Pardon me for bringing back an old thread, but there is a good reason. I broke my Madone yesterday. It flew off the car rack at speed, possibly because I hadn't strapped it on, but there is no scientific proof of that, only anecdotal evidence with a sample of 1, so...

Anyway, racing season just started, and I need a fast (double meaning intended) replacement as I really don't want to be doing crit's on a steel bike with a 29cm head tube, nor RRs with a 22# bike. I've read and read and talked and talked, and especially given our relatively flat topography here, I'm ready to drink the aero Koolaid. The bike I've been jonesing for is the S5, because:

A. From my attempts at comparing all the various claims, it's hard not to to rate the S5 as the most aero. Going straight line at 25+, Cervelo claims it can save me ~30w over the Madone. 30w is, well, huge.
B. Having raced sailboats and spent a lot of time learning about aero shapes, I'm not too keen on the concept of the "truncated aero shape" Scott uses on the foil. Lets' just say nobody is going to build a sailboat mast that looks like that unless they have to. For anything except a crosswind situation, it's clearly a compromise to deal with the UCI rule.
C. The Cervelo has a stack of 63.My Madone has a stack of 65.4, and while I've been taking them out over time, I still have a couple spacers in. Reach is 4mm longer on the Cervelo.

Staying with frames that have the stack and reach I would get if custom sized is, to put it mildly, extremely limiting. Maybe there is a 64cm aero frame out there I haven't found, but I doubt it. I think it's time I do what Vansummeren does: ride a 61 and learn to like the drop.

So, having followed my twisted logic through to the desired conclusion of needing an S5, I find the comments on this thread more than mildly concerning. I don't want a headache, and it sounds like Cervelo has had issues with (a) the design of the seatpost fastener (b) manufacturing quality control, and (c) customer service. With a totally design driven company, this is understandable. But these sorts f issues tend to cause big damage to a brand, and my sense is that the brand has a fair amount of loyalty.

So, I'm asking for additional comment and discussion.

My team LBS carries both Cervelo and Scott. The owner (and captain, a Cat1) just put together an "ultimate aero" S5 project bike. Battery hidden internally, cables cleverly routed, the most aero brakes, and and they even mounted the computer on the TT behind the stem. He says the S5 is the best straight line road bike, and that the Scott is the better "all around bike" and climber. The shop also built an ultimate weight weenie Guru Photon that came in at about 12#. He can ride anything he wants, has a cycling specific wind tunnel in the back of the shop (currently still being tweaked and calibrated) and is racing the S5 this year, having decided "aero uber alles". Of course, owning the LBS, he really doesn't need to worry about warranty claims or having the bike in the shop. It's in the shop every day, and the shop has the best wrench in the valley.