I've never owned or ridden a Cervelo but a very respected brand and model where I am sure people will tell you is an amazing handling bike

First you need to define your version of "best." But, from my understanding, Cervelo bikes are designed for more responsive handling, closer on the spectrum to a road bike. By contrast, I have a Felt IA, and those are designed to go in a straight line, no matter what.

I was very nervous about handling my Felt on the Nice 70.3 WC descents. I did a few mountain descent practice runs before that race. I had no issues, and I rode on a rear disc wheel. IMHO, most bike handling issues are something you can overcome with practice-- it is more a rider skill thing than a bike thing. But, having a Cervelo definitely helps.

I had a P5 and now a P5D and the newer version is quicker, lighter and more nimble. I feel I can descend nearly as good as on a road bike (I love to descend so take that for what it's worth). On my P5, I had to do a 2 wheel drift on a few corners in some races or training rides, but on the P5D it is quicker which allows more lean and aggression resulting in faster turns without the drama.

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"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Elliot | Cycle2Tri.com
Sponsors: SciCon | | Every Man Jack

I have ridden a P5 for 7 years now. Its main, and significant, handling limitation on descents is its crappy Magura brakes. They start off not working amazingly well, and as the wheel and pads heat up during a long technical descent, it gets worse from there. I don't find anything about the frame, position, balance etc that makes it a hard tri bike to handle other than that.

So, I would think the P5D fixes the braking issue and the rest of the bike is similar to the P5, only stiffer in the headset and BB, so the handling going downhill has to to be good for a tri bike.

Getting a tri bike to road bike levels of handling on descents? I think the drop bars are just easier to grasp and brake with, and the balance of a road bike because of the rider position is better.

Cheers Darren,

Yeah I found the same thing with the brakes. I just find the horns position too high relative to the front wheel. I find the wheelbase too long for the frame height. I also find my hands slip off the horns, as they are so straight, particularly in the wet. Defo will be looking into disc brake bikes, I'm sure that will help massively. Cheers for the recco on the p5x

no expert here, but....coming from road bike (Specy Venge) I just did this weekend my first ride on a tri bike, a brand new Felt IA Disc, and oh my god! I surely have to become accostumed to the new position, etc, etc...but I feel like the bike has no handling at all.
Any other FELT IA owner can comment on this?

i think this thread is getting to some of your likely problems. if you look at a bike today that you might buy, like a QR, cervelo, felt, trek, they pretty much share similar frame geometries. where they differ is in the spatial relationships between the hand positions, on the pursuit bars, versus the top of the head tube, where the frame terminates.

when you say "handling" i think you need to qualify what that means. handling when in the aero position? when on the pursuits? when braking? because, it's entirely possible that what you don't like about the handling has nothing to do with the frame geometry, rather the width of the armrests when in the aero position, or the placement of the pursuit handhold position, or the wheels, the depth of the wheels, or the brakes. the more you drill down on what you don't like about the handling, the easier it is to get to the root of the question of what you should get next.

fwiw, i found the handling of the new P5D to be terrific, in every respect (riding along at speed, descending, ascending, cornering on descents, braking). the one thing i wasn't sure about is whether i wanted the pads wider. the handlebars on that bike don't allow for a particularly wide armrest placement. so, if this was my bike, i'd either buy it with the P3X handlebars subbed in, or i'd consider fashioning a cheater plate to get the armrests a little wider (like the one zipp makes as a factory option for its bars), or maybe i'd be fine with them as they are after enough rides.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I did above. ;)

Super Dave, who used to post here frequently, was one of the Felt IA designers. He said that he intentionally designed the bike to be ultra stable, as in not get affected as much by wind & stuff. Which means that it takes more steering input and balance shifts to change direction. I crashed mine when it was a couple weeks old, in part because of the handling-- I could not handle a sudden 30° turn on a narrow lane at speed. I have almost ridden mine into stuff going around 90° in races. On the plus side, it seems impervious to 30 MPH direct crosswind blasts that knocked other riders into the course cones.

Last year I did some technical descents on my bike in preparation for a challenging race course. I got very comfortable on the bike, and now I have no issues. The lesson: it just takes practice.

This is what I was going to say. It depends on what you're seeking. My wife's P2 has very responsive handling and turns corners very easily. My Trek Speed Concept is like a cruise missile. It doesn't turn as well but it's also not as sensitive to small steering inputs, so it tracks straighter.

Maybe the problems not the bike!

Dan is right about handling. Specifically my feeling, again, just a feeling being uneducated about TT position, is that the pads could be wider apart: I feel not stable and a single little movement of my arms cause the bike to wobble around.
I did a bike fitting with a quite experienced guy who I trust, and effectively he anticipated that in the next two weeks we may have to make some modifications, also to the pads placement. We will see.

Let's say this feelings were a little unexpected as the other time I used a tri bike was when I rented it in Bahrain for the 70.3. It was an old scott plasma, also too big for me, rim brake, mechanical ultegra - yet I did not remember to feel so bad about handling while riding it.

It depends on the size of the Venge cuz the 48 just plainly sucks for handling, just like most small Specialized bikes I've come accross.

Since you mentioned two specific events in which you had trouble with handling the bike while descending, it leads me to believe that art of riding the bike isn't developed in training instead of it being a bike geometry or build problem.

Otherwise you likely would have said "I've ridden this bike all over town in training and just can't get comfortable descending".

Some bikes may or may not handle the same or better. You can setup the bike more conservative for stuff like that, but possibly lose time overall.

Turn off the speedometer on the gps and let it rip.

How do you recover from a front wheel slide? What force can bring the front wheel back underneath you? Did you put a foot down or something? I was under the impression that once the front wheel loses traction and slides out, it's over.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

It's all about balance. I used to race DH MTB at the elite level where I learned how to drift on a MTB and have taken that skill over to the road.

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"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Elliot | Cycle2Tri.com
Sponsors: SciCon | | Every Man Jack

Again, if your front wheel slides out from under you, what force can you exert to bring it back? Isn't your center of gravity now off to the side of the wheel away from the slide, which just pushes the wheel further out?

So sayeth Jobst Brandt many years ago: "Because narrow bicycle tires inflated hard have little traction margin, a slip on pavement is usually unrecoverable."

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Interesting thread. My first Tri bike was one of those horrible ugly Orbea Ordus like Craig Alexander used to ride. It handled like a road bike. Sadly, it also fit me like a road bike.

My current TT bike is far longer and lower (P3C) and is certainly less nimble (but still adequate), but it lets me travel quickly in a more or less straight line. It is a waaay better TT bike for me. Horses for courses.

Cheers,
Rich.

I did Nice 70.3 World Championship last year and I live in Switzerland in the Alps, so I guess I know a thing or 2 about descending and tri bikes

Firstly, most triathletes don't have a clue about descending, this was really apparent in Nice. I was in the last wave, and spent the entire descent passing terrified triathetes from earlier waves. Obviously this was partly due to poorly handling bikes, its difficult to descend well if you don't have confidence in your equipment

Secondly, wheels: we spend a lot of money on buying the most aerodynamic wheels possible. My wheels of choice DT Swiss ARC1400 80mm front generates such a strong boundary airflow above 60kph (40mp) that you need to put in a significant level of force to turn the bars, then the air stalls and you get a slight jerk. Its unnerving if you haven't experienced it before, however, with a bit of familiarisation its not too bad

Finally the bike. I use a P3X, and it handles beautifully downhill. At a Lanzarote training camp, I was over 80kph (50mph) on many descents (with a 30mm front wheel) despite the wind. My downhill PRs on pretty much all of the mountains local to me have been done on the P3X. Previously I had a Specialized Shiv, it was a great bike and super fast on the flat, however, the P3X will take a massive chunck of time out of it on any course with a reasonable amount of descending

Interesting - thanks. Picking up on the P3x, clear on descending, and this is consistent with other feedback I have heard on the P3X/PX. But how does it fare against the Shiv on flats and especially on climbs?

Thanks Dan,

When I say handling I mean descending on the horns. My position is pretty aggressive and I find on the downhills my weight is pitched even further forward. The horns are higher relative to where my hands are when descending in the drops. This makes the handling feel really disconnected for me.

Also, s=Darren above mentioned the P5's brakes. They are horrible. I love descending on my disco road bike, so I'm pretty sold that disc brakes on the tri bike might also give me my confidence back. Nearly came off the road on a hairpin in Barca and it up the sh!ts up me.

So far, Flet, bad. New Cervelos, good. Understood.

I've never been happy with it when the road points down. Cornering on it is fine. Descending on my road bike is fine too. I've done a fair bit of descending on it, I could probably do more, but I kind of get the feeling I'll never be happy on it. Just looking for some other experiences.