My SL7 was getting very long in the tooth (over 40k miles, lots of bumps and bruises) and I really wanted to replace it with a SL8. My team gets great Specialized pricing, but the SL8 was ruled out almost immediatley due to fit. Unfortunately, the lack of Roval stem / bar combos in my size made the SL8 a non-starter.
I run a 36cm bar and 130mm stem. I'm 5-10 and normal build. When I ride a bike with 40+cm bars it feels like moose antlers to me and I feel like I'm wasting a lot of watts.
The fact that Factor has this size in an integrated bar/stem readily available put them immediately at the top of the list. My use case is high speed group rides and P/1/2 races in south florida.
I moved all the parts over from my SL7 build which is a mix of SRAM Red / Force AXS (all I could get in 2021 during COVID) and Roval Rapide CLXs. My immediate reaction to the bike was "wow this thing looks like 2 generations beyond the SL7 in terms of aesthetics and integration."
Bike is 16lbs 12 oz as shown above. For my use case in flat south Florida, this bike feels absolutely optimized. Aero is much more important here than weight.
I quickly took the bike out for its maiden voyage in the rain/dark (welcome to the stable!) Below are my impressions and comparisons to the SL7. I think its helpful that all of the parts are the same, so I'm really getting an idea of what the frame differences are.
Pros:
1) Bike feels very stable at speed, like it is on rails. Its far less twitchy than the SL7. Feels good for road courses and less twisty crits, I think it may feel slightly less willing to change direction at speed than the SL7. Its definitely one of those bikes that gets up to speed and just wants to sail along.
2) Looks. Subjective, but wow. I think it looks absolutely killer.
3) Very quiet. No rattles, squeaks or creaks. I think Factor really sorted the bike out well.
4) Stiffness under power and comfort are comparable to the SL7. I'd assume it is less comfortable than a SL8, but for the aero trade off is worth it to me.
5) Fit. As mentioned above, getting a 36/130 integrated bar/stem is amazing. Also, the stack is slightly higher than my SL7 so I can run 0 spacers to match the fit which looks amazing.
Cons:
1) Not the lightest bike in the world.
2) The under stem light mount is smartly placed closer to the bars (see below) which is very slick and likely puts way less pressure on the mount. The downside to this is that you can see the shadows of your shifters in your peripheral vision in the dark. When I first saw it the weird shadows I thought I was having eye issues haha.
Shadow outline of the shifter in the dark!! haha
3) The headset cover (see below) is kind of sharp and protrudes a little more than the SL7s cover. This isn't noticable to me except when I'm doing one of those kind of 2/3rds sprints where you stand up and rock the bike back and forth to stretch and put down a little more power. I noticed my legs hitting the cover while sprinting because I was rocking the bike back and forth more than I would in an actual full gas sprint.
4) Bike gets more blown around in cross winds than the SL7 (makes sense given side profile). Feels similar to how my SL7 did when I ran Princeton Mach 7580s on it. Its not a deal breaker but its noticable coming from the SL7.
Next steps: I'm going to replace the shifters with the new SRAM Force AXS D2 shifters for their improved ergonomics. Also need to cut down the steerer.
Happy to answer any questions! Thx
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Follow-up thoughts after 2 more rides, one being a hard interval session with all out 40 sec efforts:
This bike feels FAST. Whether you are climbing the only hill in my area (its a bridge haha) or flying with a tailwind, it just wants to accelerate and then stay at speed. Some specific notes:
1) Pedaling through corners. The SL7's Bottom Bracket height is 268mm and the I measure 274mm on the Ostro. I tried really pushing the limits of pedaling through high speed corners and was very happy with my ability to keep pedaling while really leaning the bike. This has obvious benefits for crits.
2) Handlebars/ride compliance. So far really happy with the bars. I had previously stated that the compliance felt on par with the SL7, but I've found an exception. If you are in the bottom of the drops (i.e. hands close to the end) there is ALOT of vertical movement over bumps where the handebar moves up and down to provide compliance. Coming from Enve SES Aero bars its very noticable. I did not notice any flex when sprinting from the drops, but my hands are further up towards the curved section in that use case.
3) Handlebars note two. The tops are more usable than the ENVEs for my medium sized hands due to the top's smaller size. Not sure what the aero penatly there is, but its nice functionality. Note, the ENVEs are marked 40cm but they are actually 35cm center to center at the hoods (which is freakin awesome). If you don't have a bike with integrated bars I can't reccomend these ENVEs enough.
4) Bike just wants to go straight. Adding onto my prior comments, it seems that there is alot of "correction" built into the design wherby the bike really wants to straighten out from any turning. Maybe my SL7 had a used up old headset which is making me notice this more. Its not a bad thing, but does contribute to the feeling that its slightly less happy to rip corners than the SL7.
Bike just going straight lol.
5) water bottle cages are very nice. Factor is making some claims about aero benefits without a bottle on these - who knows how material that is - but they look super nice, grip the bottle nicely and its great to have them included in the frame package. Their circumfrence where the bottle goes in is noticably smaller than my arundels, so pehaps there is less protruding out beyond that downtube.
6) Misc. Front end feels STIFF in a good way. Puts down the power and you can find compliance in the drops. No issues with the top cap hitting my legs during real sprint efforts.
