How is the 177 ride experience so far?
How is the stiffness of the separate stem and handlebar setup?
I have notice the Velobuild HB011 integrated handlebar flexes too much especially on the drops. I wonder if anybody observed this same issue with that handlebar?
Sadly Winter has finally hit Chicago. Only have been able to to put about 125mi/200km on the bike.
First Impressions: Coming from an Allez Sprint as my primary bike (which personally isn't as harsh as people say) I was surprised how comfortable and compliant the ride quality is. Chicago has notoriously bad roads so it's something you're always aware of. You can hear the bad pavement with the 177, you just don't really "feel" them. For comparison sake, I am running the Hyper 65s and GP5000s on both my Allez Sprint and 177 (for now).
The separate handlebar/stem combo is plenty stiff enough. I'm not a sprinter so my max watt is like 1000w, maybe 1100w on my best day. No flexing as far I can tell. One thing to note with the separate handlebar/stem, is that getting the compression plug and expander bolt to properly take up all the slack/play in the fork has been tricky. Perhaps I just need to cut the steerer a little shorter to allow the dust cap to further compress without crushing it.
Lastly, I did order some 38mm deep wheels from VeloBuild. They should be here hopefully today or tomorrow. Curious to see how much they weigh.