First ride !

Yesterday I finally made my first ride on the Z Pro. After almost 2 weeks of constant rain, skies were finally blue and even the sun was up, so in the late afternoon I took off for a ride.
I was comfortable on the bike from the very beginning : there was no adjusting time, at least not for me. Everything felt natural. The Z Pro felt as responsive as my Giant TCR, total weight of the bike should be around the same too, which is a very good thing. Personally I think the Z Pro is even a little more responsive than a regular racing bike, giving you more confidence when manouvering.One thing I noticed immediately when taking turns is that the Z Pro is as stable as a brick. Due to the longer wheel base, you can take sharp turns easily without any trouble. It sure is a blast to take turns at high speed on this bike !
The seat felt a little awkward in the beginning, but only took a couple of minutes to get used to. The nose of the seat points a little down and when you sit on the bike without riding it, it makes you slide off. This totally disappears when you start to pedal though, there's absolutely no sliding off forward. Although I did feel the edges of the seat pan with my upper legs, it never became an issue during my ride. The carbon is a little flexible, which is a big plus. Although I probably still need to find my sweet spot when it comes to adjusting the seat, I never had the urge to stop and change the angle of the seat during my ride. Everything felt just right and pretty comfortable. My bum did feel warm after a while, but not up to a point where it became a nuisance. It might have been caused by some friction but like I said : I just noticed it, nothing more. The seat is way more comfortable than any saddle I ever sat on, that's for sure !!!
What did trouble me though were the cracking sounds coming from the carbon seat. I never rode anything carbon before, so I don't know whether it's normal or not to produce some sound. When riding throuhg potholes or on rough spots, the seat sometimes produced loud cracking sounds. At one point during my ride, there was such a loud crack I was sure something was broken. So I stopped and checked the seat pan, but everything was stil okay. I don't know what causes these noises, since I'm well between the weight limitations for the bike, I don't think it's me. Sure would like to find out what causes the seat to be so noisy, 'cause it's a little bit irritating and does not make me feel very comfortable.
When it comes to the cockpit, only one thing was missing : bar ends. While the handle bars are pretty comfortable and natural, I missed the variety of putting my hands someplace else. I'm going to put the carbon handle bars from the Giant TCR on my Z Pro. This will alow me to vary my hand positions and look for an even more comfortable ride.
Speed. Hmm, can't say much about it yet. When I started to ride, I just woke up from a recovery sleep after a night shift at work. I know that I'm not that fast after I had a night shift and I don't really mind. I tried to maintain a speed of around 18 - 19 m/h on the Z Pro, which was a hard thing to do sometimes, especially since the wind was pretty strong yesterday. I expected that I'd be slower on the Z Pro than on my regular racing bike but now I think that in time, I'll be as fast on it. The Z Pro sure felt more responsive than my Giant TCR, making manouvering the bike very easy, even with the longer wheelbase. Even after only one ride, one thing is sure : I will not go back to a regular racing bike !!! The CF concept does work, thank God for Randy Schlitter ! He just developed another winning bike !