P5 Disc.

UCI legal may be one consideration. I assume the P-Series is UCL legal. Not sure about the P5. The old P5-3 was, but the faster P5-6 was not.

The P-Series looks like a hybrid between the old P2/P3 and the P5-3. It looks like it improved the rear brake aero and cable routing, but it does not have the deeper P5 gussets that made it so fast.

I love the look of the P3X and P5X. If I had the cash and was buying now, I would get the P3X.

Similar dilemma here too.

I personally don’t love the look of diamond bikes, though I would not rule out the P3X. I’m leaning towards the P5 (would add my own 7.8’s wheels), just the relative lack of storage space kind of scares me.

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Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do.

I’d go with a p-series frameset and build it up with a tririg alpha x, Ultegra Di2, and your choice of wheels. You could do it for <6500 and it’d be more aero and adjustable than the stock bike

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Matt

I'm assuming the Cervelo rep's statement was based on their current aero marketing materials, which are not true rider-on testing I believe. Eye balling the chart plots in the articles it looks like the P3X is 20-90g slower from between -10 to +10 than the P5D.

What I wonder is with the P5D versus the P3X/PX if the "fastest" bike changes with an actual rider-on configuration. As was seen in the Peak Aero testing back in 2017 with P5X/P5-6 the P5-6 was a faster bike, but with an actual rider on it the P5X was faster.

Unless you live in the flatlands of Florida... forget about the P3X. It's much too heavy to climb with; especially a course like Nice!! All Cervelo-sponsored pro's race the P5 Disc if there is any kind of reasonable elevation/climbing on a course. That speaks volumes to me.

Your local bike fitter should tell you which bike is better fit for you -- the P Series or P5 Disc.

Have you seen any actual weights for that frame versus P5D? I see that P3X is something like 16% lighter than the P5X, and the bars are ~13% lighter, but I don't know what that equates to in real terms as I have only seen complete build weights, so I am not sure what the frame is contributing to the overall.

If the weight of the frame is 1-2lbs different, that can easily be made up for with potential drag savings (depending on which is actually faster per my earlier comment). Using BBS, and looking at the LP 70.3 course from this year as an example, 2lbs lighter gets 20s savings (@ 229W), but .002 CdA (~20g I believe) gets 23s. That course has 4000' of climbing and weight is still pretty negligible compared to other factors.

The pitch for the P3X is that you can carry everything easily. Now if you don’t carry much and rely on aid stations (lots of Pros) then P5 makes sense. But for a full IM where you are carrying all your own nutrition, that’s the idea of the P3X (at least that’s what the Cervélo sales rep say). So it’s not just drag & weight of the bike, but drag & weight of a fully loaded bike with pit stop, nutrition, etc.

Still don’t know the answer, just something to consider.

Agreed in principle based on the marketing, however even if you may not need all the storage (for a 70.3 its a bit overkill for my needs anyway), if the bike is faster it's faster. It appears that the P5D is faster, but again I think the Cervelo numbers don't include the Bento (unknown grams) or the bottle (6g). When you add the Bento, assuming you would have that for anything above an Olympic, I wonder how they would compare.

Another complication for me when comparing these two bikes is whether the rider peddling drag numbers would be more in line with the "Peak Aero" testing from 2017 where the P5X seemed to be faster than the P5-6 despite it being a slower frame by itself (by over 100g). I believe Cervelo mainly uses CFD with a human dummy factored into the equation for their numbers, but I think they were also doing this for the P5X and the P5-6 (maybe not?), so I think it is possible that the P3X/PX is faster than the P5D since the P5X was observed to be faster than the P5-6.

Both bikes are amazing to be sure, just wish it was possible to know definitively which was lower drag with rider aboard. Will be interesting to see who is riding what in Kona.

It is.

That likely has no definitive answer. The question is which is faster with *you* on board, which is only answerable by doing your own testing. That was the essential outcome of Peak Aero: things are so close now, you just have to either figure it out for yourself, or pick your favorite paint scheme.

I was lucky enough to get one of the first P3Xs sold to the general public and I really like the bike. However, you're not kidding about its weight and lack of climbing - I would not use it on a course like Nice either. However, I think it would be fine for most IM courses. The storage integration is amazing.

I would love to test both out but there is the small issue of cost...unless anyone is offering a PX and P5D loaner for me to take to a tunnel lol. My conundrum looking at a possible upgrade next year is if I drop $8-$12k to build up a bike, I want to make sure I am getting the fastest one for me, the only problem is there is no way to know which one is faster without testing both. Having another riders data to look at as a proxy is better (to me) than the manufacturer claims of drag. I want an upgrade mainly for Disc brake purposes as really only race hilly courses (CT and NY), but why throw away 30s, 60s, 90s on the "wrong" bike choice. Peak aero did show relative parity, but even 1 minute can be a big deal in a 70.3 depending on one's goals.

I just ordered the P5D and compared it with the P Series and P3X. I know the P5 is lighter than the P3X and the P5D is almost a pound lighter than the P5.
The P-series is essentially just a P3 so it has more relaxed geometry and less stiff.
If you want the fastest then you should go for the P5D. Fitting all your nutrition on a bike with 3 bottle spots and a bento should be easy for someone willing to drop that kind of money on a bike.

The only area the P3X wins is that the cockpit is much more adjustable.

Which you can buy separately and fit to the P5D so even that difference isn't a real difference

P-series is ugly, exposed cables, its ugly, less integration than the P3x and P5, it looks like a bike built 10 years ago, its ugly, its not as fast as the P3x and P5 and its ugly.

hahahha! I laughed a lot to this. It's UGLY! :)

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

Except you can get the P3X cockpit on the P5D (is my understanding).

I have heard this but wasn’t sure how difficult it was to get the parts and how expensive. Anyone know because I would be interested in doing it to the P5D.

Not that difficult depending on the dealers in your area. From now on we just keep to complete P3X cockpits in stock reserved for P5disc customers that want this cockpit.

Jeroen

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Owner at TRIPRO, The Netherlands

This is my question as well.
When I asked Cervélo directly their response was, "Cervélo does not publish the weights of its products. As such i can not directly answer this question. The P-series frame set is 8% lighter then the previous P3 frame. And the PX frame is 16% lighter then the P5X frame."

Does anyone have weights on the P-series and P5X to extrapolate, or the actual P3X & PX frames?

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/Howie Nordström

I was able to find a blog online of someone who bought a size 54 P3X and stock it weighed 9.7kg. GCN did a video on Tom Dumoulins P5D weight 8.9kg and although his is DA whilst the p3x is ultegra, he had a disc on so pretty significant difference between those two.

I had a similar response from Cervelo but they pointed me to Artogeeks for the P5D weight. Also, found the P3X weight - 8.41kg P5D vs 9.72 P3X. Wasn’t expecting 3lbs difference.

I own P2 and totally agree with this. It's DAMN ugly. A couple of design modification can make P-Series bike beautiful to look at, but Cervelo won't do it. It is fast considering its price though.