Beautiful bike, and so clean...
You're right about the seatpost. One day in front of the library I was approached by a limping fellow pushing his bike; presumably he chose me because I wore a helmet. He was a Scotsman who flew over to Cork (on a whim because he could get a cheap ticket!) with the intention of riding to Belfast and taking the ferry home from there. Between the airport and Bandon, 20km or so, the seatpost on his bike snapped and shafted him. A doctor, he self-diagnosed the wound as not intolerable. He wanted to know from me where he would find an LBS. Instead of sending him to the LBS, who I knew had no seat posts in stock, I took him home and gave him an ali seat post I had lying around. Put me off carbon anywhere near tender parts — for life.
Andre Jute
Andre, there is my feeling exactly. I'm sure the statistics will state that there is a minute chance of a carbon seatpost giving up the ghost, but as you can see I ride with quite a bit of seatpost exposed, and the roads in Suffolk aren't always the best, hence my dislike. I know alloy can fail, but I just feel uneasy about carbon as a material for a long, exposed and constantly stressed part which if it did fail, would be a seriously unpleasant experience, I imagine!
The bike is clean, but I find that the matt black paint is a real bugger to keep clean - because things like spilt drinks and mud stick far better than they would to a glossy lacquered paint job! But it's nice riding a bike with no logos on it!
