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Not a Camino, but a Colibri Ti, and I love it.
My caveats to that would be:
Sonder bar tape, is singularly the worst bar tape I've ever used. It's too soft so you can literal feel the bars through it.
The Sonder Spitfire bars, I loved the shape, but they were too thin and to stiff. I really wanted to like them but just couldn't ride more than about 50miles (on road) before losing feeling in parts of my palms (or worse it getting painful). Swapped to my Favourite Ritchey WCS Evocurve bars and some nice thick soft Selle Italia tape and it's a comfy bike for well over 100miles a day.
The seat post is pretty solid and unforgiving. I know Ti is supposed to be a nice ride on it's own, but really it's still the seat post that's doing the work. Fit a nice carbon one.
The saddle, why does it have a grippy logo on one side? Gave me an awful saddle sore, swapped it for a very similar shape Selle Italia and back to having no issues at all.
I assumed the tyres would be tubeless ready, but they weren't, so bought some TPU tubes.
Some of that (the bars, bar tape and saddle) I was miffed at because it's just poor design (or parts catalogue buying), those bits could easily have been fine if the product manager made better choices. The seatpost is just one of those cost cuttings you expect to need to correct on most bikes I guess.
Like you I went with the carbon wheels and mechanical gears. I thought about it and asked around the club and the consensus was 12s 105 is basically perfect shifting in either guise (it's not missed a shift or needed adjustment in thousands of miles) but there was some discussion around the shimano buttons being a bit vague under winter gloves and this was intended to be a proper ALL year round bike. bling enough to supersede my current road bike in summer, tough, reliable and comfortable enough to deal with being ridden all winter.
Sonder bar tape, is singularly the worst bar tape I've ever used. It's too soft so you can literal feel the bars through it.
Now understanding why it’s old £6. Might grab a backup option too
I assumed the tyres would be tubeless ready, but they weren't, so bought some TPU tubes.
£45 upgrade option. It’s the one part of the spec that seemed a bit cheeky/mean to me
£45 upgrade option. It’s the one part of the spec that seemed a bit cheeky/mean to me
Yea, I assumed that was just a faff fee to set up tubeless, I didn't realise it meant the stock ones weren't. I would probably have paid it if it had been more obvious rather than just the same tyre with the TCS missing.
On the one hand those WTB Exposures are probably doing my fitness some good and hopefully I'll rocket forward when I eventually get some GP5000's for it. On the other hand, so far I'm 2000miles in and I reckon there is probably 18,000 to go 😂 there's a lot of rubber on those tyres!
Well there she is in all her mudguard wearing glory! First time in years I’ve had full length mudguards… definitely childish enough to be aiming for puddles with them. Wheels are an old set I had lying around, and a bit chunky so will likely be swapped at some point. Silly bars seem to be to my taste so far. Will need to mess with the levers though as at the limit of what my wrists can handle when on the drops (hopefully just a small point inwards is enough). OneUp paddle dropper lever is a revelation too.
