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Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-)
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for the 120 of you who crowdfunded this thing, here is what you (and i) paid for, as explained on our front page article, with the link to the download.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Crikey. That's all I have so far. Crikey. I really fancied a Ventum, too.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [knighty76] [ In reply to ]
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I loved riding a P5 back in 2012. It felt fast then and is still fast now.

-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [knighty76] [ In reply to ]
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there is nothing wrong with the ventum. this was like an 800 meter run, with 1st place clocking 1:42.68 and last place clocking 1:43.03. there were no dogs in this test. the best bike and the worst were separated by where you choose to place your hydration.

to wit, i *think* all the bikes had an aerobar mounted bottle except the ventum, which has on-board storage and much more than 1 bottle. therefore, if you placed 2 bottles on any of these bikes perhaps the ventum wins. now, the flip side of this, if you also placed a handlebar bottle on the ventum, this makes the ventum test worse (one assumes).

so, the ventum is either the best bike, or the worst, or somewhere in between, depending on storage and hydration preferences. this tells you how close all these bikes are.

(i'm sure someone will disabuse me of any error in my analysis.)

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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So buy your bike based off color. Red is always faster.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I was surprised when I read the report last night. I'll be honest, I didn't believe Cervelo's marketing on the P5x. I just wish they had been more forthcoming with information and data to back up their claims.... (at least to the consumers/public).

So now that this is out, will we ever see a detailed report (white paper) on the p5x from Cervelo?..... probably not. Cervelo should send some money to Kiley since he did their work for them.

blog
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Nazgul350r] [ In reply to ]
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Nazgul350r wrote:
So buy your bike based off color. Red is always faster.

Pretty much. What has been said along along by folks like rapp, all the bikes are fast, and it boils down to all the -other- factors.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I wish we could see something like the Plasma Premium and Canyon SLX, given their included hydration out front has the potential to create a larger head tube airfoil. I think the lack of IA, x or FRD, is something that would be very interesting to see in a later test.

I think you're right that we approach parity in designs. The differentiators will become personal preference, I believe. Integrated vs non, carry options for nutrition/hydration, and soforth.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
there is nothing wrong with the ventum. this was like an 800 meter run, with 1st place clocking 1:42.68 and last place clocking 1:43.03. there were no dogs in this test. the best bike and the worst were separated by where you choose to place your hydration.

to wit, i *think* all the bikes had an aerobar mounted bottle except the ventum, which has on-board storage and much more than 1 bottle. therefore, if you placed 2 bottles on any of these bikes perhaps the ventum wins. now, the flip side of this, if you also placed a handlebar bottle on the ventum, this makes the ventum test worse (one assumes).

so, the ventum is either the best bike, or the worst, or somewhere in between, depending on storage and hydration preferences. this tells you how close all these bikes are.

(i'm sure someone will disabuse me of any error in my analysis.)

quoted from the paper...

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Separately, we completed two rider-on runs with different behind-the-saddle hydration setups to quantify impact of an

additional bottle, but neither setup made a measurable difference aerodynamically. We tested the best-practice setup

observed in previous aerodynamic study by Cervelo and Specialized –the bottle was tucked as closely as possible behind

the saddle, affixed diagonally relative to the seat post and tightly secured by zip ties to the saddle rails – which did not

differ in drag relative to control. The riskier setup, tested with the bottle and cage well behind the back of the saddle,

tracked closely to the bike-only margin of error in magnitude.

blog
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Glad to see that the P5X came out on top since it was trashed so badly here by lots of people who most likely never even looked at it live.

Wish there was a Felt IA in the test.

After seeing it blown around when no other bikes were and now seeing where it came out in this test; I have to figure it's kind of ''all show and no go''.

---------------------------
''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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oops, double thread. I'll post here. whichever one we want to pick this up on:

It's the moment you've all been harassing us for the last six long weeks. The Aero Bike Shootout Report (link to download here) from the testing of the Cervelo P5-X, Cervelo P5-6, Diamondback Andean, Ventum One, Premier Tactical, and Felt B Series look like this:



What does this mean?

Note: I'm going to talk here in watts loosely but they change based on your speed and other factors. The report is far more precise with this kind of thing.
Also note: these drag curves (lower is faster) are presented as points but there's some fuzz, some error range around these things. Maybe + or - 2 watts.

  • These bikes are somewhere around 10 watts apart in low wind and a little more on a windy day. So, in other words: really, really close.
  • Cervelo's bikes are pretty much a cut above, superior at every yaw point. The P5-X is just a hair faster than the P5-6, two watts maybe.
  • The Premier Tactical kicked ass. It's like 3 watts maybe 4 watts down from the Cervelo bikes.
  • And then basically every other bike is right there on top of each other, especially in low wind conditions.

We did a model. It's a model. It has errors. You can read all about the caveats in the paper. But the course simulation stuff from cyclenutnz cranks out this at Chattanooga 70.3 based on me as rider:

Cervelo P5-X: 2:15:01
Cervelo P5-6: 2:15:19 (+ 0:18)
Premier Tactical: 2:16:25 (+ 1:24)
Felt B Series: 2:16:32 (+ 1:31)
Diamondback Andean: 2:16:45 (+ 1:44)
Ventum One: 2:16:47 (+ 1:46)

We did the same thing for Starky at Florida 2012 when he rode 4:04, using Felt as baseline:

Cervelo P5-X: 4:02:17
Cervelo P5-6: 4:02:46 (+ 0:29)
Premier Tactical: 4:04:28 (+ 2:11)
Felt B Series: 4:04:39 (+ 2:22)
Diamondback Andean: 4:04:48 (+ 2:31)
Ventum One: 4:04:59 (+ 2:42)

Here what I think:

  • It's crazy how close these bikes are. So the P5-X is 18 seconds faster than the P5-6, which was 16 seconds faster than the P4 (based on the data from Cervelo we ran through the model). So yeah, we're pretty much in the age of peak aero. Welcome. Your bike isn't getting any faster. Save your money and go train.
  • Obviously the winner here is Cervelo. That's not disputable. Somehow they made a just as fast bike with disc brakes. And a frame that can hold lots of gear and partially absolve the the most common aero sins.
  • Also a winner in my mind is the Felt. It's practical -- easy to travel with and work on -- and inexpensive and light and it look damn good in my opinion. And all it is is an old frame set up well. So you know things just aren't improving all that much from a performance perspective.
  • Premier Tactical is a big winner. ~$3k for all that bike (frameset) and fast as basically almost anything out there except Cervelo and Trek. It's hard to make an argument to buy a different bike. Unless you have $16,000.
  • I am surprised by the Andean results. I don't know how a bike that narrow doesn't test better in the wind tunnel. It's kind of heavy too. Which is actually a concern all of a sudden when most of the bikes are 30 seconds in a 70.3 apart aerodynamically.
  • I think we all thought the Ventum would win or come close, so that's the biggest surprise here. It's still right there in the hunt, but as tested it's not close to Cervelo at any point. Lots of reasons why this could be. We discuss some of them in the paper and have talked a lot with Jimmy about it. There were some exposed bolts on the front end to hit my fit and other things. This stuff isn't perfect of course, but we did our best.

Despite all this, the differences between these bikes still seem meaningful.

Thoughts?
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Sweeney] [ In reply to ]
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so disc brakes aren't as slow as we thought....

hrmmm I believe I said that a couple of times in the P5-X thread but no one believed me and wanted to run their mouth

Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [BryanD] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks to Kiley and everyone else for putting this together. I'm off to find the largest f'ing coffee I can and sit down for a read. Not exactly what I was expecting but feeling pretty damn content with my ride right now.
Last edited by: Halfcrazy: Jun 30, 17 7:31
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [kileyay] [ In reply to ]
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I'm curious, if you were blindfolded and didn't know which bike was which, did you have one that just felt/rode better within the study? Ever get off one of the bikes and just go "that was a great ride regardless of what the actual data showed"? Yes I know all the positions were the same...maybe you talked about this in the study, and I can't read it right now, just wondered if placebo was any different than the actual "results".

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I have always admired the engineering of the Cervelo bikes. The PC3 was my first dedicated triathlon bike. Cerveos' are fast and the P5-X continues to show engineering leadership - really well done.

We at PremierBike are very proud to have come within a watt or two of the P5-6 (a bike - when similarly equipped like the Tactical cost over twice as much - $2,500.00 per watt) Ouch...and 2-3 watts of the P5X (when similarly equipped like the Tactical costs 3 times as much - $3,000.00 per watt) Super Ouch..; however as Dan's article points out - our bikes are very close. Happy for us to have been 3rd rather than 4th, 5th or 6th - but still all the bikes are close.

If fact, had the test been conducted on the road where our (Standard Equipped Optimized Chain) could be factored in - the Tactical would have come out in front of all the bikes (based on previous tunnel/velodrome comparisons).

So at $5,500 compared to $10,200.00 and $15,500.00 we are very happy.

As the article and Report point out: it comes down to which bike looks best to you, which bike works for your needs and which bike provides the most bang for the buck.

Dan Kennison

facebook: @triPremierBike
http://www.PremierBike.com
http://www.PositionOneSports.com
Last edited by: dkennison: Jul 1, 17 15:12
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Sweeney] [ In reply to ]
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Sweeney wrote:
Glad to see that the P5X came out on top since it was trashed so badly here by lots of people who most likely never even looked at it live....'.

We saw a few of them in Tremblant last weekend on the age group racks, at least 3 or 4 of them. They are beautiful. It's just that oh so painful price. :(
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [kileyay] [ In reply to ]
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Quite interesting how well the P5-6 performs both with and without rider.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Nazgul350r] [ In reply to ]
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Nazgul350r wrote:
So buy your bike based off color. Red is always faster.

To quote Desert dude Red is "cute and polite."


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What are you thinking? Are you crazy? Black bikes have souls, lots of them, they sucked all the souls from ugly green, red, blue, and other clolr bikes. A black bike says don't f*ck with this guy. It's like having the worst of Satan and the best of Jesus in one bike. You suck the life from other rides and it goes into your legs, giving you more watts and taking watts from them. At Soma I rolled up on a guy on a blue bike that is from a highly esteemed maker. he said you are having a nice ride (I started 3 min behind him) I pointed at my Lucero - the badest badass bike out there and said "This bike gives me the power to crush you, take your energy and leave you twisting in the wind. You have nothing left for this race. BE GONE." He finished several minutes behind me. A black bike is so bad ass that no one, not one single person tried to pass me in my last 3 races during the bike, well one tried but only b/c his bike was black and blue but he son succumbed to the rolling fury that my bike is. This is the power a black bike brings. Sure you could ride something cute and covered with flowers, maybe a bell or streamers on the handlebars, some color coordinated handlebar tape and/or a seat. You could try to ride fast, the kind of fast a yugo gets when going down a hill with the parking brake on. You could try to pass someone "excuse me, but person in my AG could you please move right just a touch so I can squeeze around you, please?" Or you could ride death, something to strike fear into the hearts and minds of those around you. 18.1 pounds of rolling fury, the sound of the disc (black of course) rotating around exuding power combined with the sound of the H3C (black again) screaming down the road. The sound of a 1000 anguished souls coupled with the roar of the mightest creator laughing at the terror before you. Where a simple phrase "on your left" and the sound of fury and hell moves people over into the gutter. Or you can ride cute and polite. You choose, badass or ass bad.

Suffer Well.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [kileyay] [ In reply to ]
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i would add the following: the test was done at 30mph. nobody rides that fast, as an average. also, you point to the chattanooga course and its very low wind and subsequently low apparent wind.

the slower we all are, 27mph, 23mph, 19mph, and the more we race on a variety of courses with a variety of winds, the more we need to look at a different yaw distribution when choosing the fastest bike. certainly the p5x is the winner not only because of the test results in any yaw modeling but because it is built around the notion of user behavior rather than the exhortations to the user of how he ought to behave.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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B_Doughtie wrote:
I'm curious, if you were blindfolded and didn't know which bike was which, did you have one that just felt/rode better within the study? Ever get off one of the bikes and just go "that was a great ride regardless of what the actual data showed"? Yes I know all the positions were the same...maybe you talked about this in the study, and I can't read it right now, just wondered if placebo was any different than the actual "results".

Riding these wacky bikes on fixed position trainers is a lot different than riding them outside. The P5-X (like the Omni) are really sloppy and unstable when affixed by the axles (like on a Wahoo Kickr), and I personally won't ride these bikes on a trainer like that. But on the road -- at least, if the Omni is any guide, which I'm riding now -- things are a lot different.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [kileyay] [ In reply to ]
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Dumb rookie question - so for those of us that are slower than you, like in the 2:30 range for 90km, are the time differences going to be smaller due to lower speed, or would they be larger, due to more time out on course?
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [kileyay] [ In reply to ]
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Will you be posting a review of the Omni??
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [SBRcoffee] [ In reply to ]
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SBRcoffee wrote:
Dumb rookie question - so for those of us that are slower than you, like in the 2:30 range for 90km, are the time differences going to be smaller due to lower speed, or would they be larger, due to more time out on course?

It's kind of counterintuitive, but the time differences actually stay pretty stable. On the Chattanooga 70.3 course, the time differences are pretty similar between a 2:15, 2:30, 3, and 3:30 rider. We ran all of them through the model but it was a lot of data to publish even for the report.

So yeah, showing this stuff in time has its advantages. For those of us who aren't fluent in CdA.
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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My take-aways:
1. 10 watts still is nothing to sneeze at. That's 30-40 seconds in a 40k. Go science! I need a new bike!
2. There are probably only about 5 or 6 bikes in this top tier. P5, P5X, SC, Canyon, maybe the Slice (Tour magazine had the old Slice pretty much on par with the P5), Scott (my guess is based on pedigree more than data). Unknowns are the Giant and whatever Specialized hopefully has coming out.
3. The Diamondback is a bit of a surprise. I thought it would be better.
4. Disc brakes aren't the aero turds we thought they would be (sorry Tom A).
5. Peak aero has arrived. It is going to take something crazy to save more than 2-3 watts over the P5s. What does this mean for the P6, SC gen 3,...?
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Re: Triathlon Bikes in the Age of Peak Aero: here it is ;-) [SBRcoffee] [ In reply to ]
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SBRcoffee wrote:
Will you be posting a review of the Omni??

Yes.
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