My team is sponsored by Blue this season, and we can get these frames at a good discount. I haven’t found any ride reviews of either of these bikes - anyone on here have one/ridden one?
Curiosity bump.
The AC bikes from Blue are brand new very little chance for anyone to ride them as far as I know. I work Blue’s and build them up for a sponsored team last year, not bad bikes but they have some work to do. The frames are not going to be light. Based on what I have seen from the RC8 and the Triad, I would get the SL just to save that extra bit of weight and it may help in softening the ride up as well. The bike will stiff but not very compliant. Blue has done some things right though with their Triad right off the bat and I am guessing that they translated it to the AC bikes, they did an excellent job with the internal cable routing and having guided tubes for the cables. There are bigger name companies that don’t or didn’t guide the internal routing for a very long time and this forum loves one of those companies. As with any aero bike, road or tri the ride will be a bit harsh because of the tubing and extra material. That is just my 2 cents based on observations I have seen from past blue bikes.
are blue generics taiwanese bikes or actually they do some RD?
They are their own brand, not generics. I recall they come out “middle of the pack” for high end carbon tri frames in terms of aerodynamics. Their claim to fame is that on the high end bikes they give you tunnel time on the premise that the best bike/rider combo trumps the most aero frame.
just thought i would post a few comments here. it seems some of folks here are new to Blue…which isnt a surprise as we are just entering our 5th full year.
Background (for the person asking if these are off the shelf Taiwan bikes).
Blue started when our Parent company PSI (one ofthe largerst distributors of Scuba equipment in the world) was sponsoring a regional team. Our owner, Mike Skop, had been working with for many, many years a local team what was mostly a women’s and junior’s program and Mike, a certified USAC and USAT coach and engineer by trade couldnt get the proper fitting bikes for the womens team which was rising to national prominence. (the team was SCUBA Genisis and they went on to be the number one ranked team in the US two years in a row) He already had a business designing, sourcing, producing, marketing and distributing life saving items for Scuba and took his engineering and cycling knowledge and started Blue.
Mike and Chris Pic (former Mercury/7UP/Jittery Joes pro and husband of the winningest female Crit racer the US has ever seen, Tina Pic) do all of the bike design in our offices in Norcross, GA (a Northeast suburb of Atlanta and the name of the cross bike Jonathan Page helped design). We produce our bikes in a variety of facilities like most other brands but we do about 80% of the assembly in our Norcross facility.
The Triad was a big step forward for us last year as we had only previously done alloy TT bikes. The bike has been a smashing success with race wins all over the world including 70.3 New Orleans, ITU Long Course Worlds title, 3rd at Kona and 3rd at 70.3 Worlds. The wind tunnel program has been a success and we have already sold more Triads thus far in January than we did in three months last year.
The AC1 grew out of the development of the Triad. As we were testing frame designs for the Triad in conjunction with USAT and their ITU format racers we did some comparison testing with standarrd round tube frames, like the RC8. We found that the aero frames were 14% faster than a round tube frame when a range of yaws was averaged. When built with the exact same set up as Sarah Haskins used on race day on her RC8 but on a Triad frame the difference moved to 20%. This is VERY significant. For example, if you take the fastest production TT bikes out there (as there is no access to some of the “uberbikes” recently deamed illeagal for the UCI) and the middle of the pack TT bikes the difference in drag across an average range of yaws is vey small, less than 3% from best to worst.
The end result of this test was that Sarah Haskins raced in the 2008 games Triathlon on the Triad with an ITU set up and Brent McMahon raced the entire ITU calender this year on the bike as well. However, the geometry needed to be more like a road bike to suit these disciplines better. In addition, with the materials and consturction methods available in this day and age the weight of a bike is not a question (well that is not entirerly true…if you are looking at any high-end bike with DA or Red build and decent wheels you do have a weight issue…one of keeping it above the UCI minimum…more on that in a moment). Therefore, it seemed foolish to leave 20% on the table when designing our new road bike.
The RC8 and its previous versions have been well received as they were good looking, nice quality, super strong power transfer and reasonably priced. There were some drawbacks, the frame was a bit heavier than some of the 1000g machines out there as it weighs in at 1080g. Also, a lot of people didnt like the look of a tube and lug bike as they felt it seemed dated. The one thing we heard over and over again in regards to our bikes is “man, they handle great and have a lot of power”.
The stage was set. Take the handling and power transfer of the existing bikes, which we knew were great and combine them with what we learned in the wind tunnel on the Triad design. This is the AC1 series. We used our proven geometry (with slightly taller head tubes than the very aggressive RC8) and with the infusion of the BB30 design we were able to make a massive BB area and chain stay to ensure power transfer was still there…or improved. We also improved the aerodynamic shapes on the tubes of this bike with our SFT2 technology and the truth is when built that exact same way as the Triad it is only 2-3% off of the Triad…which, as you can guess, means we are back at the drawing board on the Triad…
In the end the AC1 series turned out totally bad ass (yes that is a technical term) and has been hugely popular. In fact we are sold out of most sizes (which means you should be able to find some reviews of it out there in the coming weeks) and have already pre-booked som 50% of the next shipment set to arrive in 4 weeks time. The bike is the stiffest drive train we have ever delivered and the frame is still pretty light. Granted they are not sub 1000 gram frames, but none of the sub 1000 gram frames we tested matched stifness (or even got close) and they were all WAY slower in tunnel tests. The SL is 1100 grams for the frame with hangers, this taken from an average of 10 painted frames in a MD (54). Cervelo S3 is 1080 and Felt AR1 is 1160…so for aero road frames the weight is in there with the big boys.
The AC1 SL built up in the stock offering in a ML (56) is 13.89 with cages and a set of Look Carbon Keos. My persoanl AC1 SL has a few changes including a Specialized Toupe saddle and a Specialized BB30 S-Works carbon crank mounted to an SRM (if you want SRM with BB30 it is S-Works or Cannondale, if you know my background then you know why i have the S-works rather than a C-dale) with look Carbon Keos and my rig is 14.4lbs…yes, 14.4 with pedals, power meter and aero wheels…like i mentioned above…the only weight question becomes “can you get it to weigh enough to pass UCI requirements”. The regular AC1 in the standard Dura Ace production build in a MD (54) is 15.6 pounds without pedals and that includes a rather heavy (1670) set of wheels in the HED Jet 40s. Again, the weight is VERy competitive even with round tube bikes which are much slower.
You dont even have to take my or Blue’s word…just look at the research out there. Trek/Bontrager have been publishing tests about weight vs aerodynamcis as well as rolling resistance vs aerodynamics…and Cervelo (the beloved on this forum) has a freaking 10 page dissertation on the advantages of aerodynamics vs weight where they go so far as to break down the myth of “well, it is faster until you start climbing” by looking at an average rider on the Le 'tape course finishing atop le Alpe.
i didnt start out for this post to be quite this long but thought i would post a few thoughts on the bike and Blue. As always, if anyone ever has any questions, you are welcome to call us at the office or email me personally… chance@rideblue.com
That is a lot of info. Thanks Chance.
I’m a Masters 35+ in FL and carry the Blue line through a Cycling Studio I own here in Sarasota. We focus mostly on fits and coaching but wanted to work with a bike line that would appeal to “people that like to ride fast”.
I ride the Triad for TTs and the AC1 on the road.
For the road, I’m coming off a Specialized Tarmac SL which for me was the best bike in the world…until I rode the AC1. My AC1 is a Red build (switched from Durace). Stock bike except I ride a Red compact crank (and believe it or not I am a sprinter) and Reynolds SDV66 T wheels. It is a rockin bike and races very well for me. I’m not sure how a bike can do it all but I love this bike. No complaints about harshness or stiffness…it just goes forward.
I didn’t have a TT bike last year so I don’t have much to compare to on that side. I don’t have the Triad set up super crazy aggressive (I am a bike fitter) but feel pretty dialed in with the position now. I have a bad back (everyone has something, yes?) and my goal is to do several stage races this year and not be crippled afterwards. I just did a 3 race stage race in Winter Haven FL last weekend and ended with 9th overall. Goal was top 10 so felt pretty good about it. As a sprinter, my goal is to do well in the mass starts and not shed too much in the TTs.
Those are my thoughts
Peter Pawlus
Sarasota Cycling Studio
While I don’t ride an AC1, I have a Triad and it is such a sweet bike. Lots of power and handles great. I rode a T14 at IMKY last summer and tons of compliments, because of the great attention to detail. These bikes just look great. Also the company is great to deal with.
Have you had an opportunity to check the stack figures you’ve given for the Triad? They still don’t look right given the HT lengths that are listed.
Also, any particular reason you didn’t go for a linear progression on the AC sizing?
http://i44.tinypic.com/15yu7o1.jpg
(reach,stack) plot for all road frames in my database