I have been riding my P3 for five years now. Yes, I bought Cervelo before Cervelo was cool. It is a fabulous bike, but I have never been happy with my efforts in long races. OK, so the problem is the P3 has a lousy rider, but my eye has been wandering for a couple of years now. I decided to give a beam bike a try to see if it would make a difference.
Tom at Titanflex kindly agreed to lend me a frame for testing. I took him up on it. My testing was to do two three hour time trials at IM effort in good conditions around a 4.4 mile loop on my P3 and the same with the Titanflex.
My intention was never to see which bike was the "fastest." There is no way I could do a test that would control conditions well enough to measure any small difference in the "speed" of the bikes.
I did the P3 trials first. On my first effort, my lap times increased noticeably after one hour, with the lap times increasing by about 20 seconds per 4.4 mile lap. It was very obvious why: I was uncomfortable after one hour. I was changing positions to deal with a bicycle seat being pushed up my butt.
For the second trial on the P3 I added a seat cover to try to make me more comfortable. It helped. My speed didn't fall off until after two hours, again by about 20 seconds per lap.
I then broke down my P3 and used all the same components to build up the Titanflex. Thus I used the same fork, wheels and other components.
For the first three hour test with the Titanflex, the difference was very obvious. I never got uncomfortable and was never squirming around trying to deal with the bicycle seat despite the lack of a seat cover. My lap times did not vary during the test. I did 19.2 mph average speed for each hour of the three hour test. This was an identical speed to the faster of the two P3 tests.
Given the improved comfort, I decided to reconfigure the Titanflex to make it steeper and I lowered the front end by nearly one inch. I have never been able to maintain this aggressive a position on the P3 because of comfort issues.
In the next test I maintained a nearly constant speed throughout, averaging 20.2, 20.2 and 20.1 mph in each of the three hours. Some of this increase in speed can be explained by nearly perfect conditions, but I expect most of it was because of the more aggressive position I was now able to maintain on my first attempt with no problems. Interestingly, my HR was four beats per minute lower than any of the previous trials.
I am obviously sold on the bike. I will be using it at Lake Placid this year. I hope it will help me avoid the big slow down I have on the second lap of that course every year. Last year was my best effort there, but I still slowed by over 25 minutes on the second lap.
I am a middle of the IM pack (almost) 45-49 competitor. I am old, fat and slow. I believe this bike can help people like me that fade in long efforts due to discomfort. I have always been unable to maintain an aero position on long efforts, and my aero position has not been aggressive at all.
If you are one of the overpowered studs on this board, this bike probably won't help you. If you think about it, in the process of applying much more power to the pedals, you are lifting much of your body weight off the seat and are thus more likely to be comfortable. Underpowered blobs like me have more dead weight sitting on the saddle with the obvious consequences.
Tom at Titanflex kindly agreed to lend me a frame for testing. I took him up on it. My testing was to do two three hour time trials at IM effort in good conditions around a 4.4 mile loop on my P3 and the same with the Titanflex.
My intention was never to see which bike was the "fastest." There is no way I could do a test that would control conditions well enough to measure any small difference in the "speed" of the bikes.
I did the P3 trials first. On my first effort, my lap times increased noticeably after one hour, with the lap times increasing by about 20 seconds per 4.4 mile lap. It was very obvious why: I was uncomfortable after one hour. I was changing positions to deal with a bicycle seat being pushed up my butt.
For the second trial on the P3 I added a seat cover to try to make me more comfortable. It helped. My speed didn't fall off until after two hours, again by about 20 seconds per lap.
I then broke down my P3 and used all the same components to build up the Titanflex. Thus I used the same fork, wheels and other components.
For the first three hour test with the Titanflex, the difference was very obvious. I never got uncomfortable and was never squirming around trying to deal with the bicycle seat despite the lack of a seat cover. My lap times did not vary during the test. I did 19.2 mph average speed for each hour of the three hour test. This was an identical speed to the faster of the two P3 tests.
Given the improved comfort, I decided to reconfigure the Titanflex to make it steeper and I lowered the front end by nearly one inch. I have never been able to maintain this aggressive a position on the P3 because of comfort issues.
In the next test I maintained a nearly constant speed throughout, averaging 20.2, 20.2 and 20.1 mph in each of the three hours. Some of this increase in speed can be explained by nearly perfect conditions, but I expect most of it was because of the more aggressive position I was now able to maintain on my first attempt with no problems. Interestingly, my HR was four beats per minute lower than any of the previous trials.
I am obviously sold on the bike. I will be using it at Lake Placid this year. I hope it will help me avoid the big slow down I have on the second lap of that course every year. Last year was my best effort there, but I still slowed by over 25 minutes on the second lap.
I am a middle of the IM pack (almost) 45-49 competitor. I am old, fat and slow. I believe this bike can help people like me that fade in long efforts due to discomfort. I have always been unable to maintain an aero position on long efforts, and my aero position has not been aggressive at all.
If you are one of the overpowered studs on this board, this bike probably won't help you. If you think about it, in the process of applying much more power to the pedals, you are lifting much of your body weight off the seat and are thus more likely to be comfortable. Underpowered blobs like me have more dead weight sitting on the saddle with the obvious consequences.