June 23, 2025 - TRP, the racing division of Tektro, has been pushing the boundaries in brakes for years and has recently gotten into the drivetrain market. Their newest venture with the VISTAR // Powershift electronic groupset in partnership with Classified creates a unique groupo for road and gravel use. The Classified Powershift 2-speed rear hub features 1×15 setups for gravel and 1×16 for road, for a full range of gearing. Paired with the TRP VISTAR wireless drop bar groupset the system utilizes QuantumShift technology allowing you to move through the gear range with a single hand shifter and no front derailleur. The new drivetrain system marks enhanced chain line efficiencies and the widest gear range of any gravel or road bike groupset on the market. We caught up with TRP USA’s president, Lance Larrabee, to share his insights into the new drivetrain and partnership with Classified.
How did the partnership with classified come about?
Lance Larrabee: We’ve had the TRP brand now for 20 years and started off making brakes for road and cyclocross bikes, and also for triathlon and TT bikes as well. We quickly realized that as we were only making brakes our success was limited when Shimano and SRAM began introducing integrated components with hydraulic disc brakes linked to brake shift levers.So about 10 years ago, we started our own drivetrain program. As we began that program, we saw that there were many rear derailleurs (17,000 patents), while front derailleurs were probably reaching their useful life more quickly. Big manufacturers are also on the cusp of going to a 1x front with a 13 or 14 rear. Through an e-mail inquiry from Classified we discovered that their technology was really, really good and it had the ability to eliminate what we saw as a weak spot in our own developing drivetrain system. Also, they were more interested in a collaboration rather than being purchased by a larger entity. From there things evolved and we thought that we could do something really unique with our new drivetrain in partnership with the Classified rear hub.
Is Classified interested in TRP producing their hubs for them?
LL: I will say that those discussions have happened but they’re also proudly made in Belgium at the moment.
What’s the target market for the new VISTAR // Powershift group?
LL: We’re obviously going after anything with a 700C wheel. Looking at the current popularity of gravel I would say that the gravel market is the main target for us. We’re not ready for the Tour de France as yet.
What’s TRP’s biggest market?
LL: Our biggest market currently is mountain bike brakes for the enduro category. Our most successful product is the DHR Evo, a brake that we just launched this spring. We also have a mountain bike mechanical drivetrain and we’ve been slowly building success, making sure that we’re known in the marketplace which takes time. We envision that our drivetrain program will take about 10 years. But with the introduction of a wireless shifting system and our new command wireless protocol, which is open source so other component manufacturers can use our battery in our wireless system, that really places us on a level playing field with our competitors.
What’s the target suggested retail price for the new VISTAR // Powershift electronic group set?
LL: We’re targeting the price to be competitive with what’s currently in the marketplace for say Shimano’s Ultegra Di2 or SRAM’s Force system which run about $2,200 to $2,400 retail. When you factor out the front derailleur and add in the Classified hub, either a shell or a complete wheel set with the hub built in, we’re slightly above that configuration. It’s about $1,400 retail for the TRP components in the complete groupset, and then another $1,400 retail for the Classified rear hub system including axle and other parts needed.
Will we see any Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) using this new group?
LL: It’s difficult for us as a newcomer to gain market share. The larger bike companies have always stuck with the big component players. Our initial strategy is to focus on the aftermarket and build the brand and product awareness, while targeting customers who are willing to take a chance and try something different. Cranktank’s Scott (Montgomery) and I have had many conversations about the need for a third option in the marketplace. It’s very difficult to differentiate your product with carbon fiber frames, and certain groups with a carbon fiber set of wheels. We think there’s a real opportunity to establish a third position – or a third option you might say. But it takes a bit of time to build equity in the marketplace, we have to prove ourselves first. OEM product managers like to see uptake at the consumer level, and a groundswell of activity around a brand or product before they’re ready to take a chance on a big OEM spec aiming to sell more bikes with it. We’re proving that with our mountain bike brake systems, and now we’re trying to establish a similar process in the road bike market knowing that it’s a long road ahead.
What will TRP have to do to get to the next level?
LL: The introduction of the VISTAR // Powershift electronic group is a big step, and we believe that this is the start as we create a partnership with Classified and introduce our own wireless components. Over the last five years, the introduction of our mechanical drivetrain systems for mountain bikes has put our foot in the door. People ask me all the time why we think TRP can succeed at building drivetrains when others have failed.
I always reply that Tektro is now the second largest bicycle brake manufacturer in the world next to Shimano in terms of volume. When we’re talking about hydraulic disc brakes, we have to be very careful. From the very start we were very careful. We deliver 100% quality control on every hydraulic disc brake we build. Each brake that comes off the assembly line is tested 300 times. It’s held for 72 hours and pressure tested again before it ships because we know that when a bicycle manufacturer finds a leaking brake inside their shipment, that won’t be good for us. We might not get a second chance so we’ve been very, very careful about building this brand and very careful about performance and reliability. We’ve proven that we could scale up during Covid times to produce 13 million hydraulic disc brakes in one year. I’ve run the warranty service centre for the last 20 years and we’ve never had a major failure and we want to keep it that way.
With 6.5 million bikes on the market per year with a Tektro or TRP hydraulic disc brake, it means that there’s an opportunity for each one of those bikes to be equipped with a TRP drivetrain. We think that this alone gives us a better chance than some of the other smaller brands, to build a drivetrain system and achieve sales.
In our view, it’s just a matter of time and the key here as well, is that we just can’t stop innovating. We’re onto our second generation of mountain bike drivetrains this year, introducing our fifth Tektro mechanical drivetrain for mountain bikes, and now this is our first endeavour on the road and gravel side to introduce wireless shifting in partnership with Classified’s hub.
Will the TRP brakes work with the new VISTAR // Powershift system?
LL: It will come with the TRP disc brake caliper that works with the new group set. The brake levers come pre-bled with the TRP disc brake caliper and all you need to do is mount them on the bike. All of these brakes are assembled, tested completely, and completely bled and free of air. We carefully remove the hose and seal the system with what we call an easy plug when we ship them. They can be installed through the frame, just cut the hose and reconnect, and you don’t need to bleed the system.
Is the existing TRP support network going to include support for the Classified hubs as well?
LL: Classified is taking steps so that Tektro USA is now an official distributor of Classified. We now have inventory and our techs are undergoing training at this moment. We’re still sending things back to Belgium but we’ll have a full-service centre online this summer.
TRP has started to work with Bosch on powering the shifting on e-bikes. Will we see TRP venturing into e-bike drive systems?
LL: We have no such plans at this moment. A lot of companies are getting into that market because it seems to be the biggest growth area right now. I think if the right opportunity and technology presented itself, we would consider it. But at the moment the market needs to sort itself out a little bit.
What does the future hold for TRP?
LL: Our goal is to become the third option for components and become completely level with Shimano and SRAM. We want to build a complete product line and continue to develop new products until we have that complete depth.
Do you feel any competition from some of the companies coming out of China?
LL: What I know about the patent situation tells me that some of the companies making wireless drivetrain systems may not be respecting the patents in place with some of the big players. We’ll have to see how things evolve to determine if they really make a serious entry into the US market.
Thank you for your time today.
LL: Thanks as well for your interest in our company and our products.
Read more about TRP here.
Read more about the VISTAR // Powershift launch here.
