WHEELTOP EDS TT Sprint Triathlon Race Review by henrychungfitness
First race of the season on the EDS TT
This article is based on a video by henrychungfitness, who raced the WHEELTOP EDS TT on his Winspace TT 119 at the Subaru Series Milton Sprint Triathlon. The groupset survived the race, and he finished first in the men's 35-39 age category, his first gold medal in triathlon. He had already posted an initial-look video. This one is about how it behaved in a race and a few training rides.
Install and button layout
He finds the groupset easy to install. The front and rear derailleurs have batteries in each unit. Shifter buttons on the TT extension arms are also easy to fit, with a wire from each running to the brake lever, which has shifter buttons as well. The important part is getting the initial calibration right, then fine-tuning. After that, the shifting is crisp.
His layout: the left extension buttons shift the front derailleur, and the right extension buttons shift the rear. On the brake levers, the left button moves the chain into the bigger cogs and the right button into the smaller cogs. After one race and a few training rides he is still getting used to that map and wants to dial it in further. The WHEELTOP app can change some button assignments.
How it raced
Shifting itself is crisp and performed really well, including on climbs and under load. The bike feels aero, and he likes the ergonomics.
The brakes also did their job. On Milton's Sixth Line descent he was going almost 80 km/h, tucked in, and needed a sharp right at the bottom. The brakes stopped him, and he would trust them. He does notice a lot of lever travel before they bite, and he is not sure whether that is because he did not bleed them fully or because that is how the lever is meant to feel.
He also likes that you can set the system for different cassette speeds, including up to 14-speed, something he does not really see from the big-name groupsets.
The delay at the brake levers
The point he returns to most is a slight delay when shifting from the brake-lever buttons, compared with the extension buttons. He noticed it in tight corners and on climbs, and he wants that delay reduced or removed in firmware. He calls this the change WHEELTOP most needs to make.
The double-shift control on the brake levers also changes the front derailleur. During the race, a quick shift at the levers sometimes sent him onto the other chainring and threw him off. He would rather have a two-button press for the front derailleur, closer to how SRAM does it, and he plans to check the manual to see what he can already change.
A few hardware niggles: the assembly screws on the bar-extension levers are a bit soft, and he has started to strip the heads. A rubber cover over an assembly screw popped off and was very hard to push back in. The coin-cell battery in the bar-end shifters was finicky once. After a battery change, it would not shift, which he puts down to contact tolerances. His tip is to seat the cell in the cover first, then fit that into the shifter, not the other way around.
What he likes in return is that the bar-end shifter batteries are replaceable. He contrasts that with SRAM units that are hard or impractical to service. The single wire from each bar-end shifter to the brake lever is simple to install.
Good enough for a gold medal
Even with the lever delay and the accidental front shifts, he calls it a great groupset overall: easy to assemble, crisp shifting, and good enough on race day that he took first in his age group. He plans to race it again on 26 July at Supertri Toronto.
This article is based on henrychungfitness's video. Watch the original video above, published 27 June 2026.
