Box Hill & Carbon Aero bike Winspace T1550 Full Review

[@joeteo6536]

i'm 55 yrs old and ride the T1550, too. Cut 5mm off my seat post. I love this bike, power transfer is incredible. i own 4 other bikes, this is the fastest and my favorite. Thanks for the great review!

[@thewattlife]

I do love it and it is a quick bike. Will be doing some crit races on it soon and have a fast chain gang ride tomorrow night

[@nagasava8439]

You can cut off your seattube if if need it lower.

[@thewattlife]

Ah yes, I’ve had to do this with a track bike back in the day. But clamping a carbon oval seat tube and cutting it isn’t really a fun thing to do. So while I do get that it’s probably a 15 min bike shop job, not being able to whack a seat tube in and go ride would be a little annoying. On the plus side- it feels very secure though ha

[@fraserherman8754]

No need for a perfect cut on the seat post like you want with a steerer tube

[@paulbrown4235]

Bike shop job? You must be joking! You don’t even need a jig for that. Two pieces of masking tape, 2mm apart & hacksaw is all that is necessary.

[@tyneill]

I have the T1500 and cut 10mm off the seat-post

[@jrasero23]

I just built up the same white T1550 Disc in a 44cm Small and like you at its max insertion the post was basically bottoming out and I needed to lower a smidge lower. Took it to a shop and they cut off 20mm for $20. Now I can have my saddle at the correct height with a little room in case the post slips. Also since I on,y cut 20mm off a 300mm post, most people still could get along using the bike if i lent it to them or sold it.

[@johnfarrell5627]

Winspace have updated the bottom bracket to be used on the T1550 Gen 2. It now uses the T47 bottom bracket compared to the BB86 of the Gen 1 frame... Has this fixed that creaking issue?

[@AlbertBuckinghamEllison]

Thanks for this honest review and reviewing the geometry! I'm about to pull the trigger on a new frame and the T1550 looks to be it. It'll be my first disk brake bike and will be replacing my battle-scarred race bike of 10 years. Commenters! - Please update on how your frames are doing, if the quality is there on all of them then Winspace are killing the competition at this price point. Hambini reviewed this bike positively so that's already a good indorsement.

[@thewattlife]

NorCal also used one to race quite a lot but he might have switched back to his cervelo.

[@1carusjohn32]

I think it takes a little time to work out what you want in a bike, even what you want from a particular sort of bike. The best of it is, is that you don't know what you don't know. The feel, the handling, comfort etc. I think you are on a journey of working that out Max... like the rest of us! Nice review and its a fine bike. Nothing is perfect.

[@ianstephenson650]

I have this exact bike with Look carbon keo blade pedals. Every time I stand up and give it the beans, it creaks . I changed to Shimano +4mm ultegra pedals for a wider stance, and the creak went away immediately. I spent weeks messing with the bottom bracket. I would recommend checking your pedals .

[@thewattlife]

Ah thats good to know, I have the Look KEO 2's. I might go round and just tighten everything up and make sure its up to spec and see fi that makes a difference

[@ianstephenson650]

Make sure there is grease on the bb cups and check for play where the spindle attaches to the pedal body as well.

[@pierrex3226]

On the BB, something that is two pieces that thread together in the middle adds rigidity. It's a press fit that threads in the middle. Basically a cheap version of hambini BB (that's a one piece sleeve). Also, if your axle is dub, dub diameter within a bb86 BB means thin bearings, can't be as durable, and probably more likely to creak, than a 24mm axle.

[@thewattlife]

I have a thread together BB on this- think it’s from Token. It’s been good so far, but there is some noise coming from it but it’s not a loud squeaking. I really like the Sram Force group set so have to go with a DUB in the BB86 if you don’t want to run Shimano

[@pierrex3226]

@@thewattlife ah, fair enough. Then given you're in Europe, you may want to try liquimoly silicone based grease, it's German and it's the equivalent to what Cannondale recommends their dealers use on the bb30 format. Cannondale basically invented creaky BBs... In Europe it's cheap and such threaded pf bbs are pretty easy to install and remove.

[@thewattlife]

Nice appreciate this- I will give this a go when I service my bike in a month or so. Thanks

[@jrasero23]

I previously had a T1500 and really liked that bike but sold it to build up an Aethos, but I have since sold that frame and just built up a T1550 Disc with Hyper D45 to go along with my MY22 Scott Foil RC. Both the Scott Foil RC and T1550 are last gen aero bikes in that they are pure aero bikes not all arounders and the the frames weigh 1200g-1300g, not superlight. In terms of speed or at least the perceptions of speed the Winspace feels much stiffer out of the saddle when sprinting but like your review or Norcal's review alluded to is almost borderline too stiff especially with regular clinchers. My MY22 Foil while still plenty stiff is a lot more forgiving in the rear granted it is setup with Elite Wheel Drive wheels and tubeless tires. The two bikes are set up fairly identical in that the main components are Force AXS D2 like yours but I am using Red cassettes and chains for both my bikes. Both my bikes are using BBinfinite one piece ceramic bottom brackets which I highly recommend, but the MY22 Foil RC is a using an older Red GXP crankset and the T1550 is using the Force D2 DUB crankset. Both bikes are have BBInfinite ceramic jockey wheels, but the Foil is using the standard size and the T1550 is using the slightly oversized ones. As I mentioned before I had the previous T1500 and I will say the graphics or aesthetics are 1000 times better on the T1550 BUT I was kind of saddened that my fork wasn't 100% cleanly painted on the T1550. Wherever they masked off for the white stripes at the bottom of the fork was pretty sloppy in that there was a bit of jagged edges, hard edges, or even tiny chips. Granted these are mostly in the inside of the fork where you would have to be looking for imperfections. I will say my Scott has a much more dynamic and higher quality paint job granted even that bike shipped with a 5mm-6mm paint chip on the inside of the fork. Sadly I think the 2nd gen T1550 looks to have better paint options, granted I have no clue is quality wise how they are. I mentioned in another post that the seatpost on my build was at it's max insertion, but for me I still needed a touch of insertion for a proper fit, thus I brought my seatpost to a LBS and they cut 20mm off for $20, thus this gives me at least 1/2" of room in case my seatpost slips. The bike with pedals, cages, mouts, sensors, single side power meter weighs 16.5lbs with clinchers and TPU tubes with the only real weight weenie parts being the Galfer Wave CL rotors and my Berk padded saddle. In contrast my MY22 Foil RC weighs 17.5lbs but that has tubeless tires and a much heavier saddle. All in all when I went to go pickup my T1550 from the shop since I had it built up there maybe 3-4 people came up to me to admire the bike and told me how much they liked it and even recognized Winspace from maybe your channel or GC Performance or whoever, however when I went to a different shop (Trek dealer) to get my seatpost cut the service manager made a remark, "is that an Alibaba bike", and "you got to watch out for those bikes, we get a lot of bikes like that that fail", and "the UCI sticker doesn't matter". I am not denying that buying a big Western brand has its merits especially when it comes to RMA or possible getting parts long term, but in terms of reliability or tolerances I found the T1500, T1550, and the Hyper wheels to be 95%+ the quality and performance of ANY big name brand bike. IMO the T1500 series or really any Winspace is so good it allows you to build bikes that compete with big Western brands at much lower prices or it allows you to build bikes with better components. My T1550 not including labor would have been $6K in parts granted a ceramic BB and jockey wheels and Red chains and cassette are not necessary but at that price really the only bikes that are offering similar value are Canyon with the Ultimate or their previous gen Aeroad or the new Trek Madone SL 7 Gen 8 which doesn't come with a power meter and is 17.38lbs stock and is $6500.

[@thewattlife]

You’ll have to let me know how you find the new T1550. I’ve really enjoyed mine. After you mentioned the paint thing I went and checked mine and it seems ok, I imagine they do them in batches, and perhaps you got a bit unlucky. People are still finding the brand name so a lot of people in the UK don’t know it yet. The quality has been excellent though and I’ve done more than enough miles to say that it’s been brilliant. I’ll have to do a full cost break down on my new SLC 3.0 build that I’m doing. Thanks for following along

[@brianblackie9434]

I love my T1550, which I purchased shortly after you. Mine is red and black. I would need to see yours in the flesh before I could say mine is better looking but my gut says I've got one over you!! :) I'm running Di2 105 on mine and when I get out of the saddle it is noisy. More a chain ring grinding thing than a squeak but worse than my Giant Defy (much cheaper) which runs Ultegra. I need to spend more time diagnosing the problem but it's disappointing. Otherwise, the ride is wonderful. I feel like Tadej Podecar when I'm down on the hoods, particularly compared to my endurance setup on the Defy, which I now find weird. I like your wheels although my Lun D67s are also great.

[@thewattlife]

I do love the red version. Real stand out frame design. I love the shape of the frame, the top tube looks gorgeous. I’ve fallen in love with Sram though, and don’t think I’d go back to Di2

[@thewattlife]

I put some logos on my wheels. Haha I love them though. How do I see your bike?

[@seanbarman]

Press fit bottom bracket must be put in dry to avoid creaks, many make the mistake of adding grease, or use something like a wheels manufacturing bb which screws together.

[@thewattlife]

I have a thread together /screw together BB. No noise from the BB now, managed to sort it and the whole bike works like a dream

[@manco_1997]

I'm 5"11 as well with long legs and weigh 64kg. I ordered the 2nd Gen Frameset to build up in the Large size. I use 175mm cranks, my saddle height is 79cm, with a saddle to bar drop of 9cm, and run a 120mm to 130mm stem depending on the frame (I purchased the integrated stem as well in the 125mm length and 42cm width (I have really broad shoulders). Your comments about how long the seatpost is has me questioning. What is your saddle height? And did you cut it down?

[@thewattlife]

No I didn’t cut it down- that would be the easy thing to do yes, and being provided with a longer saddle post is obviously way better than a short one. I would cut it, but I CBA to waste a blade cutting a carbon seat post and there hasn’t been too much of a problem with it

[@pauldyerdyer2731]

You would have to cut the seat tube to get it lower, this is safe to do but can affect resale if you trim to much of. Nice bike .

[@thewattlife]

I think its pretty perfect for me, im just keeping an eye on it incase it ever slips

[@treyquattro]

I hope the seat tube comes as standard! (I think you meant seat pin or seat stem.) It's a pretty nice bike, well worth considering I think.

[@thewattlife]

Seat tube definitely comes as standard with the bike. Can’t remember what I said now but yes, it does. The integrated bars do not

[@matkrek]

Great review, looking forward to receiving mine soon!

[@thewattlife]

I have a few videos building this up if you need any tips

[@chrizzoriot]

Nice Review! Whats your inseam?

[@enricobrunodelzotto7486]

Thanks for the review, which wheels have you got? Are the hyper ones?

[@thewattlife]

Yeah these are the D67 Hyper 2023. I have the put some decals on them so they are monogrammed with TWL for The WattLife. I hear there’s new Hypers with 23mm internal rim width coming soon 👀

[@leadsafe2k]

Thank you for sharing your experience with bike. Where did you purchase the sweater 🙂?

[@thewattlife]

You'll have to dive on here: benparkes.com/collections/23-running-gear-all A buddy of mine sells them on his website. I have two

[@glennicol1361]

Have you seen the Bross Zenith bike from China...? Looks awesome! Hope to try it at the Shanghai bike show...

[@thewattlife]

I just had to look it up on Instagram. Interesting mould- really built out the bottom bracket area. Let me know what you think when you get to see it in person

[@glennicol1361]

@@thewattlife I will...they also build bikes for Cube.

[@thewattlife]

Handy to know

[@machtiger5293]

I’m thinking of getting the t1550. However, the whole thing about the downtube is bugging me and when Hambini spoke about it being structurally weaker than the other types of designs, that really flipped the switch. My main question, is this actually safe/reliable? The scare comes from me riding on somewhat questionable roads and am a bit afraid that this’ll die after a while cuz of the abuse the bike will go through. Hope you reply!

[@thewattlife]

I haven’t seen what he said- are you talking about out the original T1500 or the T1550 Gen 1/2?

[@machtiger5293]

@@thewattlife oh wait, my bad haha. I’m currently looking at the new T1550. Went for a test ride today and got this feeling that the down tube is really paper thin (when i was messing with it and not while riding it). It kind of bugged me for a bit cause it really felt fragile. Anyways, I just wanna know if the new t1550 is actually something that’s worth spending some money on. It has this crazy “It feels fragile” feeling when I’m poking around it, but when riding it, It’s probably one of the stiffest and most responsive bikes I’ve ridden.

[@thewattlife]

I don’t want to be rude but I’ve never had the same feeling of it with it being fragile! The frame isn’t particularly light and I’ve personally never felt like it was particularly fragile. I’m 78kg and I don’t think it’s something I’ve ever worried about

[@thewattlife]

Is it a particular part that you think feels very thin?

[@machtiger5293]

@@thewattlife The down tube area felt a bit fragile. I was trying to move the bike and grabbed it by the down tube area and I was genuinely surprised as to how much I was able to make it flex.

[@tomnguyen3829]

appreciated for the video. do you know what your inseam length is?

[@thewattlife]

31 inches. I’m 181 cm tall.

[@blim00]

Hi, how do you compare this frame to the tarmac sl8?

[@thewattlife]

Not hugely comparable- the SL8 is a lot lighter but not an all out aero frame. The BB on the T1550 is nice an firm so you get good power transfer but you have to push higher watts as it’s a bigger frame. Haven’t had a chance to compare the geometry but will do soon ✌🏻✌🏻

[@io8787]

I am receiving my frame next week...I have managed to buy a ready-to-paint frame, curious to see how light I can go with my build, I guess sub 7kg is doable

[@thewattlife]

Oh wow- so are you planning on painting it or just going bare carbon with a lacker? Be interesting to see if you can get the weight down, smaller rims, lighter saddle, I’m sure you can cut the weight down

[@io8787]

@@thewattlife the paint will be chosen depending on the real weight of the frame I receive.. then I’m going with CRW 50 wheels, Cybrei crankset and Avian handlebars.. this should allow me to save a good 400gr with respect to standard builds.. let’s see but I really hope to show that aero-light can be done on a “relatively low budget”

[@thewattlife]

This sounds awesome. How do I see it when it’s done?

[@io8787]

@@thewattlife for the moment being, I didn't plan anything in particular but I will "record" all the build procedure..I can send you all the details of the build, weights, photos and videos..if you want, you can even make a short video on your channel

[@thewattlife]

Yes that could be cool

[@HeyWattsUpCycling]

some white bar tap would really set it off with the color fade

[@thewattlife]

Paris would never allow it!!!!

[@willyturing1803]

Where did the Enve melee go? Haven't seen him in a long while, how it compares?

[@thewattlife]

They were press bikes on loan from Enve, since then they added a few extra bikes to their range

[@willyturing1803]

@@thewattlife Ah good to know, how do you like one over another? Maybe that is the next topic to talk about?😁

[@treyquattro]

a comparo with the Winspace would be interesting. Was there one? I'll check...

[@al-du6lb]

can't you cut a few mil off the seat post?

[@thewattlife]

Yes- not quite so easy with the modern D shaped seat posts as I don’t have a clamp but yeah it would be the easiest thing to do. I just CBA 😂

[@jds7438]

Some advice.. cut down the seat post, ditch the sram chainset, and go for a rotor with 24mm axle.

[@thewattlife]

I do feel you- I know the Dub has its faults BUT crank spider power meters, Sram shifters and larger rear cassettes. I’m all in for the Sram Force/RED vibes. The seat post could probably do with being cut though

[@jds7438]

@thewattlife rotor makes a sram compatible chainset for axs, using a 24mm axle.. it means you get rid of the stupid dub axle and get a better set up. You can also buy a rotor powe based spider.

[@thewattlife]

Handy tip- thank you. Will check them out as might be building a new bike over the summer

[@stianpollestad754]

Nail polish matching the bike. Classy 👌

[@thewattlife]

She will literally never change it

[@carlobalzer3238]

Nice bike max 👍

[@thewattlife]

Thank you

[@martindixiesparks]

you need a wheels mfc bb86 bottom bracket no squeak

[@thewattlife]

I have a thread together BB which I still think is great, I think it’s a Ninja somethingorother Maybe being a Sram and a wider axel plays a part but it’s not too bad at the moment

[@ianstephenson650]

Does it fit Sram dub spindle?

[@johnmartinjones3963]

Not advisable for sram in bb86

[@thewattlife]

This is a Hambini thing after he made a video on it. While I’m not saying he’s wrong, I am saying my Winspace rides pretty well right now

[@johnmartinjones3963]

It's a really good bike

[@anthonywalsh1564]

Seat post not seat tube love you're videos

[@thewattlife]

Sometimes I don’t really know what comes out my mouth when filming so there’s always some mess ups!!! My bad

[@J88HNT]

My bike fitter cut the seat tube.

[@thewattlife]

Im going to cut mine down this week.

[@crack0n]

Cut off some mm of the seattube 🙃

[@thewattlife]

Maybe something for my next build project day