A buddy of mine is a pro mechanic that is shipped around the world cause he works for a Pro team…he has been at about every IM race there is…saw him today and showed him my P3…he laughed…told me my top tube was way to flexy (then twisted my bike) and told me that the competition has a name for the P3SL
“P3 Still Learning”
I had to laugh a bit…he thought that the P3C was even funnier - carbon for the sake of carbon…
No, I will not say who he is a tech for…but if you have been to an IM…trust me, you have seen or met him.
I guess that is further anecdotal evidence that we humans are nowhere near our performance potential on the bike. If we were, and the P3 family’s toptubes were truly “flexy”, and that flexiness mattered to a hill of beans in terms of performance…then no way would CSC have taken out both TTs in the Giro on those obviously noodly Cervelos… Guess it still really isn’t about the bike…
Nothing against your buddy, R10C…I just wish folks, particularly supposed subject matter experts, thought a bit more critically about what they were saying and thinking…
It’s also funny when you apply a load to any structure that wasn’t designed to withstand that load. Guess what, the structure might even fail. Will that prove that it wasn’t well designed for the task it was designed for? I don’t think so.
I would agree that the P3C is carbon for the sake of carbon, the weight difference between the P3C and P3SL is ridiculous.
The reason they made the C was not to build a lighter bike so weight saving over the P3SL is not the point.
Some of the design changes were only practical using carbon.
I would say however that the C is not a “better” bike then the original. It looks fantastic and is amazingly stiff. Awesome bike but not necessarily better.
“carbon for the sake of carbon” usually means it is slightly lighter and has and increased ‘bling’ factor
… it’s not just about how fast you go in triathlon, its also how cool you look getting there - hence you forget, young grashopper (in my best Mr Miyagi accent)
The “spin” from Cervelo was that they couldn’t do some of the tube junctions and profiles in aluminum (or at least, it would have been prohibitively heavy). Notable the new seattube where the traditional seattube meets the “c” seattube. Headttube as well. This is all according Gerard.
I do agree with him that there are certain shapes that can only be made molded, and not by welding tubes together…
Most of that is probably spin, like CdA change of like 0.01% or something, but it is still a change…
And Cervelo’s nickname for the competition’s SL would be Sales Lagging.
Regardless of whether you think Cervelos are overhyped, the company is a very successful business that has made rapid progress in the marketplace, and they didn’t get there by being stupid. Or by saying to themselves, “If we build a P3C, it will have to be a lot more expensive, even though the performance differences will be relatively small. Our market research shows it would sell like hotcakes. OK, it’s a no brainer, we won’t build a carbon version.”
I think the ideal bike company for a lot of you folks is run by a bunch of technogeeks out of a garage, that nobody knows about, run as a nonprofit charity, and the owners have sworn a vow of poverty.
I was under the impression that carbon bike absorb road shock (ride smoother) than metal frames while being stiff in the right places. Maybe it’s in the method of construction
