Here are some photos from my recent rides, did about 40 miles of riding so far this week as part of some shakedown rides. I've run into a few issues, but I've either resolved them or they're being resolved -- with one small exception.
Starting off with the easiest issue, the stem preload was a little loose after ~20 miles or so of riding. I only noticed this when slamming on the brakes as I was arriving home, anyway, that was easily resolved. I did use a torque wrench this time to get a sense of how much torque is being applied this time, and yeah, only about ~2 Nm of torque was necessary to remove all play, and then another 1/8th of a turn for some safety margin. I'm keeping an eye on this, and I have a longer stem plug coming for some extra insurance.
The second issue I wrote about in my previous post, I'm missing the wedge washer that goes between the seat post and rear bolt so I'm unable to tighten that bolt with any confidence that it won't destroy the seat post. So I've resorted to tightening that bolt
juuuust tight enough so as to maintain tension on the saddle rails. Anyway, this has led to my seat slipping slightly back, leading to a stretched out position and numb hands during the ride. The replacement SL8 seat clamp is coming Monday though, so this should be resolved soon.
The third issue was that I experienced a chain drop when shifting from the small ring to the big ring. My carbon crank took a nice scrape from that, but thankfully I realized the chain was falling off pretty quick and stopped immediately, with no apparent damage to the frame or other components.
This last issue is the result of a combination of a few factors: (1) synchro-shift on Di2 being too eager to over-shift to shift into the big ring, in addition to the fact that I was shifting under load while climbing, (2) my misunderstanding of the front derailleur alignment for 105 Di2, which follows a different system of setting limits from mechanical and ultegra/DA Di2, and (3) apparently the front derailleur hanger doesn't allow for the front-derailleur to be mounted tight with a slight toe-out (which is how 105 Di2 is aligned) -- it's mounted with a very slight toe-in, and there's no way to totally straighten the derailleur unless I was able to mount the FD further inboard somehow.
I've mitigated factors 1 and 2 by adjusting the synchro-shift logic so as to only shift 1 gear instead of 2, and re-aligning the front-derailleur to the best of my ability. Factor 3 will be a massive pain to resolve, as I'm not even sure there's a bulletproof way to fix it. Maybe a soft shim / PPF to allow the mount to tilt slightly more in the front? Anyway, I believe I've mitigated the issue mostly by getting the alignment as best I could with the FD toeing out just the slightest and getting the micro-adjustments FD and RD perfect.
Anyway, on to the good news -- the bike rides super quick, much quicker than my old chromoly steel bike, which this build has at least 10 lbs on. I'm setting new PRs with massive deltas on all of my local climbs, which is so satisfying. I'm certainly the limiting factor for this frame, it goes super quick. At the same time, the ride feels relatively dampened, so I will say it doesn't feel as "lively" as I thought it would, being such a light frame, I guess there could be some flex in the frame or it could be my choice of tires, which I know isn't the best in terms of rolling resistance. I'm happy with that, though, as I want a light, comfortable endurance-style whip to put down more miles this riding season. And on today's 20 mile ride, there were literally zero surprises with the bike
I'm absolutely smitten with the build and can't wait to take it out again.
