I know it is heresy around here to even think ill about Cervelo, but I have to ask. Obviously the company line on ST is that Cervelos are far and away the most aerodynamic, fastest bikes available today. What is bothering me is that everyone just seems to assume it to be true. I tried to find some support for this assertion (that is not Cervelo marketing materials) and have come up empty handed.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I believe that Cervelos are extremely nice bikes. I just can’t drink the ST kool-aid until someone can point me to some sort of independent verification for the assertion that they are more aerodynamic, faster, or more advanced than the other bikes on the market. Every company says that their bike is the best, but for some reason people on ST seem to believe Cervelo when they say it. Why?
Did I just miss some data when I was doing my search? Can someone point me to a good source?
cervelos won the most gold medals in beijing, more than 20 Ironman victories, world Champion Time Trial 2006, US Pro Chamion 2006, World Champion Time Trial 2007, Men’s Olympic Champion 2008, Women’s Olympic Champion 2008, Tour de France Prologue 2005, Tour de France Prologue 2007, More than half of all Grand Tour victories in 2005 and 2006 were won on the P3C
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In numerous wind tunnel tests ( I have no references to hand ) Cervélo repeatedly comes top along with other bikes like the Trek TTX. Cervélo wind tunnel results match those carried out by other companies.
I just can’t drink the ST kool-aid until someone can point me to some sort of independent verification for the assertion that they are more aerodynamic, faster, or more advanced than the other bikes on the market.
It’s not all Kool-Aid.
Last year Simon Whitfield wanted to leave no stone unturned in his quest to beat Javier Gomez in the Olympic Games - Gomez rode a Cervelo Soloist carbon. Simon borrowed a Cervelo Soloist Carbon and put it through some test runs on a circuit that he was very familiar with. They did this a number of times and it kept coming out that the Soloist was significantly faster than his current sponsors bike, so much so that this was time that Simon did not want to give up. So he bought out his bike sponsor contract and went out a bought a Cervelo Soloist from a local bike shop!!
Every company says that their bike is the fastest. Cervelo says it with numbers. It is still Cervelo saying it, but many other companies support their assertion with little to no data, while Cervelo is very open with their data. It is still marketing, but they seem to make an effort to be more transparent than others.
The problem with finding third-party data from a wind tunnel is that the time in the tunnel is very expensive, and so virtually no one other than bicycle manufacturers want to spend the time or money to generate the numbers in the first place. So most of the data that comes from the this type of testing should be taken with a grain of salt given where it came from and the fact that it can be manipulated to a varying degree to appear to have the desired result.
I got one because it looks/fits well enough at a price point I can afford, and it’s definitely as fast or faster than all or most of the comparably-priced options. I certainly wouldn’t claim that it’s THE fastest bike out there, but then again, nobody else can absolutely prove that it isn’t, either.
Seriously, this is a retarded argument, since there are sooooo many other variables in the mix for any real-world determination.
I know it is heresy around here to even think ill about Cervelo, but I have to ask. Obviously the company line on ST is that Cervelos are far and away the most aerodynamic, fastest bikes available today. What is bothering me is that everyone just seems to assume it to be true…
Your premise above is flawed…there is no “company line”, and nobody just “assumes it to be true”.
There’s enough data out there that if you study it carefully, it’s pretty easy to see which way the wind blows…or, not
“In numerous wind tunnel tests ( I have no references to hand ) Cervélo repeatedly comes top along with other bikes like the Trek TTX. Cervélo wind tunnel results match those carried out by other companies.”
This is exactly what bothers me. Everyone keeps saying that, but no one ever has those references available.
cervelos won the most gold medals in beijing, more than 20 Ironman victories, world Champion Time Trial 2006, US Pro Chamion 2006, World Champion Time Trial 2007, Men’s Olympic Champion 2008, Women’s Olympic Champion 2008, Tour de France Prologue 2005, Tour de France Prologue 2007, More than half of all Grand Tour victories in 2005 and 2006 were won on the P3C
because a world champ rides a cervelo does not mean it is the fastest bike - maybe he (or she) is just the fastest rider.
results can’t be attributed to the bike. besides, there are plenty of races won on trek, cannondale, bianchi, giant, etc.
There is no robust independent verification that any bike is the fastest.
There are lots of hints, as Cervelo likes to say, they always seem to be 2nd best when their competitors do comparisons.
Also if you look at the bikes, the cervelos do appear to have the designs with the least frontal area, most bladed tubes, and least artsy design elements that hurt the aero cause.
so until someone shows otherwise, most of us assume Cervelo is at, or near the top
with felt, specialized, and trek all very very close.
I know it is heresy around here to even think ill about Cervelo, but I have to ask. Obviously the company line on ST is that Cervelos are far and away the most aerodynamic, fastest bikes available today. What is bothering me is that everyone just seems to assume it to be true. I tried to find some support for this assertion (that is not Cervelo marketing materials) and have come up empty handed.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I believe that Cervelos are extremely nice bikes. I just can’t drink the ST kool-aid until someone can point me to some sort of independent verification for the assertion that they are more aerodynamic, faster, or more advanced than the other bikes on the market. Every company says that their bike is the best, but for some reason people on ST seem to believe Cervelo when they say it. Why?
Did I just miss some data when I was doing my search? Can someone point me to a good source?
what information do you need to conclude that cervelos are the fastest bikes? the more i read everyones responses to this the more i think that the issue is just you cant tell someone something they dont want to hear
because so far cervelos being the most winningest bike at the olympics, worlds, ironman…in the last few years is not because the bike is fast but because the engine is fast. and cervelos design being duplicated and copied by dozens of bike companys is irrelevant, and for 2 years running cervelo has for one reason or another had the best bike count at kona…wind tunnel testing has also shown them to be the fastest…but these things arent evidence that cervelos are the best.
Where??? I am not being facetious, I actually want to be pointed to that information. I haven’t been able to find it!
In Reply To I know it is heresy around here to even think ill about Cervelo, but I have to ask. Obviously the company line on ST is that Cervelos are far and away the most aerodynamic, fastest bikes available today. What is bothering me is that everyone just seems to assume it to be true. I tried to find some support for this assertion (that is not Cervelo marketing materials) and have come up empty handed.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I believe that Cervelos are extremely nice bikes. I just can’t drink the ST kool-aid until someone can point me to some sort of independent verification for the assertion that they are more aerodynamic, faster, or more advanced than the other bikes on the market. Every company says that their bike is the best, but for some reason people on ST seem to believe Cervelo when they say it. Why?
Did I just miss some data when I was doing my search? Can someone point me to a good source?
You won’t find precisely what you are looking for. You probably won’t be able to do that with any other brand, but if you do your homework (it is like putting together a BIG puzzle) and compare all brands and models you will end up knowing that you will be riding the most aerodynamic (or one of the most aerodynamic in the worst case) frames in the market.
For example, I just could not understand why the P4 came out with the front brake ‘in front’ and not behind (shielded by the) the fork as some other “aerodynamic looking” bikes. I just could not imagine a good reason why not behind… until I spoke in person about it with John Cobb. They had a very good reason for not doing it even if that meant the bike was going to ‘look’ less aerodynamic.
Cervelo printed a booklet for their last BrainBike meeting last year. After reading it page by page and hearing Phil and Gerard in person answer many, many relevant questions, I confirmed that they are really putting a lot of brains, science and monetary resorces in their designs. If you are looking for an aerodynamic bike you will make a very good choice if you choose Cervélo. Trust me or do your homework and start putting the pieces together of that big puzzle.
Sergio
PS I forgot to mention that they spend more time at the WT than any other brand and that to me vital in this type of development.
I think it also says a lot when in all other tests from other companies Cervelo seems to be the benchmark against which they test. There is something to be said about being second in every test paid for by other companies.
On one hand I know what you’re saying: there’s no clean comperensive independent objective comparisons between the bikes, on the other hand there is the Kona bike count. I think the Kona bike and wheel count is more important then any thing else in the real functional world of triathlons. The fact of the matter is that we don’t ride in wind tunnels or have brand new components free of wear and tear and road grime at every event. But look at the wheel selection and frame selection at Kona and thats really the bottom line as to what works the best under actual race conditions. Most of the competors are age groupers who bought their own gear with their own money and did well enough in their age groups to get to Kona (except for the 200 lottery winners). Don’t put to much faith in what the high end pros ride, because they get paid to ride what ever the sponsor tells them to ride and they have so many watts coming out of them that they could make a old Huffy fly.
