX group set but had issues where it kept going to sleep in the middle of a ride I think there's an accelerometer in the really derailleur so when you stop moving the group set goes into a sleep mode to kind of save battery and this happened to Grant a set of lights but the problem is when he started moving again the group set didn't wake back up I've not had this issue at all my group set does go to sleep but the minute I start pedaling or move the bike everything wakes back up like it should I have a feeling it may have been a firmware issue because Grant had one of the very first production units off the line which would have had a very early version of the firmware from watching his latest video he doesn't have the problem anymore so it seems to have been solved plus I've not had any issues with that on my group set the second second issue is waterproofing so Joe from China cycling and Panda Podium Fame uh yeah he mentioned he was out riding his ERX group set and got caught in a bit of a downpour now I don't know the full details and I'm sure he'll cover it in his own video but essentially the next day the group set I had a few issues so a key objective for me was riding this thing in the rain right it's about half eight so it's a pitch black outside but it's raining so I'm gonna get this bike out on the road and see if the waterproofing holds up so wish me luck okay so literally yeah just stepped in the door and yeah the bike is completely soaked I was out for about 30 40 minutes and I made a point of going through some big puddles as I was cycling along to make sure this was properly soaked it was working fine at the end of the ride but I'll leave it overnight and we'll see if it see if it continues to work so let's uh wait and see right it's the next morning I've still got my monkey slippers on so yeah does it work yeah seems to be working absolutely fine essentially I've had no problems I've ridden it three times in the pouring rain [Applause] [Music] and I've even just left it outside my house for a couple of hours whilst it's been tipping down outside and yeah it hasn't hasn't skipped a beat Grant over at GC performance he's also done a bit of wet weather testing so going check out that video as well but he didn't face any issues either so I'm not saying I'd like trust it to run under the sea or something but I certainly wouldn't worry about getting caught in the odd shower with this group set and the brakes on the front and the back are absolutely fantastic uh plus I've even let the bike fall over by accident and it's landed directly on the rear derailleur here it was it was totally fine so I'm gonna have to get some decent mileage on it before I can give it a full recommendation but all in all I'm really impressed with this group set yeah absolutely love it for the money very impressive [Music] right then the total cost for this build comes to 2 233 pounds 49 Pence now that doesn't include import duties on some of the bigger items as there's no guarantee you'll pay the same as I did and it depends on like shipping costs and and all sorts but maybe add an extra 200 quid on top of it something like that but anyway with that aside let's do the weigh-in right then so we've got both pedals and the bottle cage on the bike so let's get this thing weighed up so I'll pop that on there like so and she is swinging and what's the final win 7.47 kilos yeah that's pretty good I reckon so yeah under 7.5 kilograms including pedals and bottle cages not too bad I say but how does that compare to other bikes on the market the specialized sl7 comp here is a pretty good comparison obviously similar frame but 105 di2 for the group set and shallow aluminum rims it's more than double the cost at five grand and much heavier at 8.3 kilograms as well and that's even weighed without pedals and bottle cages too now the S works sl7 again it's a pretty good comparison without bottle cages and pedals it does come in lighter at 6.7 kilograms but it's got similar deep section carbon rims and it comes with Dura Ace di2 but does cost like nearly five at times as much at 11 seven thousand pounds and don't even get me started on the latest SLA what's that like 12 Grand yeah pretty ridiculous so yeah hopefully you should see this bike is pretty stellar in terms of value [Music] well what what a bike for the money I am super happy with it although there is one thing that I would change the bar tape on here is Dreadful so you can see it's already sort of peeling off so I bought this stuff double the cost at six pounds on eBay looks it looks a little bit more durable so I'll be putting this on and I think I can take some weight off this bike pretty easily firstly the stock brake calipers that come with this group set are quite heavy if I swap over to these ones I can quite easily save about 100 grams and I mentioned this during the kind of frame overview video but the bar and stem combo that's pretty chunky as well that weighs 539 grams switching to a one piece setup at the front from the likes of OG evkin or something like that I think I could quite easily save close to 200 grams so those are definitely some upgrades for the future I think um anyway yeah let me know what you think of this bike would you ride it yourself um yeah subscribe hit the like button and also do make a point of leaving some baguette emojis because I I love to see him uh right anyway that's it see you next time