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Surely there must be something I'm missing?
No, it's just a shit design, just as inaccessible seat post bolts were back in the 1950s when Campag had them. This is why the P3C has a completely different seat post which is shit in different ways, superseded by the "Nuovo" P3 whose seat post finds whole new ways of being shit.
AFAIK, @specialist has a P3SL so he might have some hints, rarely seen on here so you might have to PM him to wake him up.
gbj_tester-
Thanks - on the plus side, it means I'm not quite as stupid as I was starting to feel. On the other hand, how is a company like Cervelo not able to develop one good seat clamp design and more or less stick to it...
I had that thought too at some point - "oh if I was using one of those short wide cutout tri saddles, I could access the bolt from above". Then I looked at the bolt from above, and... yeah you guessed it, you can't use an Allen key on that bolt at all. I'll believe you it's still simpler with a cutout, but wouldn't it be brilliant if it was as simple as just inserting an Allen key from above... :D
I think if I do end up using a saddle with a cutout in the right place at some point, I might use an angle grinder (if I can find one) or just a saw to make a little slit in the top of that bolt so I can at least use a screwdriver from above.
SwissChap
A question for owners of older Cervelos: On the seatpost of a P3SL frame I bought, the bolt system on the seat clamp is rather annoying to use - one bolt is accessible from underneath, which is great. But the other one is a 'thumb bolt' that controls the saddle angle which, when you put the saddle on, is extremely difficult / annoying to operate, as you have no access from underneath (meaning I have to somehow jam my finger in to turn it). Am I missing something super obvious on this? Is there some kind of trick to make this easier? (It's very similar in design to a Fizik R1 seat post clamp, but that one has the 'dial' bolt mounted in a way that it is actually accessible even when the saddle is on the clamp)
My approach so far has been to dial it in roughly right before I put the saddle on, leaving the other bolt completely loose, and then to try to do the rest once the saddle is on - but you can't tighten it too much beforehand, otherwise it's impossible to get the saddle on.
Surely there must be something I'm missing? Grateful for any suggestions!