Gong down.
ZTTO Gen 3 cassette.
OK a couple of rides in now and a couple more thoughts:
I’ve never felt any kind of knee pain when cycling, but I’m feeling my knees when I ride this bike, and post ride I feel my knees too. It’s not knee pain at all, but if I stay on these 170mm cranks it might develop into knee pain so I’m really looking forward to getting my XMCS cranks (Peter will be sending me out my order for 155 cranks + spider + 52T 1 by chainring next week).
With the hoods turned in I’m actually not finding the 40cm bars to be too much of an issue, that said I just bought some 38cm bars to replace them. I ran into a kid at the cafe who’s been looking for 38cm bars for his S5 for ages, so he’ll happily buy the 40cm bars off of me.
I felt soreness after riding on my new Berk Dila. I’m sure if I played with the saddle angle some more I’d be able to get comfy on it, but today I put the Berk Lupina Short back on and instantly felt more comfortable, if anything I want to push the saddle back a little (bike came with a 0 offset seatpost). Almost no point getting the fit dialed in until I get the shorter cranks though.
I raided my parts bin a little more thoroughly and replaced a few more parts:
Bar Ends: CarbonWorks (2g)
Brake Rotors: Galfer 140mm/140mm (79g/79g)
Brake Pads: Shimano K05TI-RX (12g/12g)
Cassette: ZTTO SLR Gen3 12 Speed 11-28 (117g)
WEIGHT: 7.38kg
The CarbonWorks bar end plugs were a free gift when I ordered a cage replacement (a mate broke the cage as it got caught on his pants when he was hopping off the bike :lol: ) so they went right on. I now have 140mm rotors both front and back instead of the 2 x 160mm rotors and I have the lightweight Ti backed pads on there too.
Surprisingly the ZTTO Gen 3 cassette is shifting well. Yes it was annoying to tune, but where I couldn’t get it to work without noise on some cogs on Gina’s Ultegra SL8, there’s no noise at all on the Dura-Ace S5. Upshifts are smooth in all cogs, downshifts are clunky but totally acceptable. Maybe it’s the waxed chain making a difference? Who knows.
All in all I’m really happy that the S5 feels completely different to the SL8. The S5 feels like a plank of wood (similar to the Dogma F in that way). It’s so planted and focused on doing nothing but going fast. My SL8 feels much more comfortable, nimble and playful and it’s just as happy cruising with mates as it is on solo efforts, but I’m thinking the S5 will be the bike I choose on days when my mates can’t join me.