Imagine a nearly-no-name Chinese manufacturer of mass-market-highly-affordable OEM chainsets. Then imagine them trying to make a cutting edge mountain bike wireless electronic derailleur. Sound promising? ... Yes? ... No?
Imagine receiving packaging with writing in English on the back that spells 'battery' as 'bartery' and 'charger' as 'chanarger'. Then imagine that the instruction book inside looks like something laid out by a mid-western church group using 'desktop publishing' in 1990. Ah Pagemaker! How we miss you. Sound promising? ... Yes? ... No?
But just look at the Wheel Top EDS OX. It's built from a hatful of very nicely finished, precisely made aluminium component parts. The b-pivot bolt is hollow and aluminium. The small bolts look to be stainless steel. The pulley wheels have silky smooth bearings. The electronics seem to work well - think branded $75 earbuds rather than tacky $9.99 earbuds from Amazon. The, very complete, kit comes with a control lever, a USB cable, a charger (not chanarger) and not one, but two, batteries (not barteries). It can handle a 52T sprocket, is compatible with both 11 and 12 speed systems by both SRAM and Shimano. It is possible that you can even customise it to work with any number of sprockets from any manufacturer. That all sounds pretty promising to me.
Sure the p-knuckle and the motor cover are plastic (OK, 'composite'). Sure there is no clutch that I can detect. Sure it looks disturbingly derivative of a SRAM design. Yes, everything in the garden is not absolute perfection - but look at the price - under $400 in 2023. It promises to be one helluva deal.
I am a little unclear about the various slightly different versions of the Wheel Top EDS. I think that I have seen:
- A version possibly dating from 2020, with a tall outer parallelogram plate with the plain stainless steel adjustment screws mounted in its top. This version has 'EDS OX' written on the outer parallelogram plate and 'ELECTRONIC DERAILLEUR SYSTEM' written the right way up on the outer pulley cage plate. It has a 6mm allen bolt at the p-pivot.
- A version possibly dating from early 2022, still with a tall outer parallelogram plate, but the adjustment screws are black and have moved onto the front of the p-knuckle. This version still has 'EDS OX' written on the outer parallelogram plate and 'ELECTRONIC DERAILLEUR SYSTEM' written the right way up on the outer pulley cage plate. It still has a 6mm allen bolt at the p-pivot.
- A version also possibly dating from later 2022, now with a less tall outer parallelogram plate, but still with black adjustment screws on the front of the p-knuckle. This version still has 'EDS OX' written on the outer parallelogram plate and 'ELECTRONIC DERAILLEUR SYSTEM' written the right way up on the outer pulley cage plate. But it has a, possibly, 3mm allen bolt and cap at the p-pivot.
- A version possibly dating from 2023, still with the less tall outer parallelogram plate, but now with plain stainless steel adjustment screws on the front of the p-knuckle. This version also now has 'EDS OX EQ' written on the outer parallelogram plate and 'ELECTRONIC DERAILLEUR SYSTEM' now written upside down on the outer pulley cage plate. Finally it has a concealed p-pivot, hidden behind an aluminium cap.
This example is the last of these four versions.
- Derailleur brands: Wheel Top
- Themes: Electric Avenue
- Country: China
- Date of introduction: 2023
- Date of this example: 2023 (code 2302 250 310)
- Model no.: unknown
- Weight: 366g including battery
- Maximum cog: 52 teeth? (source: Wheel Top talks about liking a 1X transmission with a 10-52T cassette)
- Total capacity: 42 teeth? (source: Wheel Top talks about liking a 1X transmission with a 10-52T cassette)
- Pulley centre to centre: 93mm
- Index compatibility: 11 or 12 speed, SRAM or Shimano (or possibly any number of sprockets offered by any manufacturer)
- Chain width: 3/32”
- Logic: top normal
- B pivot: unsprung
- P pivot: sprung
- Materials: largely aluminium with a composite p-knuckle and motor cover at the b-knuckle
