excellent climber, stiffer than the tarmac, very light. the diffference in climbing over my old steel frame was remarkable: very direct power transfer.

Crimson says it has an alu steerer, but that's not what i got: definitely carbon when i cut it, and not just the tube but the whole shebang. even the head tube is all carbon. does not run an integrated head set which is a bonus if a bearing shell stuffs up.

less than 1 kg frame. my whole bike is about 7 kg, but i cuold still lose some weight on the seat and seat tube.

rather twitchy going down hill but follows a line well enough if you're game and strong on the handlebars. does get a bit tiresome after a century.

agreed that the paint jobs on the built up bikes suck, the simpler paint jobs on the naked frames are much better.

one and only problem in this frame is the bottle mounts don't allow the bottles to seat all the way in with some cage designs, as the compact frame has very little space inside in the smaller sizes. you'll have to experiment.