Finally received it.
Good points:
New zero offset post is very nicely finished (save for usual bits of mold baggie they were too lazy to fully remove and sprayed black) and much better looking than offset.
Came with all the cable port bungs etc.
Haven't measured it yet so could be wrong size, but to the naked eye the BB looks very round, has very uniform shell thickness, and concentricity looks good. Given how many $5-6k framesets I've seen with very obviously borked BB shells (even to the naked eye) this is good.
Inside of tubes mostly fairly clean and no obvious voids. Couple of minor wrinkles in BB area. Head tube and seat tube (per BB) have consistent thickness in the cut area (again unlike some really crappy big name brands). To the eye, flat mounts on fork and rear triangle look fine.
Paint job isn't great, but it's essentially free if you get something 'standard', and as good as can be reasonably expected. Only one small scuff - which by their painter's recent record is a good outcome.
Edit - added - Integrated stem has no pinch points on the steerer as it's a carbon sleeve rather than heavily machined alu.
OK points:
Steerer is alright. Not what I'd call the cleanest but no obvuous alarm bells.
Di2 port (which I don't actually need) is badly fitting.
Not ideal points:
They made the stem unnecessarily chunky and heavy for a carbon wrapped alu design (never heard of one failing). An option fot cable entry below the front plate would allow the use of bars without a hole in the clamping area. As it is, you're limited to ones with a hole.
Edit - Mine didn't ship with the new c-ring (which I assume was meant to be for all bikes with the new integrated stem). The thing was so thick that I mistook it for the chunky spacers, and thought I didn't have one.
Still shipping with a front thru-axle that's 5mm too long - though I anticipated this and ordered a Heppe replacement from Ali.
Headset bearings are very poor quality and grainy and notchy even out of the bike. But I was going to use FSA anyway.
Expander / plug is very short and not brilliant design, as many have commented on. Using a long Colnago one.
Bad (terrible) points:
Whomever is doing the seat post clamp and headset bearing seats is definitely not the same person(s) doing the BB area finishing. They are a total mess.
a) Gobs of resin and black paint spattered all over the place inside of the seat tube. Attempt to chamfer inside of top of seat tube looks like it was done with a power tool resulting in chips. Molding / mandrel / whatever was clearly torn out of the ledge the seatpost assembly sits on too early, resulting in large ugly surface voids, which they failed to cover up with black paint.
b) The top headset bearing seat appears to be correctly sized, but is very, very badly finished. Some bits of excess carbon sheet were never trimmed off. Others are coming off (delaminating), again I suspect due to power tool use. Scratches and scores (again power tool) all over the place. The bearing seat is unlikely to fail, especially as the head tube itself is fine, but it's inexcusably poor workmanship and totally unnecessary. The bottom bearing seat on the other hand looks better but is VERY tight - I couldn't extricate it after test fitting - probably have to use needle nose pliers and damage it. And I expect the LBS to have to sand the seat a little.
Conclusion of first impressions:
I think the girls and guys laying up the frame are for the most part doing a pretty good job (steerer could still be better). And at least superficially things look better - at least much less dysfunctional - than a good number of bikes sold for 10x the price. But either unskilled jobbers are being employed to do other areas - seat clamp / tube and headset bearing seats, or skilled workers are being pushed to spend no time or care on them whatsoever. I expect it's a combination of both, together with a bit of carelessness, all compounded by the fact that Velobuild seem to deem this OK. It leaves a bitter taste receiving something that shitty. I don't expect it to be a safety or performance issue, though given enough time the top bearing seat could delaminate sufficiently to make it one. But banning the use of power tools to sand, chamfer or finish delicate areas, trimming out excess carbon sheet and patching it up with a little resin would ensure a frame that otherwise appears to be pretty good doesn't result in lost future customers. If the cost and price need to go up $20, I guarantee there would be way more repeat customers. Especially given that this is not a 'lemon' - Chris knew I'd post my experiences given that I organized the zero offset funder here. Others will have had it much worse.
TLDR they did all the hard work and avoided the usual pitfalls, but some really bad workmanship leaves a bad taste, and would probably make some customers too afraid to even ride it, as they may not appreciate what exactly they are looking at.
Build should be fairly soon. Hopefully no additional surprises. At the painter having neon pink splatter on black parts and final clear done.
