I posted this on the article but wanted to move it here as requested:


Dan, great article. But there are a couple of points that are important to understanding the plight of the Plasma 5.

We've done well with the Plasma4, and like R&A, a Plasma5 has yet to leave the shop that didn't get di2 on it. We have done better with the Plasma 10 at $3749 than the Plasma 20 at $3249.

First of all, this bike isn't a year old. It was impossible to get fulfillment on this bike at any non-inflated (read, not the overly expensive Team Issue bike with Red22) price point until this spring. Framesets and the Plasma Premium became available mid-March - just three months ago and after most riders that were upgrading had already made a purchase decision. We had a number of riders that would have elected to purchase a Plasma5 had it been available but chose alternatives instead. Just because Kienle could ride it does not mean that the average triathlete could ride it. A midwestern dealer called me in February with a number of frustrated pre-orders on the Plasma5 because what was initially promised as a 2014 delivery kept slipping.

Second, the bike is a bit overpriced - certainly at the 105 and Ultegra levels. Were the 105 bike $2800 or even $2999, and the Ultegra bike more in the $3500 range, it would compare a bit more favorably with its competitors. One has to articulate superiority to justify an increase in price, and Scott has not done that effectively with the Plasma4. The Plasma5 price for the Plasma Premium is $7000, not $6000 as mentioned in the article. The Team Issue version of the bike with Red22 is $12000, not $11000.

Third, all of Scott's marketing is centered around the Plasma5, and very little of that marketing is ground in the science of the bike. Instead, is ground in the performance of riders like Kienle. And compare that to another bike in that range that sells like hotcakes, such as the Felt IA. Felt has made an engineering case for the superiority of the IA and delivered on its ship dates and with good numbers. This has resulted in, effectively, a sell-through of the IA. You simply can't get it - frameset or otherwise - at any level, in certain sizes (the 48 has been gone for a couple of months). You'd figure that with the success of Cervelo and Felt in the triathlon space and the means through which they've built that reputation, other brands would seek to market in a similar fashion. But no, the marketing spins like a broken record.

Fourth, the packages on the Plasma5 are the least compelling we sell across every brand. We sell more triathlon bikes for a single store than anyone, and we have yet to have a single rider demand Red 22 on their bike this year. We have not sold a single Dura-Ace mechanical build this year either - in every case a Dura-Ace spec was upgraded to di2. In most cases, it was upgraded to Ultegra di2 with brake lever shifters and the Dura-Ace crankset, chain, and cassette were preserved. Were the two Plasma5 options instead spec'd with Ultegra di2 and Dura-Ace di2, sales of that bike would probably be 3x or 4x.

Since Shimano has created such a pricing mess with it's absolute refusal to regulate the European online market, upselling di2 makes shops no money and requires significant work. If the shop isn't savvy with di2 and the routing complexities and brake complexities of a superbike aren't well known, the labor required to install di2 can be prohibitive. The Plasma5 and the inferior (and problematic) di2 routing Scott recommends is a perfect example of this.

As a result of where the market is, it's imperative that bike brands offer those options out of the box as a consequence.

Fifth, expecting reps to provide value in selling bikes - especially triathlon bikes - is utter folly. With all due respect to the great guys and gals out there working the roads, the days of the outside rep with bike brands are numbered. The breadth of a territory a rep must cover and the breadth of knowledge they have to have in order to provide real support to the shops out there that do well in triathlon makes it impossible for them to be very useful to my shop. Over and over, they come in and present a PPT slide deck full of information we've already read via the marketing info or Slowtwitch. One thing about reps that nobody wants to really mention as well is that my shop, largely, has the same exact reps it did three years ago. Except now, they all rep different brands than they did when they first opened us up. That happens less frequently with inside reps. Brands that choose to keep their reps outside, like Scott does, are at a significant disadvantage.

You nailed a couple of points spot on. There is no excuse for a modern bike brand not to provide a fit calculator and an armpad stack and reach table with ranges of adjustment on superbikes. Frame stack and reach is effectiely useless for superbikes since the relationship the armpad position has with the geometry of the frame isn't the same as a bike with a traditional stem and steerer tube and is different from superbike to superbike. That said, the number of shops that can really fit a person effectively on a superbike can probably be counted on your fingers and toes as well. A number of local shops have all manner of fitting equipment and very little skill. It's akin to buying a hammer and screwdriver set and proclaiming to the world that you're a carpenter.

The Aeria bars are terrific, and the adustment and comfort of the entire Profile Design bar range is without peer.

This bike is a very well-engineered piece of tech. The Profile Design integrated drink is very well done, easy to remove, and large enough to support real hydrational needs. The bike is fast in the tunnel and fast with a rider on it.

And last, you're absolutely right - this bike should sell better and should get better support from Scott USA and Park Cities. We've been a Scott dealer for nearly four years and, most years, are the largest Scott dealer in a very large metropolitan area. But I've yet to meet a single person inside Scott that designs bikes, that designs marketing efforts, and that designs the means of connecting with customers. Every other brand we carry has solicited our advice and, in many cases, used it. Scott is the exception.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

i have heard from a couple of people that the electronic cable routing was an issue. andres from beyond aero told me that, i think. but al at R&A said he hadn't heard complaints. but then al isn't the one routing the cables.

it seems to me that this might be helpful:

1. framesets with prerouted electronic cables? this, because virtually every one of these frames will go electronic.
2. obviously, pad rise and run fit matrix that produces both flat and angled stem complete bike solutions.
3. prices for frameset that do not include hydration and storage (with these available aftermarket, separately).

if you're going to use the flat stem as a viable option, which i think is imperative, you have to split out the hydration as a separate purchase. it seems to me that both scott and specialized has taken the view that real men ride flat stems, and pussy triathletes need angled up stems. when you see all the pro cyclists in time trials in europe riding bikes that look one way, and all the bikes marketed to triathletes riding bikes that look another way, that's a problem that needs to either be explained, or solved.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The problem with building these bikes, outside of the always existent brake issues that plague superbikes, is junction box placement. Scott recommended routing the junction box up the seat post and under the saddle. On an XL that took lots of cables and lots of junction boxes. Then, when the seat post slipped, the cables were all pulled and couldn't be shifted. We no longer route the di2 cables as Scott recommends, drill a hole in the integrated bento box, and drop the junction box in there. It's easier, accessible, and clean.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

My LBS has the new Plasma for a week. Then it was gone and I was told there were only 3 left in stock at Scott for the rest of the year in the model/size I wanted; no idea if this was accurate or my LBS trying to get me to immediately commit to a new bike (I just purchased the Addict 10 a few days prior and the new Plasma was a perfect match).

Is one of the issues they aren't really prevalent because of availability issues?

scott's biggest problem with this bike was a lot of companies' problems: the dock strike. well, not a dock strike. a dock slowdown. container ships outside the long beach harbor.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I agree completely with the plasma being a great bike and lacks support. I have a 3 and love it but was annoyed when I wanted a flat stem and couldn't find one and even had a hard time getting a different sized rise stem. I've emailed and called scott in the past with no luck and the dealers I have gone too have had a hard time as well... My wife got the new speed concept this year and its night and day on the support. Parts are easy to get, Carl here on ST is amazing for answering questions and information on the bike is readily available.

If I was in the market for a new bike I'd probably go to a new SC due to support and pricing. You can get a new project one 7.5 speed concept built with integration mechanical for under 6k which is still less than the plasma 5 dura ace... A stock SC 7.5 is only 4.5k...

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Andy Mullen
Team Zoot

in triathlon at least, carl is the most important sponsored athlete trek has. carl is the most prolific and successful sales rep trek has. carl is the most important marketing executive trek has. he may or may not be the most important engineer trek has. i'm quite sure trek understands maybe 20 percent, at most, of the value carl delivers to his employer.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Well said. He was a big reason we choose the SC as we were able to get all the info we needed. Same with Dave at Felt for that matter- big help when I owned a felt. I wish scott had someone in a similar capacity either on here or accessible in some fashion.

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Andy Mullen
Team Zoot

I'm often asked "Why do so many people buy Cervelos" and the answer is relatively simply: they are extremely good at research and marketing that research. It creates a compelling and inherent brand trust on behalf of the consumer. It's why I have 2 of them, ha.


Perfect.

I have to agree with you re Carl. Honestly, his responsiveness is the reason why I don't see myself riding anything besides a Speed Concept in the foreseeable future. With that said, I was Scott's perfect customer: willing to pay knowing full well it wouldn't net me much if anything over my current bike, Kienle fan-boy, liked the colors, like Scott's products in general, wear the Split helmet (best I've found for myself thus far), and I'm a big fan of the integrated front hydration of the Plasma Premium. With that said, there were essentially three deal breakers for me:

1. No Di2. I'm a fan of Di2 for weird reasons. Yes, the shifting is amazing but that's not why I run it on my race bike. Di2 makes traveling easier for me in addition to making cockpit adjustments easier. This wouldn't have been an issue if they sold the bike as a frameset but, to my knowledge, they don't.
2. Horizontal dropouts. I suppose I could've let this one slide if everything else was perfect but... it wasn't so it irks me even more.
3. My local Scott dealer had precisely zero interest in selling me one. I came in looking for the new Plasma Premium, they didn't have one, and proceeded to aggressively try to sell me on the last gen Plasma Premium. The whole experience was very off-putting. Had they been honest and said something like "there aren't many in the country, we don't expect to get one until later in the year" I would've considered going back and checking the bike out when it finally came in.... but now I won't.

You see this all the time in different industries where a company has a good product that is very competitive on all specs but the marketing execution just isn't there.

Thanks for the insights, Dan. I'm actually pretty amazed by your article: I looked at the Plasma, in part because I really like the integrated storage options, but stopped looking when I saw the stack and reach numbers. If I could get lower than I am on my P5-6, I would, and when I saw that the Plasma stacked 3cms HIGHER (on Scott's chart) than the Cervelo, I stopped reading. It's kind of ironic that a metric that's supposed to enable direct comparison of bikes with differing geometries should end up being used in such a counter-productive way.

Funny you mention Giant in the intro. Both companies have a strong history in North America of ignoring the triathlon market. An old roommate of mine was the main Giatn NA sales rep, he hadn't a _clue_ what triathlon was or why they needed to bring in the HTC giant bike (this is 7ish years ago).

A lot of Scott USA's failure lies in Ketchum.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

this is why these things matter. metrics matter. support systems matter. north american tri bike product managers get it. european design teams don't. i know that's a generalization, but i think there's a culture in europe that you make the bike and stick it under some star riders, that's all you really have to do.

but then aerobars came along, snuck up on everybody, and made the process more complex. and superbikes with integrated front ends make everything more complex. so you need to build a support system. a launch is more than a white paper and a wind tunnel comparison graph.

bike maker ====(support system)===> consumer

european design teams don't really yet get the above.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"A lot of Scott USA's failure lies in Ketchum."

i'm not so sure about that. if you need to know the rise and run from the head tube top to the handlebar clamp, for each of your 2 stems offered on the plasma 5, you need to get the engineers to open up their CAD programs and give you this. this just didn't happen, that i know of (and, yes, i've asked, and have been asking).

look, here's the problem. i tell EVERY bike company that makes one of these superbikes, i'll tell you how to easily make one of these fit matrices. i'll walk you through it. we run through a couple of emails. then the communication stops on their side. i'm not talking about scott. i'm talking about a lot of bike companies. we just have aborted conversations, and i'm not the one who aborts them.

fair warning to every company. from here on in, if you make a superbike, and you don't have some kind of fit matrix, it's on you. it's going to be pointed out. not just by me. by your retailers, who expect this. they just won't sell your bike. it's like, hmm, got a guy in front of me, the fit was just done, rise and run from the BB to the pads of 650mm and 495mm. trek has a matrix. velobici and aeroweener don't have matrices for their bikes. why am i going to horse around trying to figure out how to fit my customer to these bikes? i'm just going to call up trek and get a P1 going.

trek is #2 in tri right now. closing in on cervelo. trek's success is 50% the bike, and it's 50% a process that carl developed and husbands.

every time i teach a F.I.S.T. workshop; every time i speak at interbike or some such event; i say "product-drive transactions are giving way to process-driven transactions; display retailing is giving way to tactile retailing." by "tactile" retailing i'm talking about, in part, the process of establishing a place of comfort. by "process" transactions i'm talking about taking that place of comfort and translating it into a precise, granular product solution. so, you go thru a fit process, establish fit coordinates you like. then carl comes along and say, "oh, well, that's an SC, size L, low/far stem, 35mm pedestal, wing back, no wing spacer, and by the way you'll want to pull those bontrager bars back about 15mm in their clamps."

it's that, or, you curiously look at your very sexy veloweener frame, scratch your head, with no flipping idea what size frame or stem works for you, or if it will work for you at all.

which company do you think is going to get the sale?

pardon the rant, but carl is an engineer. this came out of trek engineering. it needs to come out of scott, canyon, cannondale, specialized, storck, pinarello, et al, engineering. the plasma was not a ketchum engineering project. i think europe let ketchum down.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You give the NA managers far too much credit. JMO

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

That bike makes me think of a St. Bernard.

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Proud Representative of Slowtwitch Anti-Atheists Society.

you deal with this every day, on the front lines. so, i'm not going to dispute your characterization, because you're one of maybe two dozen retailers, four dozen generously, who really get all these concepts we're talking about.

what europe did bequeath ketchum was a fantastic bike. how it slipped out without any electronic on it i don't know. to me, the bare frames need to be pre-wired electronic. or, some easy pathway to electronic. if you don't want electronic, great, there are complete bikes that come mechanical.

just, i get so double-danged frustrated, vicariously, on behalf of the bike companies, because they're so much better than i ever could be at conceiving and making today's modern tri bikes. yet, here they are, on the one yard line, best running back in the NFL, and they throw a pass.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

To clarify a bit, I did make mention of the Di2 "integration" which isn't so much about the cable routing difficulties as much as where everything should go. For example as "trentnix" mentioned & as the pictures on the feature you Herbert posted, the junction placement and excess use of internal junction boxes was less than ideal the way Scott suggests - thus the need to find alternatives (the bento box)! Who knows, maybe this bike is really more forward thinking that we're giving it credit for... hopefully once SRAM wireless is out, we'll know.

Except you do not need engineering to come up with a fit chart like Trek. If someone really wanted it, they could make it themselves. It is not exactly rocket science.

Also, why do manufactures seem to hate frameset sales so much?

+1. Before I found Slowtwitch, most available data was pretty scattered and confusing.
Here on ST, everything seems to run much more cohesively, with independent data and informed opinions available from aero gurus such as Jackmott, Jim@ERO, rruff, Andrew Coggan, Andy P and about half a dozen others I forgot to mention (sorry!). Still, there is a great deal more confidence when the information comes from the horse's mouth, especially if they are willing to discuss and defend every detail of their testing with skeptic and knowledgeable experts/triathletes. My first bike, a 2010 P2, was influenced by Damon Rinard's posts. SuperDave's active forum participation helped me be comfortable with racing a Felt B16. I massively researched Carl's threads before choosing my Trek SCs over the "S" and "C" brands, and his detailed explanations keep me constantly refining and upgrading their aero potential. And lastly, Jordan's move to DImond and his willingness to offer information and advice about this bike and how to set it up was a major factor why I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Dimond frame.
Data matters. Access to people with insider data who are willing to assist us triathletes is a great help indeed.

"Except you do not need engineering to come up with a fit chart like Trek. If someone really wanted it, they could make it themselves."

yes, you're right. i can make these charts, and have. that tells you right there how dumb somebody can be and make these charts. but you have to have metrics. you either grab the product out of the box, build it up, measure things or, better, the engineers just tell you the metrics of the sub-assemblies that conspire to produce a complete bike. i could make scott's fit matrix in half a day, but not without accurate measurements of the x and y components of the frames and stems (and bar, but i could get that from profile).

"Also, why do manufactures seem to hate frameset sales so much?"

beats me.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

We make our own. We have a Retul Zin, which is a very accurate way to measure the relationship and position of things relative to the bottom bracket. We also write our own software to help with our fits to distill fit coordinates into bike recommendations. It saves constant database lookups, and allows us to account for fitter's discretion when making recommendations.

The scary part? On more than one occasion (meaning, more than one bike), the actual measurements differed from what the manufacturer provided in their calculator.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Couldn't agree more.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

I bet it is a volume thing with Shimano.

If a manufacturer agrees to sell 10k units of 105 from Shimano, they pay $100 per unit. If they only sell 5k-9,999 they have to pay $120 per unit. So if the manufacturer sold a bunch of framesets, they full bike cost would go up as the component cost went up.. hurting profit margins (more than the extra frameset only sales would give them).

If that's the case, Shimano is screwing them in the end. You can't begin to imagine the danger that Shimano's inability to control it's supply chain and dealer network poses to the entire bike industry. But that's a different topic that nobody in the bike industry really wants to take on because they will be shouted down by all of the entitled folks addicted to their K1LL3r d3alz.

Customer service once meant a fair exchange of goods and services. Then it meant "the customer is always right". Then it became "the customer is always right, damnit!" And then, the Veruca Salts of the world turned it into, "if you doubt the customer, you must be destroyed!"

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Glad I could help. When you are ready for an IA, I'm here.

-SD

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Rants are good, and everything you say about Trek and Carl is absolutely true. I recommend frames for all my athletes and Waterloo and Toronto make this very easy for me to play with coordinates. I have _never_ recommended a Scott to anyone based on fit (have for 1 based on the killer deal available - if it didn't work out $$$ was to be gained on the switch).

I know that in the past Switzerland has _really_ hamstrung Ketchum's efforts and Adrian made the problem worse in the marketing department. "hmmm, i'll sponsor my friends and pretty girls." Rather than market with science, he just perpetuated the euro "looks" marketing culture. This was at a time where cervelo was already making a killing (i.e. publicly published case study for selling bikes) by selling to science and fit. Mr Montgomery has been gone for awhile now and yet I see no change in the marketing team's approach from ketchum. Now is this just another up high directive from Switz that's driving that, i don't know, but it certainly is still showing that they don't really care.

When I first saw the bike in Frankfurt last year my reaction was "super cool, but I hate tall/short bikes". I'll have to have another look based on this article... but that would sorta require them to fulfill that request of yours.

And personally, at R:615 and S:615, i'm not sure i'll be on any other bike but an old P3 anytime soon.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

I agree that there's something odd going on with how scott trains it's sops and reps.

I ride for a team sponsored by the local scott dealer, so I could get a friend a good deal on a scott plasma 20. on getting to the store we found that they had a premium 3 size small that was going for a price that was really good, so we decided to see if he'd fit. I ran some quick numbers based on what my friend gave me and I was pretty sure it would work pending a cut of the seatpost, but the shop were adamant it wouldn't work.now it's not everyday you sell a premium 3, and they were abit reluctant to recommend the bike even. Even when he hopped on the bike it looked good and luckily my friend trusted me enough to pull the trigger. a couple of weeks later he comes back from a fit session and says that the bike did fit.

I'm a fan of the plasma series, I just don't get how the people selling them can fail so miserably.

Dan, speaking of Scott in local terms here in Houston is their distribution channels absolutely suck. Up to very recently Scott bikes were only sold in the Houston area by Sun & Ski Sports, which as the name suggests is a place that primarily sells water and ski stuff (the ski part always makes me laugh because Houston is such a ski town). They had a handful of cheaper Scott road and MTBs but you could order the Plasma line. I'm not going to buy a $10,000 bike from a place that doesn't sell a bike above $1000 because they're going to be completely useless. Apparently Scott is now being sold by one of the larger bike shops in Houston but until I typed this I wasn't aware of that. My guess is Scott is probably that shops worst selling brand as well. They pretty much don't even list Scott on their website.

So it would be a giant pain in the ass to get a Scott. Whereas I can get a Cervelo, Trek, Spec, Felt, BMC, or whatever in 30 minutes if so inclined.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

This is where Canyon (another engineer's bike company) will respectfully disagree. The integrated Speedmax CF has a detailed, 10-page PDF detailing exactly what stack and reach you get for any possible combination of stems, spacers and pedestals.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

I wouldn't have thought it's the design team's responsibility to sell the bikes - it sounds more like a corporate structure issue, in that the sales force doesn't get its end market, and there isn't a feedback loop between design and sales to focus them on the saleable design aspects of the product. There is another issue, though, which might render the designers a bit more culpable, which is that they were presumably responsible for generating the stack and reach data. The fact that they came up with numbers that, while possibly correct on some technical level, don't actually describe how the bike fits, possibly indicates that the designers don't really understand stack and reach conceptually?

The scott plasma was on my consideration for a new bike next year but looking at the new specalized venge... one has to wonder what is coming up with the new shiv.. wow...

"I see no change in the marketing team's approach from ketchum"

i'm going to give you just my opinion, and it's not based on any fact. i think ketchum's budget is mighty thin for tri. i don't think scott has been selling well in tri in the U.S. for awhile, and i think the tri budget given scott (if i'm right) reflects that. when i think about the athletes they sponsor, i think of kienle, clavel, luxford, mckenzie, swallow, a few others, and i doubt there's very much of that, if any, that comes out of the ketchum budget. plus, nic sims is now running this for scott, and he's got a long pedigree of doing things pretty well over at specialized. for nic, in tri, it's gone from feast to famine, budget-wise.

"When I first saw the bike in Frankfurt last year my reaction was "super cool, but I hate tall/short bikes"."

me too, brother. if you look at the two largest sizes of the plasma 5, they have wheelbases of 1,009mm 1,029mm respectively. the two largest sizes of the speed concept are at 1010mm and 1037mm. so, the large is close to dead on the same, the SC in size XL is slightly longer. yes, the plasma has 3mm more chain stay, which means that comes out of the front-center, and that shortens the plasmas slightly. but they're pretty close. each bike is slightly short in the front-center, but not overwhelmingly so.

but what about the plasma's height? is it too tall in these sizes? i don't think so. but you have to be willing to employ that flat stem, and i've got a finely-tuned ear for dog whistle politics when it comes to the posture bike makers strike toward triathletes. almost every one of them has a varsity set up for pro cyclists and a junior high school set up for triathletes. this goes back to the 1980s. same thinking, different technology, different generation. if we still can't stamp out racism 150 years after slavery has been abolished, we're not going to get rid of triathlism in 20 or 30 years.

it's not that we all need those flat stems. but some of us do. and, the roadies don't need the flat stems any more than we do. they want them, because they suspect pedestaling the armrests on a low bike is faster. so we need to at least have the flat stems available at the retail stores.

sorry for the circular route, but the plasma is low and long enough, just you *might* need the flat stem, and if that's the case you've got to ditch the hydration system. there's nothing wrong with that. that just puts you on a par with the rest of the world's tri bikes. the problem with scott is the lack of a system demonstrating how these bikes will look and work underneath YOUR fit coordinates. but i'll eat my hat if they don't have one up and running in a month. this is where i think ketchum says enough is enough and makes sure it gets done.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"The scott plasma was on my consideration for a new bike next year but looking at the new specalized venge... one has to wonder what is coming up with the new shiv.. wow."

maybe. but if you step back, the question has been for some time i think: why are there no road superbikes? okay, look has made something like that for road, a couple of other companies, but mostly not. now we're all thinking cervelo S5, giant propel, etc., and aero wheels made their way into road. so this was coming. but they're just catching up to where tri already has been. the big push - look at trek's new road bike - is aero road. gives us all an excuse to buy a new road bike. so THAT's why i've been riding so slow! i'm not on an aero road bike!

what will this mean to tri? i don't know. but the technology flow has been going in the other direction, from tri to road. it's low hanging fruit, making a road bike more aero.

specialized is my client. scott is not. so i have every reason to urge you on. wait for specialized! but what's compelling to me about scott, and why i kind of took them a little to the woodshed, is that they've got a great bike that's now a year in. prices are going to start to flow down. with a tweak here and a nudge there the plasma 5 could be a nice seller for scott and its dealers.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"This is where Canyon (another engineer's bike company) will respectfully disagree. The integrated Speedmax CF has a detailed, 10-page PDF detailing exactly what stack and reach you get for any possible combination of stems, spacers and pedestals."

canyon was founded and is owned by roman arnold. my german distributor for QR, pretty much the entire time i was there, was a company called RTI sports, and it was owned by 3 gentleman: roman arnold, roman's brother franc, and jurgen zack. franc arnold is the founder/owner of ergon, and is the german distributor for topeak. topeak was, and i imagine still is, the canyon agent in the orient. topeak was our agent in the orient, tho they didn't have much agency business to do because we built our bikes in north america at the time i owned and ran QR.

roman arnold, first, is not your typical european in his thinking. but more than that, he came up as a manufacturer through the prism of tri, and the prism of north american tri. the reason he needed an agent in the orient at all was that we let him make a QR bike under license, and he also make softride bikes under license, each for the german market. the first ever bikes he manufactured were tri bikes.

but he came out of a retailing background. when i first met him he owned radsport arnold, a very successful retail store in koblenz. the one background he DIDN'T have was just coming up through the ranks of a european bike manufacturer. roman's view has always been to identify and solve a problem, rather than to do things as they always have been done. rather then look down at tri, tri is his rootstock, as a bike maker.

canyon is as successful as it is because european bike makers are exactly the way i describe them, and canyon shoves a crowbar into that crevice and wedges it wide open.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Great history lesson there. Thanks. Was super impressed with that pdf detailing every possible fit combination. "Now _thats_ what ahm talkin' about."

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

i'm going to give you just my opinion, and it's not based on any fact. i think ketchum's budget is mighty thin for tri. i don't think scott has been selling well in tri in the U.S. for awhile, and i think the tri budget given scott (if i'm right) reflects that. when i think about the athletes they sponsor, i think of kienle, clavel, luxford, mckenzie, swallow, a few others, and i doubt there's very much of that, if any, that comes out of the ketchum budget.

Dan,

How valuable is it to have those Pro's sponsored and riding the bike? What is the ROI on that? The bike "won" Kona last year - years ago that was worth something. These days the marketing world is VERY different. What sort of impact does it have now? After I read your article - I'm thinking it does not have the impact that it did years ago.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

"How valuable is it to have those Pro's sponsored and riding the bike? What is the ROI on that?"

it depends entirely on who the pro is, and what his strong suit is. jurgen zack, normann stadler, these guys were beasts on the bike. consumers in our industry value that. or, they did. do they still value that? i don't know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I don't buy a bike based off who is riding it. I buy a bike based off the science, engineering, and data behind it.

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

FWIW, having something under Kienle is of value at the moment. The guy is fast but it's also pretty well known that he is very careful with how he sets up every aspect of his bike. He might be THE most squared-away pro out there. So when I saw the Plasma Premium under him I said "I'm buying that bike" but the experience I had at my local Scott shop was so awful that there's no chance I'll buy one now.

I had no idea of their history. I think, and this relates to a separate thread, that so long as they keep doing what they're doing, and can sell me a Ultegra equipped bike for less than a 105 partially equipped bike delivered I see no reason at all to consider the alternatives.

The only downside is the wait, the upside of that is their communication and transparency about waits means you know where you stand and can decide accordingly.

The one review of their production facility I've seen suggests that they have taken the best that manufacturing industry has to offer and applied it to their own assembly facility and they produce a good product.

Knock on wood, I've three of their bikes and they are great.

all this history is interesting. roman arnold "found" topeak because these guys were jo kleiber's agent in the orient, and roman needed a kick-ass agent when he started making my bikes under license. jo was the founder of syntace, and jo was extremely anal and demanding. topeak was jo's perfect agent. topeak is very westernized in how they approach QC and attention to detail, and to packaging, marketing, etc., but they are natives of taiwan and they absolutely understand asian manufacture. they have a foot in each hemisphere, and are experts at both. they came out of giant, maybe 25 or so years ago.

canyon didn't just show up. it was the result of a 20 or 25 year process. there is no reason why canyon's success can't be duplicated. just, you have to do all the right things canyon does. it's no secret what those right things are. it's just a case of doing it. sounds easy. have the right agent. have the right instincts. have the right processes in place. but you still have to do it.

so, you look over in that specialized venge thread, these guys are masters at process-driven transactions. you walk into a retail store selling specialized, you enter a process. you aren't shown the saddles on the slat wall. you get your ass measured, then you're shown the output of a process: the saddle perfect for you. how important is that for online? it's doubly important.

but you have to do it. competitive cyclist is owned by backcountry. there's a half-billion dollars in revenue there. yet, competitive cyclist, for everything it does right, has horrible fit calculators, and were i a monkey throwing darts at a wall on which were written lists of complete bike solutions i would get it right as often as competitive cyclist does when it comes to tri bike fit. so, you just have to do it. you just have to make the right moves. but, knowing that doesn't mean you will make the right moves. competitive cyclist has had years to make better online fit calculators, and they just haven't done it. if they just spent a little time and money and made good fit calculators the battle would be half-won. but you just have to do it. canyon does it. others don't.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

http://cyclingiq.com/...ustry-supply-chains/

this was an interesting series of articles for a non bike industry person - I cant speak to the accuracy

it would be interesting to have a series of front page articles about how different people fell in to their respective roles - QR, Cervelo, Felt, Desoto (did emilio pick up a singer one day and start banging out split side shorts - and what possessed him to do that to start with?), the Josh from Zipp / Silica story on the carbon wheels at Paris Roubaix was a great story

I am quite interested in how the various individuals decided they could make bikes - who decides one day they can make bikes / wheels / shorts?

i'll tell you exactly how emilio came to be doing what he's doing. he was working with the life's a beach guys, they had a thing called the bad boy club. sort of a sub-brand. emilio was working with them on that. then it kind of went away, i don't know the details. but it went away, i knew that much.

this was around 1989 or 1990. emilio seemed to me an extremely talented guy, he was a free agent, so i approached him, asked him if he wanted to start a clothing company. first 2 years it was headquartered at QR, in san marcos (san diego). we started with 5 owners. then it got whittled down to 2, emilio and a very good AGer named dan neyenhuis. then, a couple of years ago, dan decided to retire, emilio bought out dan and it's now emilio 100 percent.

to me, de soto is the heart of triathlon when it comes to apparel. there are other really good brands, newer brands, and i love roka, blueseventy and others. but it all kind of flows from emilio and before emilio there were other brands you never heard of, like gatti, edgewear and a really talented guy named victor de silva whose brand was called tri fit and this brand changed the entire running industry while it was around. nike, everybody, they all had to bend to what tri fit was doing. these were the antecedents to de soto, de soto is the one clothing brand that has been ongoing since that era, pumping out great stuff, without a break or a change in management.

so, there you go. any others? ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

This is why I love you, Dan, and this site. Thanks for the history lesson!

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Yes, but it's hard to ignore Sebastian's ride last year. It's one thing to ignore Alexander riding an Orbea in the middle of the pack.

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Brian

Sure, but I'm not Kienle. Kienle could have won Kona on any bike

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

I like what Specialized does from an engineering and marketing standpoint, but it's difficult to say their process works when in SoCal it appears most of the concept stores are failing. Surf City, Cynergy (a few times), B&L, and others all failed. A large SoCal chain is rumored to be shuttering one of it's locations due to low revenues. Is this market over-saturation or is the process not what the consumer actually wants from a bike shop? We send a lot of clients to these shops to purchase products (over $330K worth last year), and we receive a lot of negative feedback from their experiences. Many liken the concept stores to walking into a car dealership. Perhaps I only have a view from the pointy end of the market, or don't see what's going on in the rest of the country, but I'm not so sure the process is all that great.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

so how did you go about, or why did you think you were qualified to make bikes? what did you do pre QR

what did gerard and the cervelo guy's do pre cervelo?

there is a series of articles here...........get a history of TT / Tri in Roleur, if they can knock out 3000 words about 30 Shimano chains and a Hope Chain Ring made at the last minute, I'm pretty certain the MAMIL's might like to know a little history behind the Shiv's they're sat on..........

"in SoCal it appears most of the concept stores are failing. Surf City, Cynergy (a few times), B&L, and others all failed."

i don't think it's the brand or the specialized approach to transacting sales. in my opinion, if you just look at the concept stores that trek and specialized has, you see a difference. so, in san diego, look at trek superstores, owned by mike olson, formerly right hand man to alan goldsmith (supergo). mike was brought along by trek, and vice versa, great partnership, and i doubt mike would have much if anything bad to say about trek.

same area, specialized concept stores, the owners of those stores have a very different opinion of their flagship brand. in my opinion this is not an isolated case and specialized has just a systemic problem when it comes to how it manages its partnerships with concept store owners. i don't know what it is. i'm not close enough to it. i just see it, as an observer, and note what i see.

but specialized does two other things VERY well. one, it makes great product. two, it establishes pathways to the sale. body geometry is a great conceptual idea. i have real problems with its execution in certain areas, which i would be happy to describe were anyone at specialized interested in knowing, but the idea is fantastic, it's industry changing, and the industry has changed. for example, now fizik, selle italia and others have their own saddle fit systems. why? because specialized forced it on them. i also have problems with those systems, but the point is they're systems. they're pathways to the sale.

consumers think they want choice, but they don't. they don't want the choice of 40 saddles on a slatwall. they want to be TOLD which saddle works best for them, and then they want the freedom or choice to select either the red or the black one. specialized has leveraged that paradigm to a degree no other bike company has. that's why trek has precision fit. everybody now knows there has to be a pathway to the sale, that prescribes the solution.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me, and is perhaps your view is even strengthened by the fact that the guy who managed Alan's top producing store, and was a big favorite of Alan's, was the original owner of Surf City, and yet he couldn't make a go of it. But, unless I'm mistaken (very possible), Alan is the one who put the concept store plan together for Specialized in the first place.

The products Specialized produces are fantastic, which is why we recommend them on a daily basis. Every road and mtb fit begins (and usually ends) with a Specialized saddle. More often than not, we recommend their shoes because they work so well for the majority of our clientele. Their $30 insoles are one of the best fit deals in all of cycling. But, on the pointy end, I'm not so sure consumers want to be told what they want. We see just the opposite; most of our clients know far more about the product than the sales people do before walking through the shop door, and they don't like be re-directed to something they know they don't need.

I guess we're a bit off-track, but I appreciate very much your views on this subject as it's a topic that's long over-due. In regards to the history of tri fit, I know you've written on it in the past, but I think you should re-post the story of how you and Steve Hed took notice of how triathletes were setting up their bikes and came up with the geometry for your QR bikes. I'm probably butchering that story as it's been 10 years since I've heard it, but I do think many people hear would like to read it. And, without preaching, I honestly believe every F.I.S.T. seminar should start with that story. That's how you began my training 10 years ago, and it immediately grabbed my attention. I apologize if I over-step.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

"why did you think you were qualified to make bikes?"

i didn't. i wasn't. that's part of what qualified me to make the bikes i made. had i been qualified i'd never have made them.

"what did gerard and the cervelo guy's do pre cervelo?"

i don't know. but they were qualified.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'd have to guess something, the current Shiv is a bit long in the tooth and Specialized has had their tunnel for a while now. Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if they came out with something at Kona this year... or maybe even the 70.3 World Championship since there's a chance Gomez will race there.

That's another beef I have with the Plasma. I don't want to buy a superbike from a manufacturer who tells me: "Your fit coordinates require the flat stem, so sorry - you're getting the bike with a handicap." Because that's what Scott did, in saying that the Plasma 5 + PD Hydration is faster than the naked flat stem. For a $6000 frameset I want all the bells and whistles the bike was optimized for, or were optimized for the bike.

It's as if Trek said "sorry, size XS bikes can't take the Draft Box and top-tube bosses". Or matching it's Long-Low stem only to the UCI-legal fork.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

You're not exaggerating when you say this. I believe they used quite a bit of his input during the development of the Plasma 5.

So when I saw the Plasma Premium under him I said "I'm buying that bike" but the experience I had at my local Scott shop was so awful that there's no chance I'll buy one now.

So for you, the marketing worked, and where this broke down was at the dealer level. And so the tricky balance of all this exposed!

Points out how, a number of key things all need to come together to make this work, and be sustainable!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Also, why do manufactures seem to hate frameset sales so much?

I'd like to know, too!

Just saw the brochure; The 2016 Plasma 5 will come with Dura Ace Di2. Maybe they will also fix the their stack and reach numbers :-)

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Mike