We do not know all the facts BUT some facts we know and I am SURE Orbea new that CA bought bikes with his cash and went wind tunnel testing with them. Bike industry is small and reps are like school girls gossip here and rumor that. I am sure Orbea new the second his bike was put together and of-course they knew when he checked in his bike and said nothing and still let him race the P4. I would be interested to see the video and which bike CA was training on when they show A training day with CA with Bob Babet on competitor magazine video.

I disagree and here is why: My wife is a consultant, MBA, Marketing and financial background, but some specific work with sponsorship deals/contracts. She made two arguments after i told her about the situation, and i agree with both arguments.

1. We do not know the specifics of his contract! Some contracts have special exceptions to being able to use competing products in specific circumstances if ''x'' provisions are accomplished. Other contracts have clauses if the company has failed to deliver a product of quality the individual can use a different brand until the company brings a better product to the athlete. Me and my wife both doubt that this is the case but things like this do exist.

2. He is also a consumer of a product and a customer of Orbea as well as a sponsored professional athlete. If the company has failed to produce a top level product for a premier level athlete in a timely manner he as a consumer has the right to choose a better product and still keep his public marketability in tact. If Orbea has promised a new bike that can compete yet has continually failed to deliver that could be a breach of the contract or the spirit of the contract.

A bike company might get pissed off, marketing executives frustrated, but even if he stayed with Orbea he is still a huge asset to Orbea if he rides their new bike. Futhermore, any company that signs him can now market that he is the athlete who will only ride the best, in some ways he has increased his marketability.

Also, do you really think he is dying for the money from Orbea? Really? He is one of the few who is making it quite well as a professional, if he wants to ride something better i say tear up the contract and go ride something that you want to ride.

Ok, well SC was the fastest. Lieto, Matthews, Gamble all in to T2 first.

Well if the way HQ in Spain treated my warranty issue is anything to go by, then I would not be surprised.
Used to be a case of if the local distributor thought it was a legit claim, HQ supplied a new frame.
Now they seem to be knocking back every claim they can.

All JMO...of course :)

I would be SHOCKED if his contract didn't contain a provision that says using another bike is a breach of contract.

Speedrace1 we all know your obsessed by your SC. Would Crowie have won on an Ordu, probably. By as much, probably not.

What Crowie has done is found the best bike that works FOR HIM. Doesn't necesarrily make it the fastest bike in the world.

If I was Cervelo I would be all over Crowie like a rash trying to get him to sign up with them, think of the marketing ("crowie tested X amount of bikes using his own money and chose ours!!) marketing gold!

I could see Macca or someone a little more brash doing something like this, but Crowie doing so really makes this whole incident even more intriguing as he is one of the most professional people on the circuit.

Is it unprofessional to brake a contract, defiantly! However it must've taken some relatively serious incident for Crowie to go to such lengths to public embarrass (and thats really what it is) Orbea.

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Ok, we are all missing the bigger question. How did he get a stinger to fit a P4?

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

This is more or less my personal opinion too.

I also think that if Orbea can't get him something to be competitive, they need be kicking the ass of their R&D and engineering and prototype manufacturing team rather than letting their star miss out on championships. They are the ones at fault here, not Craig. You can't send your star into battle handicapped. If you can't keep up with the other bikes in the design and manufacturing competition, you better give him a carte blanche to find some faster weapons for race day.

This is lose lose for Orbea unless they come up with a better bike before Kona (personal opinion of mine). If they were crazy enough to sue Alexander for breach, they probably lose more sales than the revenue upside they would make from a pro athlete with limited financial means (compared to the lost revenue from all of us not buying their bikes for first giving Craig a slow bike and secondly sueing him after being too slow on execution to keep pace with their bike peers).

Again, this is all peanut gallery commentary based on this thread only. Today, the only think Craig said at the post race press conference is that this topic is too early to comment on and I respect his statement and will wait to hear the entire story.

Dev

I agree with you on all accounts regarding Crowie's situation with Orbea and showing up on a graphicless Cervelo: I was just answering the original question "Is the Cervello P4 the fastest bike out there".

Fleck, the only reason these sorts of high level competitive races get sorted out on the run is because the run is last. You're adding romance and drama to a story that doesn't need it. so, truthfully, it's not about any of the three legs... it's about the whole race. It's about choices and the effects of those choices.

Furthermore, 6 minutes is 6 minutes, no matter where it gets sorted. Crowie didn't lose Kona last year because he didn't run a 2:36.... he lost it because he left huge time on the table, which just happened to be on the bike leg due to his equipment, hydration, and sponsor decisions. Did the race play out in Vegas that he may have been able to win on his old equpment? Probably. does that make 6 minutes or any other objective measure of time saved any different? No. A P4 is faster than an Orbea all day long.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

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I don't buy the argument that Crowie "lost" Kona 2010 because of his bike etc. He won it twice on the same bike didn't he? To use a hackneyed quote, "its not about the bike". Seriously, its not. In his post-race interview I recall he admitted that his swim was a little off and that he didn't push it enough on the bike to stay with the fast guys. It was never about equipment IMO.

On another slant, I don't see that this is yet an issue where contract breaches and lawyers are engaged. That is usually the last phase of a dying contract where both parties are looking to maximise their exit position and are barely talking to each other. Its not ideal for Orbea but I'd be surprised if Crowie was given a summons to court or some nonesense over this. As he and Orbea have said, they will reveal more in time.

Crowie lost Kona by 6 minutes, but in the closing miles when he realized that there wasn't enough road left to catch the other he shut it down.
He obviously had a sub 2:40 run in him.

If he had a superbike under him that's at least 3-4 minutes savings right there.
Now you have an unprecedented 3 man sprint to the finish!
Shame on you Orbea for depriving us of this!

Free speed is free speed regardless of the result of the race. The thing is as a pro the margin for improvement is so much less than us AG'ers, they will battle all year for a few avg watts over an IM race, where someone like me is looking for 10mins over a HIM course.

I think if your livelihood depends on race results it seems silly to not have the best setup possible. It is like Crowie gets a drafting penalty each time he races an IM.

One thing that comes out of this whole discussion is that Orbea couldn't get worse publicity if they tried. The ONLY thing that could save them was if they brought out a superbike which Crowie 'deemed' got enough to race on, it could actually be a big bonus for them. As now we have seen that if he is not happy with a certain bike he will fix it.

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This whole thread is a crack up - the guy wants to win......

Why do you feel the need to over analyse it....he's a pro....he knows a lot more about winning than you...and he proved that today. I'm thinking Crowie doesn't give a shit about what you think he's a WC yet again.

Get over it, move on, go debate the best water bottle set up or something.....and let Craig focus on WINNING.

Slowtwitch....lol

If we took that attitude we might as well do away with 50% of the threads.

Of course it is a beat up but hey I am bored at home sick and have nothing better to do with my time.

In regards to your last point "let Craig focus on WINNING" we are, just analyzing how he achieves that.

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[quote cannastar

In regards to your last point "let Craig focus on WINNING" we are, just analyzing how he achieves that.[/quote]
It's crap mate mate - people who have no concept of what it is to life at this level - bitching and moaning.

You talk about Crowie signing up for life, and the expectation is that it's worth the sort of dollars that Tiger earns...this is triathlon...it's a different world.

Just a funny thread perpetuated by funny people.

1.Well if you take that attitude as said in previous post ST is pretty much void as a website, as none of our opinions are valid as we have "no concept of what it is to life [live] at this level"

2. When I said he signed up for life, I was just quoting an article on competitor.com. Just because there are more $$$ in golf for tiger than $$ for Crowie doesn't mean that the terms of his contract can be broken. Triathlon is becoming a large industry and I think it is offensive to all the 1000's of people who make a living out of this sport to belittle it (sorry if I am reading your second last sentence wrong).

3. If you are looking for a serious thread full of serious people I would suggest the aforementioned golf ones might be worth looking at, but I hope they dont make comments on pro's, because they have no right to as we apparently don't have the necessary knowledge/ experience.

From my own (very limited) personal experience having a father who was a professional sportsmen I can somewhat understand the pressures a professional athlete faces when making decisions r.e. sponsors, races etc. They are a business, whether we like it or not. Analysing their decisions in a sense is no different than analysing how a company chooses to invest in the sharemarket. This is only heightened by the plethora of races/ series that is available to triathletes now.

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Nah you're right mate - I apologise - keep the debate alive.

Crucify him.

Thanks for the spell check too....your dad would be proud of you.

I dont agree with you. Kona 2010 was won on the bike, when Crowie got dropped from the main group. He ran his way up to 4th, but lost 1st on the bike.

Bet his change in bikes is because he is not going to let that happen again;-)

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Espen Wagener
Kongsberg, Norway

http://www.espenwagener.blogspot.com

yes, but in the particular Kona he lost all his time on the bike. His run was fast, his swim was normal, but Macca talked some guys into going hard on the bike so Crowie couldn't hang. It worked. Crowie no likey

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

The problem here is this: You can't just tear up a legally binding contract. If he's paid to ride Orbea and a contract says he rides Orbea, then he is in violation of that contract and, no doubt, will have to pay some penalty. Is he going to jail? No, but I'd bet his wallet is a few duccats lighter.

The biggest question for me is where he got the P4. Did he buy it, if so great. Or did Cervelo give it to him? If they did give it to him, there is some liability for them in this mess too as there is a case to be made for tortious interference.

Bob

Legal issues aside, shouldn't we respect the hell out of Crowie for doing EVERYTHING in his power to win? I have gained a lot of respect for him (me speaking as a fan) because he has addressed his one tiny weakness. For you to put yourself into legal peril in order to win, puts him a notch above in my book.

I also would bet $100 that Orbea knew about this and begrudgingly let him do it. What are they going to tell the media "Oh yeah our bikes suck and we fully endorse him riding something better!"

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"the trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight." - Slowman

Oh abso-freaking-lutely. If he did this know the ramifications he has balls the size of boulders. As Sean Connery said "Losers talk about doing their best while the winners are at home (making sweet sweet love) to the prom queen."

That said, where money, sport, and business intersect, legal issues are almost never put aside. My guess is that Crowie is let out of his contract and Orbea says a settlement was reached. The last thing they really want is Crowie slamming them in the press about the inability to get him a bike.

Bob

you say that like nobody on here is focused winning AND...

you say that like Craig Alexander is ahead of the curve with his current "focus" on winning through improving his equipment, when IN FACT he's a year behind the power curve as we mere mortals here on ST were talking this at LEAST a year ago and more for some.

FUTHERMORE, if he were so "focused" on winning, where was that focus last year? The only ones actually focused on racing and winning last year was Macca and Ralaert.

Bottom line, it's the logical fallacy of authority for you to say that because Crowie is a WC and a pro he knows more than us and is right, and it's shortsighted as well because just a year ago he wasn't.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I was at a meeting where CA and Orbea decided to stage this whole thing to get all eyes on the launch of new super bike, the "Laser Razor Ninja Star", at Kona.............now you all know the truth.


Disclaimer: I made this up