14 Speed Wheeltop GEX Wireless Chinese Gravel Groupset - First Look

Earlier this year, Wheeltop released an all new 13 speed road groupset, and my little channel was one of the first to both receive and review it. Now, 7 months later, they’ve released an all new gravel groupset. What’s it like, well stick around, and we’ll take a look.

Wheeltop was founded in the 50’s, and has been an OEM manufacturer of bike parts for over 70 years. They were the first Chinese manufacturer to produce a fully wireless electric groupset, the EDS TX. And now, they’ve taken their portfolio to the next step with this, their first gravel groupset.

The official release date for this new groupset is the 8th of October, roughly two week from now. But I’ve managed to get my hands one before then, to share with you. Up until this point, Wheeltop has been very tight lipped on the details, with just a few glimpses of it via social media, so I know very little about it, and online research isn’t telling me much more.

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#wheeltop #GEXSeries #wirelessshifting #gravel #gravelbike #groupset

[ChinaCycling]

14 speed groupset without 14 speed cassettes. By this logic, my friction shifters are a CVT. 😂 Thanks for sharing with us anyway, keep up the good work.

[galenkehler]

"Groupset" is just a set of parts, and they should be compatible. Ive never used a complete kit, having to swap out cranks, chainrings and probably cassette anyway for fit/use.
Thanks for the review this looks really interesting.

[npdf]

Wow this is the first I’ve heard of this group set certainly ahead of the game from the other manufactures.. interesting.. thanks for posting dude. You deserve many more subs man. Pete 🚴🏻👍👍

[kimyoon]

Thanks for unboxing! Can you please tell me if the rear derailleur has a clutch system? From your video, it seems so but no mentioning on its website.

[metorian]

olives are shimano now. thanks for the unboxing.

[chriscc]

I know people roll their eyes at the idea of 13 & 14 speed cassettes, but It's where things start to get a bit more interesting as it's right in the ballpark to give you an even spread (no big jumps) across a typical road gear range with no redundancy/duplicates. Effectively giving you the equivalent of a 2x11 or 2x10 (depending on your chosen range) in a 1x. Doesn't solve chainline issues, of course, but then again, how much time do we actually spend in the highest and lowest gears? Most people (including me) already treat 2x12 more like a 2x11+1 opting for a 11-34/36 over the typical 11-28/32.
Maybe that's why they are offering a rim brake option?🤷‍♂

[PeakTorque]

The more speeds you fit in the same width, the lowsier the shifting gets. The position tolerance becomes a real issue. You can see this even from 11 to 12sp shimano.

[TESTA-CC]

Vintage Road Bike With Downtube Shifters & Rim Brakes for the win 🤙🤙

[alistairmacfadyen]

Hi Jon, It looks as if WT are taking onboard feedback from the likes of your good self and others with respect updating the products, hopefully the updates will also be reflected when they update the road group set, and if so i will duly consider. Looking forward to the next video.

[ducatipartsmb]

Would be interested to know how well this shifts with a smaller cassette – if its designed for 51 teeth does that compromise the shift quality if you’re only using say 11-34 teeth?

[qwertyazerty]

I will consider buying use but only after it will have been some time on the market and we see some proper amd unsponsored reviews. Right now it's too much of a gamble considering issues with tx. I wonder if they fixed the problem with non-encrypted/paired signal transmission which is I heard is an issue with tx leading to being able to change gears on someone else's tx derailleur with your brifter. I also wonder if they made any update to the companion app as it is not quite user friendly and it is hard to set up tx to work properly with it. Also, this gex has a race and casual modes which change the speed of shifting and apparently in the race mode the derailleur does not poweroff at all as in casual mode, draining the battery. That's a big overlook.

Their website says that brake pads are shimano compatible, e.g. L05A, so 26.4 mm wide. They brakes use mineral oil and shimano bh-59 fittings

[SamuelBlackMetalRider]

Super interested in that. Could rival SRAM RED XPLR 13s groupset that costs £2, 500 without cranks & discs…!! WEIGHT woulda been interesting tho! At least comparing it with the road version’s weight! ROTOR also make 13s cassette.

[pawelodz]

These new brake calipers look awesome. Wish they offered them in Eds Tx as their are not so nice-I switched to my ultegra r8000 calipers. Thankfully they work fine with EDS TX

[ianhaigh]

Interesting that their electronic MTB derailleur is 10-52t, whereas the GEX is 11-51t. Shame you can't mix and match, although the MTB is 100g heavier.

They list 11-51t for the 93mm cage, but then state the smallest cost option is 10-11t further down the specs

[yurekkowski]

I have lived for 6 years in China before 20 years in the USA, I own a wheeltop eds tx with a 13 speed cassette, everything works very well and I am very satisfied .In China, the 13 speed 11-34 cassette is already produced and there is an announcement that in 3 months the xdr 14 speed 10-36 cassette will be released, chains for 13 speed have been produced for a year, the same chain will be able to be used for 14 speed, what is happening now in China in the bicycle industry is frame 650 gram with a fork 870-890 gram, formed two companies ltwoo and wheeltop that produce groups of high quality fixtures and applicable from 7 to 14 speed no need to buy a new flu when the cartridge manufacturer will release a cartridge for 13 or 14 speed. greetings from Shenyang China.

[kevinmcclelland]

The big appeal of Wheeltop to me is the stealth black aesthetic and minimal branding. This moves away from that with the grey paint and I'm not a fan. I hope you can provide feedback that the people want the stealth black looks! Otherwise looks great!

[jasonxiong]

These gravel shifters look the same as their road version, I wonder can they be paired with a road version front derailleur by doing which will give you a huge range of gears ratio and fully wireless. If they do can, I will call it the group set of the year without hesitation.

[johnnyboy]

hope its good.price point and european warranty are two key components for me

[martinhotan]

that one was rather easy to see coming - roadshifters where here and MTB shifters too - right

[kev]

The one thing annoying me so much is these Chinese brand often use the 1st batch of customer as a testing platform, and only release update / final version later. Experience on the L-too eRX ( the first batch of the brake lever joint is made with plastic and it brakes easily the later version they changed it with alloy), as well as the wheeltop EDS ( they changed the brake shifter rubber, the 1st version is so stiff like brick and 2nd version they replaced with a softer rubber). So if u r getting the version 1.0 of these product, good luck.