1st Gen Winspace T1550. I previously had the T1500 and really liked it but sold that to build an Aethos, which consequently I sold to build this. I would have gone with the Winspace T1550 2nd gen but the geometry of the 2nd gen drastically increased SOH wise. Either way awesome insanely stiff and fast bike and Winspace threw in the integrated bars and upgraded the shipping for free, plus the standard 10% off. Reused the 23 Hyper D45 wheels I bought last year and stuck some iridescent decals on them.
* Winspace T1550 Disc 44cm (Small) White Frame
* Winspace Zero SL Integrated Bars 85-380
* Supacaz Super Sticky Cush Tape
* Berk Lupina Short Padded Saddle
* Force AXS D2 groupset w/ left sided crank power meter. Red D1 10-33 cassette and Red E1 chain
* Galfer Wave CL 160mm rotors
* BBInfinite BB86 one piece ceramic BB
* BBInfinite Oversized ceramic jockey wheels
* Shimano SPD-SL Dura Ace pedals
* K-Edge chain catcher
* Winspace 23 Hyper D45 Wheels w/ GP5000 28mm tires and RideNow 36g TPU tubes
* Delta Cycle 16g carbon cages
As shown weighed 16.35lbs.
Bike is insanely stiff just as I remember the T1500 was and it's so stiff to the point where for some people it might be unbearable. I think I might switch to tubeless to provide some more rear end kush, granted it will add some weight. Bike being ultra stiff means it very fast and is an amazing sprinter out of the saddle. The bike holds speed very well and on the flats surges like you would expect from a true aero bike. Maybe it's the combination of really stiff wheels, TPU tires, thin carbon saddle, and a really stiff backend but again the comfort level on the T1550 due to stiffness probably rivals a Cannondale System Six. As Cam Nicholls remarked in his original T1500 review, the bike has a heavy feeling rear end thus once you start getting to consistent climbs of 6%+ the bike instantly slows down compared to other all around aero bikes or even more modern aero bikes. I didn't build up my frameset but as per the shop they found the tolerances to be very good with no glaring issues. I went with a BBInfinite 1 piece BB86 ceramic BB and there has been no creaking while performing insanely smooth. My only issue with the bike so far has been the spotty quality of the painting of the fork which isn't really noticeable but just odd since my original T1500 in white was painted flawlessly. My other issue was that at 5'5" I ride their 44cm size small frame but on every single T1500/T1550 they provide the same 300mm seatpost and for me I had to fully insert the seatpost where it was bottoming out, yet I still needed a touch more room of insertion to get my fit just right and I wanted at least .25"-.5" inches of space incase the seatpost slipped. This required me bringing the seatpost to a local shop to cut 20mm for $20, granted I have yet to experience any seatpost slippage which can be an issue on any proprietary aero seatpost, just ask Canyon. The T1550 is now fully wireless in that there is no option to run any of the wires externally especially with Winspace's own Zero SL cockpit. I found the cockpit to be really stiff, but the sizing of stem length of being 85mm, 95mm, 105mm to be odd. My T1500 I used a Small frame with 374mm of reach with a 95x380 bars, which put the total reach 469mm which for me was a tad stretched out. This time around I went with a 85x380 bar giving me a total reach of 459mm which is right on par what I run with my MY22 Scott Foil RC 49cm at 458.8mm of total reach or what I ran with my Aethos. Looks are always subjective but IMO the T1550 scheme is a huge improvement over the T1500 series, granted I think the 2nd Gen T1550 retro blue, flavored black, and chameleon white colorways look sick and look to be of the quality of aesthetics you would see on premium big Western brands.
I think the T1550 or really any Winspace product are great, but my one issue is that Winspace has never been the cheapest product, thus their value compared to Canyon or Giant is little to non existent when you are comparing complete bikes. Where I think Winspace shines is the ability to get the bike that best fits you geo wise but also performance and price wise, however the idea that riders just getting into cycling want to "gamble" on buying a direct to consumer Chinese frame/wheels and then even more so want or know how to build a bike is a tough ask. IMO the future of Winspace will come down to retailers and expanding authorized retailers in the US and setting up a program like Trek does with their Project One system where you can pick everything from the groupset, size of parts, to even the color.
