emartin wrote:I just received my AR2 with Ultegra DI2. Love everything about the bike so far but I only used it indoor a couple of time, here in Quebec it's -25 Celcius with 3 feet of snow.
I said I loved everything, well almost. First, with the attention to detail FELT usually does, the cheap aluminum headset look out of place on this bike. Also, I'm having somme issue with the rear brake. First there was zero information about how to adjust it so I ad found the info on the web. The actuation show alot of resistance when compare to the front brake or other BB caliper I used on a Giant Trinity for exemple. The ducumentation I found show that the tension spring can be adjusted with a 2mm allen, mine does't have this feature. I wonder if the Dura-Ace is smoother, any advice is welcome. I also saw two versions of the Ultegra/Dura-Ace direct mount brakes, the other I saw look alot like standard calipers...would tose fit on the AR?
A last, the Ultegra DI2 hoods show a major design flaw. The end of the brake cable doesn't fit deep enough so when the lever is depress, the top of the round part of the cable end rub at the top so the lever doesn't return by itself. Yes it installed properly, I had to grind the top of the cable end to give enough clearance. I assumed I'm not the first to experience this but didn't found anything about it... Should I ask my lbs to contact Shimano about this issue?
That being said the rest of the bike is superb, I'm 5'8" and the 54 fit me perfectly...cannot wait to hit the road.
BTW, I was wonder why the is no UCI sticker on this bike, is it "illegal" in any way? Will I have trouble to use it for national event where bikes are checked?
The headset was designed with a dual-stack position that allows the taller 25mm cone washer which mimics the fit of our Z series models or you can remove the upper bit and use the super shallow 4.3mm cover which allows a similar fit to our F-series models. To make production dates we opted to make these parts in aluminum which shortens lead time considerably because they are simply lathe turned. Molding custom carbon parts is expensive to tool for and requires many months of lead time. There are FSA and other carbon bearing covers you can use although I'm not aware of anyone making a 1k weave version to match your frame.
Are the Ultegra cranks cheap because they aren't carbon?
We don't buy the UCI decals for any of our road models (AR, F, Z, ZW, CX, B-series) so you won't find the decal on your AR2 either. Of course you'll still see our bikes at the races
-SD
