Any updates on the ride yet? I'm eager to hear others' thoughts -- I am starting the build today, just waiting for my crankset/cassette/bb to arrive tomorrow. I hope to be riding my frame by end of next week, with initial thoughts a week from today.
Honestly, it's just a good bike to the point of being boring. Coming from my aggressive road bike, the bike feels slightly lazy, more like an SSE than a Tarmac SL8. The SL8 is a pretty calm performer IMO, so this is on trend with how most people want their bikes these days.
I've ridden it with my regular road wheels and Berd spoked wheels, and it feels very much like a higher-end carbon bike. It tracks through corners like it should, felt composed over rough pavement to the point that I didn't even think about it. I didn't notice any road buzz or anything coming in through the bars, though my bars are a 1.3kg chunk of 3d printed 17-4 steel, so YMMV with a carbon bar. On gravel, it does feel a little more nervous, but it is a road bike, so sending it down singletrack wasn't in the designer's intent. That said, gravel roads were similarly of little concern to me.
I haven't tried to measure aero, but it's similar in feel to most all-arounders, possibly a bit worse due to the concessions made for tire clearance. However, all of that is erased by an aggressive body position. I bought an M, and it's a pretty aggressive geometry compared to the rest of the range. The S compares favorably to the 52 SL8, the M is more aggressive than the 54 SL8, and the L is less aggressive than the 56 SL8. Another factor is that I am running a custom bar that is also low and long, a custom headset cover, and a -17 degree 130mm stem.
In terms of assembly, as others warned, the included saddle clamp hardware is awful. I have the Ritchey stuff and almost switched it out, but since the stock stuff was lighter, I decided to stick with it. The issue IMO is the rubber carrier and the two bottom portions of the cradle don't hold together. Fixing this would be easy TBH. All that is really needed is to make the holes in the rubber carrier smaller. Similarly, the rubber cover for the seat post clamp is an atrocity, and I would have preferred not to have had it supplied. The other "issue" is that the front wheel/hub doesn't have a strong resting place like it does on my other bikes. In other words, I can't just slot a wheel in w/o a thru axle and expect the bike to stay up if it's leaning against a wall or in a rear wheel stand. This is really not a big deal, just something I noticed.
This sounds like a downer review, but to me, it's the exact opposite. This bike is really good and really good at a lot of things, to the point where I didn't notice much about the bike because there weren't any apparent shortcomings. If you are looking for an aero-looking bike, this frame isn't it. If you are looking for a bike you can ride fast that builds up light, this is probably it.
Really looking forward to hearing what other people think of the frame, but I am impressed.
