First, you found a great price on a P2. In the US, the P2 MSRP is $2,800 USD, and the Felt IA16 is $3,000 USD MSRP. In most areas, it is difficult to find discounts on a P2, and it is impossible to find discounts on an IA16. The P2 is an aging design that is lagging behind a lot of other bikes now, so at just a $200 USD difference, it makes no sense. However, at the discount it looks like you found, it is a contender.

If performance matters, you will go faster on the Felt or Canyon. Assuming all were available now, here is how I would rank them.

1 Canyon
2 Felt
3 P2 (distant)

You'll be able to pick up the P2 way cheaper than that if you shop around.

With the cost savings you'll also have scope to upgrade any components such as wheels if you wish. It can be a very fast bike with one or two changes - and not a particularly slow bike off the shelf!

It's your first tri bike. Why spend more than you need to ?

Thanks!

I know it is my first bike but it is a big investment. I just want to buy something that I won't feel the need to upgrade fairly soon, so I am considering the options.

And yes I was thinking I will have room to maybe upgrade to Flo wheels. Also a lot of people in the forums mentioned the change of cockpit but I'm not sure about that.



Thanks so much again!

Thank you for your reply.

According to my research there is not significant in performance between the Felt IA and P2. Here they compare IA with P5(http://aerogeeks.com/...unnel-data-analysis/) assuming that difference between P5 and P2 are marginal at least for a newbies.

I will get fit in both of them on the weekend and see if they both fit well. The IA still looking pretty fast in my eyes but the 900 dollars difference it is a big gap and hard to justify just for the look.

Thanks again for your comments.

I'm somewhat biased because I've had good luck with my P4 and good service from Cervelo but I'd go with the P2 (assuming a good fit), mainly because of the price difference and what you can do with the savings. Always easy to find a way to spend/upgrade equipment.....wheels, shoes, wetsuit, swimskin, etc. And you shouldn't have buyers remorse with a P2....yes, aging but still a solid performer. And who knows about Canyon meeting their expected scheduling.

The P2 is very different from the P5. They share a common geometry, but the P5 has bigger tubes, gussets in every joint, and more advanced bars. Felt's bars are much better than the P2/P3 bars, and that is one reason why it is so close to the P5 at a fraction of the price.

The P2 is probably a lot closer to the Felt DA in that chart than a P5. There used to be some wind tunnel charts out there with both, but I cannot find them. However, there are still several that have the P2/P3 and a DA, and those bikes are similar. Tririg did a funky exercise where they tried to get a P2 to test as fast a P5 in a wind tunnel. They did it, but it took like $8K upgrades on the P2, and the P5 was one size larger. So, you could argue that a P2 is $8K slower than a P5.

But to your point, at $900 CAD cheaper, the P2 is a better value. You give up some speed, but you also save a ton of cash. In the US, where the P2 is $200 USD to $500 USD cheaper (if discounted), the IA16 is a better choice.

 I have a Cervelo and I love it. But what about a quinntana roo pr5? I think that deserves to be in your mix as well

My advice would be to get fit first then choose the bike. One may fit better than the others. I would rather be in a fast comfortable position then have the "faster bike".

All 3 are very nice bikes. If they all fit you well its probably tough to justify the price delta between the felt and the cervelo.

I prefer the felt but I'm biased because I own an IA10 and it was a good fit for me. If the IA16 was available at the time I would have strongly considered it. I love the electronic shifting on the IA10, but the IA16 (at US pricing) is a great value.

Just saw this other post... In terms of feeling the need to upgrade soon, the P2 is 2013 design. It is one of the oldest current products on the market and has been surpassed by a number of other bikes in recent years. I would not be surprised if Cervelo introduces a replacement in the next year or two to remain competitive in this price segment. If they did, then would you feel like you are already riding an old bike in need of upgrade?
A cockpit upgrade would probably improve the performance and fit flexibility of just about any bike you bought. Of those three, the Felt probably has the fastest cockpit going in. You could burn half the P2 savings just getting a decent cockpit that would be on the same level as the Felt. And the P2 would still be slower. You would probably have to spend more than $1K CAD on a P2 to get it as fast as a Felt out of the box. Now... if you started with the Felt and spent future upgrade dollars on wheels and cockpit, you are talking about a seriously fast superbike-grade machine.

The P2 has a different fork to the P5. The frames are the same from HT to the ST/TT gusset (P2 doesn't have it) and DT/ST gusset (P5 slightly deeper. Seatstays are the same. Brake placement different.
The aero impact of brake placement has been shown previously to be fairly minor, the aerozone design of the TT/ST gusset likely a more important difference. But still overall very small. Keep in mind that the S5 (with exposed brakes) tested as fast as P4 and Plasma3, so they brought those principles across to P3 then P2.

The bars on the P5 are great for bike only testing but things change with a rider on. The bars are the biggest hindrance for the P5.

From Felts on testing the IA1 is slower than the P5 in common race conditions. The IAx frame reputedly similar to IA1 depending on yaw angle so is likely to be in the same ballpark as the P2. Yes the IAx bars are more aero, but they have limitations for Z adjustment that can be a pain for optimising the rider.


The old P2 sat with the DA. New is in a different league

There were a lot of 'upgrades' in that exercise that were not meaningful for speed.
As mentioned above - the Aduro bars are not as good as you think.

IAx probably faster out of the box than P2, the wheels and bars should make sure of that. If you plan on carbon race wheels the wheel difference is meaningless. And a change of basebar + careful cable routing sorts out the P2.

You keep stating that the P2 is an old design. But we may never get anything significantly more aero at that price level - keep in mind that (based on the info we currently have) there has been very little movement in bike aerodynamics since 2009. Not for lack of trying. So no-one need fear that buying a P2 now will put them at a disadvantage next year.

Curious...what makes the Arduro bar so bad?

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

Lack of adjustability is the main problem, very hard to get riders into an optimised position.
It is still good aerodynamically, but in the tunnel testing I've done it has a massive advantage over other bars for bike only, which disappears with a rider on

Speed Concept 7.0, IA16, Speedmax CF 8.0 (when it arrives), PRthree, Shiv Elite, Trinity Advanced are a handful of other somewhat mainstream bikes at or below the $3K entry-level bike pricepoint where the P2 sits. Most of these are recent innovation models. Do you think that the P2 is faster than any of these, half of these, most of these? At MSRP, the P2 is a legacy bike at a premium price for its level of performance. In the context of the OP's discount, it is a pretty good value. But it is legacy nonetheless.

I would be surprised if any of those are faster than the P2. We know that the Shiv isn't.

None of the pricepoint bikes are innovation models. They're trickle down. So it matters what you're trickling down from. Who makes the reference level superbike...?

Wow, I would peg the P2 as one of the slower bikes. And, I also use the term trickle-down differently, and it is Cervelo's current weakness. The P2 is a trickle-down, in the sense that they have a basic geometry and tube orientation from the P5 that they applied to the P2. However, the IA16, Speedmax, Shiv, Trinity (among others) are the very same frame mold as those company's respective super bikes, just offered in a lower grade of carbon with lower grade components. To match this, Cervelo would have to offer the P5 frame with basic carbon and 105 to compete. I do think the P4 and P5 are two of the fastest bikes around. But, I do not think that the P2 shares that same advantage in the current marketplace. It did in 2013, though.

Speedmax isn't - exposed rear brake
Trinity isn't - changes to front end and fork
IA has changes to headtube
Shiv is, but who cares about the grade of carbon when the bike is only fast in a gale

Cervelo stated that the P3 averaged 68g of drag worse than P5 (complete bike, yaw distribution unknown). In my testing a P5-Three with Brezza bars ~55g (@50kph) slower than the same bike with Aduro (bike only). That's not concrete evidence for the difference in frames. But it, along with the tririg testing, is a good indication that there is not much to be worried about.

I guess if a P2 is a trickle-down from a P5, yet it only shares tube lengths and overall dimensions, then the similarities of the other bikes above are more like cascade down (continuing with the water metaphor). One key point is that Cervelo is one of the few bike makers where their entry bikes are materially different from their super bike. Sure, the P5 is super, but the entry bikes are relying more on marketing than true speed inherited from the super ancestor. Conversely, most other brands pretty much offer their super bike frames with cheap carbon and components.

If you really read the Tririg protocol, it is almost comical. They had to invest a crapton of stuff (top-end wheels, brakes, crankset, cockpit, etc.) to get a non-functional P2 to test faster than a larger, non-functional P5. The macro point of view is that the cost/speed disparity between the two is pretty ugly. I think that the P2 probably performs closer to the P5 than Tririg's test reveals, but that study is defective in other ways. Based on all of the wind tunnel stuff I have seen, I do not think the P2 is in the league with most of the sub-$3K USD bikes on the market today.

Edit: Just found this that compares the Slice, P3, and Shiv. This was 2014, so presumably it was on the current gen P3. It is surprising that the P3 looks a lot like the Shiv.

Speed Concept 7.0 is a very good bike at the $3000 price point. It has the exact same frame mold but different layup as the $6000+ Speed Concept 9 but has a standard cockpit instead of the integrated cockpit. The great thing is the cockpit can be swapped for the integrated version for about $800 and now you have a frame and cockpit that is as fast as any bike in the world.

This isn't quite accurate. People cite the Dash components and Lightning crank as upgrades on the P2. But keep in mind these aren't stock on the P5 either. It was a P2 Frameset plus parts, compared to a P5 Frameset plus the same parts.

We could have alternatively tested much less expensive components (training wheels, standard seatposts, cheap saddles), which would also have been cost neutral from bike to bike. The reason we chose the combo post and race wheel set was that the lighter (aero wise) the rest of your components, the less likelihood they will add noise to the data you're really after.

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TriRig.com

The problem with the speed concept here in Canada (for OP) is that it's a $4k bike.

If the OP is looking hard he could find say a felt B12 for under 2500 or a b16 for 2200. Of course they aren't the IA series but it's a good starter bike with room for upgrades. Also, recently at the Toronto bike show a store had the p2 white/blue model for $1700 so you can find deals on that frame for sure.

I understand, and I know why you did it too... to try to equalize the two framesets as much as possible. However, I highlight that because in a sense, you really do have to massively upgrade both frames to get them to converge. And, the P5 comes with a lot of the high-end stuff that the P2 lacks... And the biggest problem is that the test compares a larger P5 to a smaller P2, so the P5 has a bigger head tube with more drag and a shorter pad stack, also with more drag.

Well the P5 comes as a Frameset. So the P2 upgrade to equalize to our test setup was just the Alpha X + dual Omega X, which we sell as a bundle for $1350. The combined price with the P2 is still THOUSANDS cheaper than the price of the P5 Frameset, or was at the time of testing at least. Not an $8k upgrade to each bike. Far from it.

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TriRig.com

Thank so much for the inputs. I have learn a couple of very interesting facts. We will have the fit on the weekend and then we decided. We will let you know how it goes.

If you are in the Toronto area, check out the discounts at Wheels of Bloor. They had a lot of P2's with Shimano 105 at the bike show selling for $1700. I saw a variety of sizes too. The website suggests they may not have many sizes left.

http://www.wheelsofbloor.com/...ervelo/p2-105-10-spd