Slowman gonna ban you unless there’s a Quintana Roo in the list...

Ah there is never mind.

How about the bike that started it all in the beginning, the QR superform. Most every pro in the sport rode, or at least rode an exact copy of that bike, many on your list are those copies. The Principia copy was quite popular for awhile, of course that was when there were 400 germans doing Kona!!

You gotta add cervelo P3C, and also cervelo n.P3 ...

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Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
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I would argue that the Transition was, and still is, a far better and more important bike than the Shiv.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I'd add:
Kestrel Talon
Kuota Caliber
Softride

More important.... hmm... explain!

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http://www.fitspeek.com the Fraser Valley's fitness, wellness, and endurance sports podcast

Litespeed Blade. The first “superbike,” and a test of just how much money athletes would spend on a frame.
QR Redstone. Gussets. Aero hoohas. Looked fast just sitting on the showroom floor at Endurosport. Made me want to try triathlon in the first place. I’m still not worthy of that bike.

Cervelo P4
I thought the BP stealth bike was kind of neat.
Pearson Z1 Eleven

The top 10 Tri bikes were all Softrides

me either. that was a fun bike to make. we had scant idea what we were doing, but it came out pretty well.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Cervelo P5 - first bike of “peak aero” age?

WOW, YES, I have to agree..... being that I am the owner of a Z1-9. Actually, I badged it the Z1-9C. Because Graeme built it as a Z1 in 2009. Then in 2011, I made a few modifications to it and thus added the C for my first name. I can say that mine is the only one of the 5 that Graeme built in 2009 that has the modifications I made, and thus is the only Z1-9C.

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Team Zoot-Texas, and Pickle Juice

Kestrel 200 & 4000

The 200 bc it was the first carbon aero road bike (at least that I can remember) & the 4000 bc it was the first time a company tried to make a full on aero frame TT bike

Hooker Elite - super aero TT bike made out of aluminum iirc

Slingshot - with it's cable downtube going for aero

Softride Power V and damnit forgot what the ironman branded aluminum model was

QR kilo


these bikes all belong on the list bc with out these we'd be at the P4 currently, maybe. These bikes caused people to lust, leave their spouse mid sentence to walk across transition to touch one of these bikes. These bikes pushed the curve, brought the road bike world kicking and screaming into the future. These bikes gave rise to a new era in triathlon, as young as it was back then. When going fast was all that mattered and completing a triathlon for fun was still a foreign concept. When short course reigned supreme and IM athletes were the weirdos.

It was an age when triathlon took steps at a time forward vs inching or regressing.

I feel bad for all you kids who weren't racing back in the late 80s/early 90s. You missed out.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Brian, I had the aluminum powering but sold it, but I still have the kestrel 200sc(i), which is my favorite bike. Currently have the older model p2c.

Would you put some of the older Japanese steel bikes on the list like miyata, centurion, and zunow?

Ohhh good call on those bikes! They weren't as prevalent as most of the others listed, at least in the states, but damn they had some awesome curving & sloping top tube designs. And their paint jobs were waaaaaaaaaaaaay the F better than what we get today.

So much cool stuff going on back then. Thanks for bringing those names back to my mind.

I wouldn't put these names on the list. But here were a few more brands doing things: Brew bikes which had a slew of pro's on them in the very late 80s/very, very early 90s, Landshark is another name that comes to mind. Trimble, Profile (although iirc they were rebadged 4000s) all come to mind as well. Trek's 1500.

I mean we've got another Cervelo being launched in the next 10d or so..with disc brakes...oh look my hr went from 42 to 43.

If disc brakes had the adoption uptake that the Scott DH bars had we'd all be on a 2nd generation disc brake by now. Instead disc brakes are like a 70yr old taking a double dose of Viagra trying to get his limp dick up. The industry is dragging you kicking and screaming towards disc vs making something everyone is slitting their training partners throats to get.

Wake me up when something BIG happens in triathlon.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Tier 1:

• Kestrel 4000
• QR Kilo
• Zipp 2001
• Hooker Elite
• Litespeed Blade
• Cervelo P3C

Tier 2:

• GT Project 96
• Obree Egg Bike
• Softride
• English Mk2

Honorable Mention:

• The "Peak Aero" Bikes (P5, Speed Concept, Shiv)
• Cat Cheetah
• Indurain 1995 Pinarello
• Felt TA FRD

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

I have a QR Kilo Private Reserve, that should definately make the list. My first tri bike and silly 650c wheels which at 6" do make me look like a fat bloke on a tiny bike (mostly because I am these days). Just found an old Specialised tri spoke for it, and I run one of those deadly dangerous expolding Spinergy RevX time bombs on the front. I love the danger.

Plus I have the Redstone. Which is now confined to the windtrainer and is looking somewhat worse for wear sadly. I have highly corrosive sweat it seems. The headtube cracked (hence relegation to the wind trainer although the aeroforks are on the Kilo), as did the carbon-fibrey bits on the rear seat stays. Looks (looked?) the biz but maybe a touch heavy...? Controversial?

Oh, and a friend is hopefully gonna lend me his Powercranks (Yes! I know!!!) for me to play with on the trainer. Wonder if they work with non-round chain rings...?

...and for packing. I was able to get a large suitcase, fold that bad boy up and not have to pay for airline fees from Alaska when I had mine. Even had some Spinergy Rv-X's to complete the "look."

C4 Joker? Loved the look of them, but maybe not aero or light?

The first Look carbon fiber bike. I think it came out in 1986. Scott Molina raced on one. Anyone who had the $$ tried to get one because, hey, it was the first mass produced carbon bike. (Well, at least the 3 main frame tubes and the head tube were carbon; it had aluminum lugs, aluminum chain stays and an aluminum fork). I never owned one, but it was certainly lust-worthy at the time.

The release of the original Cervelo P3C blew up the entire triathlon/TT bike market. Really important bike.

I was always partial to the Cheetah and the Trek Y Foil.

Agree. I think if this had to be a list of just "one" bike, the P3C was prob the biggest game changer and possibly more than the original P3 which I'd have as #2.

Improvements since the P3C, I would argue are quite minor in context of how much faster you would go on a P5X for example vs the original P3C. I'm not saying it would be as fast but in some respects it was a better bike in certain categories ever to this day - i.e. weight of the bike for example.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the Lotus 110. Not really a triathlon bike but still used as a reference point for Aero.
Still my favourite bike ever.

The Trek speed concept might have been the biggest single tech leap in one package... A format that other companies took a while to catch up:
- tt dedicated carbon geometry
- integrated stem and bar system
- integrated top tube storage
- integrated seat tube storage
- integrated front fork brakes
- hidden rear brake
- completely internal cable routing
- cam tail foils
- smaller rear triangle
- huge factory color options
-released with several packages not just super bike


The speedmax and plasma could be the closest to peak tech evolution with integrated hydration added

When I started in 1998, the Kestrel KM40 and Softride Powerwing were the most desirable US frames, they overshadowed the GT/Tiemeyer aero frames but were most probably not as fast.

The UK had the Hotta and many custom steel TT bikes. The Lotus had issues...

The Germans and Danish loved their Principias which were ultra stiff QR copies.

But really the C4s were the most stunning. If I recall correctly the Joker won bike of the year in 1997 for being stiff and compliant with a clever beam-like design. Like the KM 40 it was way ahead of it's time and with more modern carbon fibre manufacturing techniques would still be a looker today.

Alas for C4 the southern Europe contingent stuck to road geometry until the mid 2000s, and Marco moved onto building carbon fibre diving fins.

The Cervelo P3 took triathlons by storm but it was the Trek Speed Concept that became the modern day standard. When it came out it had everything.

Then the Germans all started riding Kuotas after 2006!

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29 years and counting

Yeah, I was going to put the Lotus on the list but not a tri bike.

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http://www.fitspeek.com the Fraser Valley's fitness, wellness, and endurance sports podcast

Shiv? Not the Shiv Tri...

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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.”

Personally, I hate all the integrated stuff, and Treks are so FUGLY. Give me a clean looking bike that's easy to wrench.

Agree and this was a bit part of why I thought the P3C was the most game changing of sorts without making it too difficult to use. I owned the first Speedconcept 9.9 and loved riding the bike and it was light and felt stiff and was super clean....but it was really a pain to adjust and work on and having owned the P3C before I would glady stick with an easy to work on new p3c looking back vs the benefits of the integrated speed concept.

I guess we are talking about bikes that took it to an entirely new level. Arguments could be made going a long ways back so impossible to agree I'm sure with any real consensus on here.

 

How about the Javelin:

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

i think the kestrel 4000 came before the 200 and was road geometry. the km40 shifted to forward tri/tt mode. for a time schwinn owned kestrel and sold some rebranded 4000s (mark allen rode one in kona).
of the cervelos, i really think the original aluminum p2 was truly groundbreaking. i guess i’ve been around long enough to have seen and owned a lot of these mentioned, from my qr superform se (raider color), to an early kestrel km40, aluminum felt b2 (fast but noodly), litespeed blade, hooker elite tt, cervelo aluminum p2, bmc tt02/tm02, and now a shiv pro. functional art, all of them.

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"that which does not destroy me will only make me stronger" Frederick Nietzsche
andrew peabody
http://BREAKAWAYMULTISPORT.COM

I was about to mention the P2. While the superbikes are great, the aluminum P2 and the P2C are pretty special in terms of the performance you get at that price point, which is just a tenth or two off the far more expensive bikes. Case in point, Chrissie Wellington's first win at Kona was on a P2C.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Didn't the original P2 have a shark fin under the BB or was that a different Cervelo?

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

yep. that’s the one. and integrated seat mast. uci illegal tubing shape.

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"that which does not destroy me will only make me stronger" Frederick Nietzsche
andrew peabody
http://BREAKAWAYMULTISPORT.COM

While not a "tri" bike, the original BMC time machine ridden by Tyler Hamilton and Phonak should at least get honorable mention.
This bike is 15ish years old and still looks awesome. https://www.pezcyclingnews.com/...rs-bmc-time-machine/

My QR Kilo is an extension of my body. To paraphrase Roger Taylor: I'm in love with my bike.