In another post, a person said they had a $10k budget to buy a tri bike. Most folks suggested buying the latest superbike out there, and to an extent, for good reason. The newest bikes have the latest bits and pieces on them, and are theoretically the fastest bikes ever made. But, are they?
If we live in an “age of aero” in which gains with current frame design are marginal at best, are the newest crop of superbikes worth the price? How much has a Canyon, Cervelo, (insert brand here) improved in the last five years or so? To what extent is the additional cost of a new bike worth it compared to purchasing a used frame and building a more customized machine?
In another post, a person said they had a $10k budget to buy a tri bike. Most folks suggested buying the latest superbike out there, and to an extent, for good reason. The newest bikes have the latest bits and pieces on them, and are theoretically the fastest bikes ever made. But, are they?
If we live in an “age of aero” in which gains with current frame design are marginal at best, are the newest crop of superbikes worth the price? How much has a Canyon, Cervelo, (insert brand here) improved in the last five years or so? To what extent is the additional cost of a new bike worth it compared to purchasing a used frame and building a more customized machine?
Depends on how far you want (or are able to) plunge into the endless pit of diminishing returns. There are gains to be had, but there’s also no question that the bottom of the barrel has been scraped through and we’re chipping away at the concrete floor below.
Even if you build up a bicycle with 36-hole box-section wheels and cylindrical frame tubes and exposed cabling and whatever, a considerable majority of total resistance on the bike+rider will tend to be from the rider’s body. That’s always put serious limitations on room for improvement, and the more improvement that happens, the less further room there is. More and more fanciness is required for smaller functional gains.
Custom machines are an interesting twist. Building bikes piecemeal is usually cost-inefficient, but it’s useful for getting exactly what you want. Sometimes that can be more valuable than quality tier or newness. Sometimes that might even be true if the bike is heavier and more aero-draggy or whatever. If your dream in life is to exhibit the maximum amount of chromium, building a bike up with cheap steel parts from the 1970s could be your best option.
The correct answer is, of course, to buy the superbike and build a custom bike and buy eight more bikes.
Are the newest crop of superbikes worth the price? …
To what extent is the additional cost of a new bike worth it compared to purchasing a used frame and building a more customized machine?“Superbike” is really an amorphous term. To some, it means fastest. To some it means integrated brakes & cockpit, To some, it means top-of-the-line. To some it means most expensive. There are probably many other definitions.
The Cervelo P5, P3x, and P5X are probably the fastest out there still, and they are certainly expensive and have lots of integration. After those, it is probably a battle for 2nd place. Though, after you throw the latest aero cockpit and aero front brake on a bike, there is not much performance difference just between the bikes.
If I had $10K to spend on a bike, I would buy a P3X. I think it looks super cool and I trust that it is very fast. But I have no fantasy that it would be materially faster than my current bike that is pretty much a custom build based on an IA16.
I think they’re worth it if you can afford it. The biggest thing about the new super bikes are that it can get you disc brakes and/or a monopost cockpit. It certainly feels like bikes have reached peak aero, so the focus falls on other areas where there are gains to be made. With Cervelo, specialized, a tri rig front end and others like it, we’re at the golden age of dialing in fits easily. Go out there and do a Chun method aero test and boom, easy gains. It’s no longer as simple as throwing money at a bike and calling it a day. What you can do is throw money at a bike that makes other parts of the process easier eg. adjusting fit, packing on hydration/nutrition without penalty, easier traveling.
The term superbike has just come to mean that it has dedicated bars - not a reflection on performance at all. But of course, the implication is that they are overall ‘super’ which makes it a terrible misnomer.
The number one thing that makes a tri/tt bike fast is allowing the rider to get into their best position - which means a good size range and bars with both fine adjustment and a good range of adjustment.
Number 2 and 3 are overall aero or fuel carrying - order depends on your priorities.
There are a lot of so called superbikes that are crippled by their lack of adjustability
Ventum - open mould bars with very limited range
Giant Trinity - very limited range
Cervelo P5D with EX11 - great Y with monopost but very limited Z and no tilt. Switch to EX10 and it is good.
Cervelo P5-Six, Scott Plasma 5, Shiv Disc… basically the list includes nearly all top level bikes with proprietary bars until we get to the Speed Concept (which has a great range but it’s complicated) and P3X, P5X. BMC TM01 if you switch to an Evo bracket.
On the Aero side - Cervelo data showed the P5D to be 9s faster over an IM than a P5. But the P5 could be optimised with better bars
Tour Mag data showed the P5X to be slower than the P5 when not loaded up.
Tour Mag also showed that the P5 doesn’t really have many close competitors from other brands (BMC was next best).
In the end it depends on your priorities - if you want a bike that is clearly top of the line buy a ‘superbike’
If you want to be the fastest you can be - figure out how to spend your $ to get the best possible position and a bike that supports that. Then optimise all the small factors. It’s relatively rare for a ‘superbike’ to be the best option with this approach.
The term superbike has just come to mean that it has dedicated bars - not a reflection on performance at all. But of course, the implication is that they are overall ‘super’ which makes it a terrible misnomer.
The number one thing that makes a tri/tt bike fast is allowing the rider to get into their best position - which means a good size range and bars with both fine adjustment and a good range of adjustment.
Number 2 and 3 are overall aero or fuel carrying - order depends on your priorities.
There are a lot of so called superbikes that are crippled by their lack of adjustability
Ventum - open mould bars with very limited range
Giant Trinity - very limited range
Cervelo P5D with EX11 - great Y with monopost but very limited Z and no tilt. Switch to EX10 and it is good.
Cervelo P5-Six, Scott Plasma 5, Shiv Disc… basically the list includes nearly all top level bikes with proprietary bars until we get to the Speed Concept (which has a great range but it’s complicated) and P3X, P5X. BMC TM01 if you switch to an Evo bracket.
On the Aero side - Cervelo data showed the P5D to be 9s faster over an IM than a P5. But the P5 could be optimised with better bars
Tour Mag data showed the P5X to be slower than the P5 when not loaded up.
Tour Mag also showed that the P5 doesn’t really have many close competitors from other brands (BMC was next best).
In the end it depends on your priorities - if you want a bike that is clearly top of the line buy a ‘superbike’
If you want to be the fastest you can be - figure out how to spend your $ to get the best possible position and a bike that supports that. Then optimise all the small factors. It’s relatively rare for a ‘superbike’ to be the best option with this approach.
Great post.
How much has a Canyon, Cervelo, (insert brand here) improved in the last five years or so? To what extent is the additional cost of a new bike worth it compared to purchasing a used frame and building a more customized machine?
In some ways the (good) old ones are better. BSA bottom bracket capable (low Q). Non-proprietary front ends. Easier to adjust position. That last one is not trivial IMO. A cheap adjustable stem plus the cheapest PD bars will get you a setup that has a huge range of easy adjustment, which is ideal for aero testing. If you want to go as fast as possible you need to test. After you are bored with testing you can spring for bars with less aero drag (and unfortunately less adjustment range).
The new bikes have better clearance for big tires, and maybe slightly better aero… but not always. The new Shiv TT is only claimed to be close in drag to the old one; rather they optimized weight and stiffness. The drag of the frame alone is pretty trivial on any decent bike, and you can buy aftermarket components that are better than any of the stock setups.
I bought a used bike and customized the crap out of it… including modding the frame/fork crown junction and the stem (epoxy filler). It also has a flat bar shifter modded to work as a 1x push button shifter. I like to mod stuff, though.
The Cervelo P5, P3x, and P5X are probably the fastest out there still…
Comparison for Cervelo improvements over time:
New 2019 P5 about 17g (1.7W) faster than old (2012) P5
2012 P5 is about 6-11 watts faster than other contemporary “superbikes” . Call it maybe 6 watts faster than a P4
P4 is about 100g (~10 watts faster) than a P3C at low yaw angles P3C about 15 grams/1.67 watts faster than P2C
Cumulatively, that’s about 20 watts faster for a 2019 P5 than an old P2C circa 2007.
If I have these numbers right and If the latest generation of “superbikes” is about the same as a 2019 P5, it’s kind of amazing that maybe 20 watts is all the improvement that’s been made in the last 12 years from 2007.
Whats even funnier are the people buying the expensive bikes but come out of the swim so far behind that they never make up the lost time but they have the “hey look at me bike”.
So the Canyon Speedmax SLX didn’t come into play as a top bike but BMC did? Just curious as that has seemed to be the buzz the last few years, although a PITA to get parts in the US that is…
According to Tour data the Speedmax 70s slower over IM than a P5-Three (both in TT config) in a low yaw (avg 4.6deg) scenario. BMC TM01 30s back. Felt IA FRD 93s.
Athletes on Canyons have won a lot of big races, I think that might have helped a bit with buzz.
And the Tour test is the only public data comparing these bikes.
New 2019 P5 about 17g (1.7W) faster than old (2012) P5
2012 P5 is about 6-11 watts faster than other contemporary “superbikes” . Call it maybe 6 watts faster than a P4
P4 is about 100g (~10 watts faster) than a P3C at low yaw angles P3C about 15 grams/1.67 watts faster than P2C
Problem is that we never got clear data on how much of those claimed gains came down to bars.
I’ve digitised every one of the datasets you mention to use in my models. For a 5hr rider
P5D 0.3w over P5
P5 1.5w over P4
P4 6.5w over P3 MKI
A cumulative gain of 4mins. Much of which could also be achieved by putting a set of good modern bars on the P3 MKI.