OK so that's 16lb without pedals and 16.6lbs with pedals and it was very expensive but hopefully it'll last my 8 y.o. a at least 6 years with perhaps a new seatpost and that's it. Overall I am quite happy with it but there are a few things that I was not at all happy with and make you realize that maybe you get what you pay for when you are buying these frames:
1) Seat Tube. When I first got the bike I could only put the seat post about 3" down into the tube. When I got the flashlight out I could see the carbon had not been take off the mold correctly or something had happened that cause carbon to stick out. I had to spend about an hour with sandpaper filing away inside the seatpost as carefully as possible to get rid of the obstruction and in the process I am sure I made some parts wider than they should be and the seat post still does not go into the seat tube smoothly. One thing I noticed that when you put your finger down the seat post you could feel the opening for the left seat stay but not the right one. Really just shoddy manufacturing and useless quality control. I mean how hard would it be to stick a post down the tube to see if it was unobstructed.
2) Painting. The paint painted over the brake mount so fitting and adjusting the brakes was time consuming. I am thinking about getting them faced but that's going to cost me a bit at my LBS. The paint itself is very easily chipped which I have already found out.
3) Fork - frame gap. With brand name bikes the gap between the fork and the bottom of the head tube is small but with mine its about a quarter of an inch so I am worried that dirt will get in there easily. And both frame and fork are Tideace brand products.
In the list below some of the brand name products were purchased 2nd hand and a some were bought new. I got a great deal on the brakes and also an XTR cassette, both of which were virtually unused - actually the brakes were unused.
