Rose Xeon CDX 3100 Di2

It’s here at last !! I will update this thread again once I’ve had chance to put some mileage on the bike, this is really my experiences of it arriving and setting up.

Firstly for completeness I should say that I placed my order on the 3rd June and it arrived on the 18th August.

Delivery. Rose ship the bike via DHL in Germany, but then it is handed off to ParcelForce in the UK. You watch the website to find out when your delivery date will be and once PF have it they do not give any delivery estimates / updates, so you must simply wait in all day until it arrives.

When the bike arrived it had shifted in the box. The rear hub was no longer against the small protective pad which it must have started its journey against and had left a big impression in the side of the box. There seems to be no damage to the hub. The right brake covers were also imbedded in the side of the box and covered in dust from wearing against it. A damp cloth has removed all the dust and the remaining damage is very small. Finally the plastic spacer (I assume) designed to fit in the front disc brake callipers had fallen out and was in the bottom of the box. This is worrying as the brake levers are shipped fully depressed and cable tied.

On unpacking everything a few things strike the novice bike builder (me!). There is a manual for every component part (so a big pile of manuals). There is a no “quick setup guide” for idiots for my specification of bike. There is a big bag of spare parts which was split open.

Due to there being no idiots guide I used the Rose book and the dummies video on the website. However the video doesn’t mention Disc brakes on a road bike, Thru Axles or Di2. The later isn’t even mentioned in the Rose guide at all. I suspected in advance that this might be an issue so had emailed Rose to make sure everything was covered, I was assured it was all dead easy and fully covered by the instructions.

First issue was putting the front wheel on. The video / web assume you have QR on a road bike. All Thru Axle fittings I’d seen / used previously have a “flick” close mechanism like QR does, however these DT SWISS do not, after finding the manual for Wheels this confirmed that they simply twist tight ! Job done. Both wheels spin totally true and there’s no rubbing from the brake calipers during my testing.

Next task was the disc brakes. After releasing the levers and fitting the front wheel they seem to work correctly. I do notice that there is a very small space between the Rotors and the Forks (1 or 2mm) and hope that as these become very hot this won’t be an issue. There’s also a fair amount of travel (levers) before the brakes bite, but I have nothing to compare against and haven’t actually ridden it fully yet.

Then the big one. Di2. I obviously had not managed to connect the battery as the system was dead. Let me explain that there’s actually nothing telling you that you need to connect the battery or how to do it, but I knew the battery was in the seatpost and the wire hanging out of the bike seemed logical to fit into the post. This time I had to call Rose. Got through to someone in 5 minutes and they explained that everyone with a Di2 bike calls them with this issue (!) and my attaching the battery with my fingers wasn’t good enough I needed to use the tool. A tool I couldn’t find (searched everywhere). All very good service and they offered to send me a new too.

So. Plan B. Bike into the car and over to the LBS. They quickly attached the battery very firmly with fingers and you heard it click home. Di2 fully operational! I simply hadn’t forced it hard enough in because I’m new to this and Di2 components might be fragile and expensive. Whilst at the LBS I also purchased and had fitted the Shimano wireless Di2 transmitter. Very neat job ! The LBS explained that the tool wasn’t much use for connecting the battery because the cable used on the connector was very thick and later I found the tool in the bottom of the box / doh !!

Back home and immediately the Di2 transmitter paired with the Garmin 1000 and displayed the information. Flawless ! Note the Di2 software was already current enough and didn’t require updating to do this, which is a common issue. However I noticed that the Di2 is not setup correctly in terms of knowing the gears fitted. So it thinks it has a 53 / 39 up front (Compact actually fitted) and thinks that the rear cassette is off a TDF day on the flat not my 11-32, this probably doesn’t make any difference to the workings and very few people would ever care or notice. Something people might care about is that the Di2 battery level is 40% (the Garmin reports it) so if not charged in a few weeks you risk running to 25% and the FD locking onto the small ring.

So now it’s setup and ready to go – I hope. Although I may well nip down to the LBS again before I ride it far to make sure everything is as it should be. I would have done this last night, but they were all looking to go home.

How does it look ? Beautiful. But please beware that this is a Raw Carbon finish. Not a Matt painted uniform finish. So it looks mean, industrial and very cool. I’m not sure if I can imbed pictures here but will look into that later if anyone is interested.

So, after 1 day and no riding I’m relieved it’s all delivered, setup and now looking forward to seeing how it rides. Sods law it’s set to raid tonight !!

If anyone finds this vaguely interesting please let me know and I’ll post more / if you have any questions ask away.