I finally took the bike on a shake down ride. My other TFSA disc road frame feels more responsive, while this SPcycle frame is much more stiff, allowing me to lay down the torque. One annoyance is that it didn't come with a rear derailleur hole faster/grommet. It came with a rubber grommet better suited for Di2. I had to use a stem valve lock nut to keep the RD cable in place. I was also getting saddle slipping from the seat post clamp, which I ended up just putting gaffer tape on the saddle rails to hold it in place (I did that with my other bike). I'm probably going to dump the BR-005 calipers and just use Juin Tech F1s instead which I'll swap from my other 2x road bike that will get a LTwoo R9 hydro shifter upgrade. Lastly, I'm probably going to swap the 44t chainring and go 48t and 11-34/36t on the rear cassette to get more high gear. There's something fun about 1x road riding, less to think about and you can really focus on your cadence.
Overall, I'd rate this frameset an 7.5/10, it was a bit of pain to setup, their frame came with the bare minimum (no guide cables in place, no RD cable grommet/fastener, rear dropout isn't very snug), though the price was reasonable and SPcycle was fast to ship, but their customer service is just average (very blunt message replies). Definitely not a frameset for a beginner bike builder, even though I've built my other bikes, I still had a few headaches! In comparison I'd rate my TFSA frameset an 8.5/10 with a much better buying experience, but sloooow production/ship time (2 months vs 18 days).
Update: I've added a photo showing the RD cable issue, I'm shaking my head as to why they couldn't include a 2 cent item with the frame? It's the little details like this that will make me consider another frame maker down the road. The RD cable is held in place with a valve nut so it doesn't slip into the chain stay...very ghetto!
