Still no Wheeltop Wireless EDS in the US….wait, whut? The road version is here?

It’s been over 3 months since the wheeltop.com site available to the US teased the imminent arrival of the road products, EDS TX. Prices listed were as low as $457 for the aluminum cable brake version ($466 for carbon) and as high as $572 for the carbon hydraulic brake version. Then there was some time where the US facing website went off line for a week or so.

I checked back off and on and there were some formatting and content changes. The link to the MTB version would sometimes go to a 404 page and the road version page went from the original 4 variant listing, with prices, to one or two variants. Sometimes with prices listed in euros. Always with a notice that the product was “sold out”.

This week I noticed that a “buy now” button had appeared on the website, which still opens up with a splash page for the EDS TX road product. At first there was a banner across the top that referred to product being available from a Malaysian outfit. Then it quickly reverted to other content. The product page itself still claimed the product was sold out, as recently as yesterday.

Today, the “buy now” links to a page offering the EDS OX in Hydraulic Brake groupset (€739), the cable brake groupset (€649) or the Hydraulic groupset with brakes excluded (€699). It is unclear why this page doesn’t have dollars but there’s a note about free shipping to Germany and French so maybe this is EU facing website and the US one hasn’t been made yet?

Both of the variants appear to feature carbon brake levers. The hydraulic brake groupset appears to include the brake calipers, whereas the cable brake version includes no actual brakes in the “groupset”. The website let me add it to a cart and apparently to order, but I’m not ready for that yet. The link to the MTB product still goes to a 404, a bit weirdly. One would think that if Wheeltop had settled whatever issues they had with SRAM’s patents, they would have done so for both on road and MTB versions.

This is disappointingly expensive, to my eye. The €649 works out to $705 USD at current exchange. This is ~50% higher than the original tease. It also appears to be within the approximate price range for which one can order SRAM Rival AXS groupsets online. I just can’t see myself pulling the trigger on this.

This is not a level of try it out mad money.

This is not a price to “just see” if it can be retrofitted to an older frame with an outdated cassette and whatever chainrings one happens to have mounted. If that was so someone’s goal.

This is not a price to just see to how well the cable brake version pulls, or doesn’t pull, various types of brakes. A bit of investigation on this topic is leaving me very unclear on exactly what type of bike, cycling and/or setup they have designed this system for.

The FAQ says the cable levers are compatible with v-brake and disc brake systems which sounds like it may not work with traditional road brakes. The amount of cable that is/needs to be pulled is different*. It is, correspondingly, not immediately obvious which mechanical disc will work with it, although the specification of v-brake compatibility tends to suggest a MTB version of a mechanical disc would be the closest fit. This suggests that perhaps this is targeted at the gravel market. ok, fair enough but all the marketing videos show road bikes. The FAQ also lists the derailleur as having a maximum cog size of 36 teeth (minimum 30**, huh?) and a maximum wrap capacity of 36 which puts this squarely in endurance road bike territory. Let’s say you were sporting a 12-36 cassette, that leaves you 12 teeth for 50/38 or 48/36 max up front. Or maybe you go with a 12-34 cassette and a 48/34 combo. Now, maybe you can get it to work with a couple more teeth of difference but on spec this looks like endurance road and not like gravel gearing.

It does seem like a very badly missed opportunity for them to make the road shifters incompatible with the MTB derailleurs, as per an email I got from the company contact. There are three cage length versions of the MTB derailleur available, 58, 75 and 93 mm, with specified respective compatibility with 32 t, 42 t and 52 t maximum cog cassettes. I don’t know if there are any geometry changes to the derailleur parallelogram or if this is just a proxy for chain wrap in these systems since they are designed for 1x chainring drivetrains. Still, being able to use a wider range cassette would be more consistent with an application to gravel bikes. And one wonders about why the company would make a 36 t capacity road version and a 42 t capacity off-road version when the latter would seemingly be fine for the road application. Oh, right, the MTB version allegedly has a clutch.

I guess I’m still stuck on the key Wheeltop feature of permitting flexible configuration across 7 to 13 cog cassettes. This feature teases the Bike Tinkerer that it can be adapted to bikes dating back to the late 1980s when 7 speed replaced 6 speed. I want this kind of Bike Tinkerer’s Delight to be extended as far as possible. SRAM wireless is cross compatible across road and MTB so that one can put wide range gearing on a drop-bar bike. I wish Wheeltop had opted for this additional sort of flexibility.

I suppose, however, that focusing too much on a sort of retro-mod, restoration market may not be optimal for the company. The MTB version was described in the FAQ as not being compatible with more than a 1x chainring setup and needing a 12 speed chain for optimal performance. If the road cable brake version is pitched for mechanical discs, and therefore modern disc-brake road frames, this is a similarly forward-looking marketing choice. It makes the consumer view this as a competitor for current SRAM AXS and Shimano di2 products, rather than a competitor for, say, Microshift. This lets the company price the drivetrains below current SRAM/Shimano offerings and look like a bargan. The same price might look unattractive to the consumer who is considering Microshift to update older bikes.

The Microshift Sword gravel products are only 10-speed capable, but are otherwise pretty flexible. The SB-G7000 right hand shifter ($90; $175 for the pair) works with both their clutch rear derailleurs (~$75) in a 1x setup (48 t max cog) or their 2x setup (38 t max cog). Left levers are available in either front derailleur shift or dropper post models. The Sword components appear to be compatible with their AdventX line which offers another drop bar shifter model and flat bar shifter options. Wheeltop could have offered a similar capability, with the ease of wireless, by making their road and MTB systems cross compatible.

They would also beat out Microshift in cassette speed compatibility since Microshift’s 9 speed Advent is, obviously, not compatible with their 10 speed AdventX. This is important for any consumers that are thinking about the upgrade-path . Say you have an old standard road bike fitted with the old faithful HyperGlide-compatible freehub, and are looking to replace or update the shifting. With Microshift, you have to commit to 9sp (~$200 for shifters and rear derailleur) versus 10sp (~$250) up front. This may also mean buying a new cassette to go to 10 speed ($40), or even to 9 speed ($32) if your bike is old enough (but has a Hyperglide standard freehub). With Wheeltop’s system you can just slap it on a 7, 8 or 9 speed system as is and then decide at a later date if you want to upgrade, even all the way to 11 speed, at the cost of a new cassette and chain. Or up to 12 speed with the additional cost of a new rear wheel, or freehub conversion. Were I to be upgrading an older bike, an extra $200 would be well worth this kind of flexibility and the additional ease of wireless installation. I am not sure an extra $400, at the current WheelTop EDS TX price, is similarly attractive.

I’m not sure either Wheeltop or Microshift are the best option if one is planning a fixed upgrade with no alternates or upgrades in the future. Campy Centaur 11 speed is working great on my cross bike and currently runs about $75 for the rear derailleur and $145 for the shifters/levers. Add $60 for the 11-34 old-HG compatible 11 sp cassette and $25 for a chain and we’re at $305 vs the $315 for Microshift 10-speed Sword shifters/derailleur/cassette/chain. Admittedly the latter does come with a clutched derailleur and the ability to switch from 2x to 1x at the additional cost of a cassette and derailleur (or only the pulley cage if you are handy).

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*Now, I may be overselling the brake issue. A v-brake requires more cable pull than a traditional rim caliper brake. That means that while a traditional road brake lever bottoms out before being able to fully activate a v-brake, a v-brake road lever can operate a caliper. The only question is how much modulation, or feel, you lose due to each mm of lever travel eating up more caliper travel than expected.

**I am not that worried about minimum cog size specifications for the lowest gear or innermost position. Sure, a derailleur designed to handle a 36 t inner cog may drop pretty far away from a 25 or 27 t in that position, if you used a racing cluster. That may degrade performance somewhat. However, I’ve been using my MTB version (EDS OX) which is designed to handle up to a 52 t inner cog on cassettes which have only a 34 t inner cog. It shifts the inner two up and down reasonably well.

ETA: I clicked on the shipping link and found this, along with a mention of their warehouse being in Hesse Germany. Maybe a US address would be refused?