Heres my wish list for the P4SLC. Seems like its been a long time since someone came out with a no holds barred, cost is no object TT bike along the lines of the Hooker, Lotus, Bursford, Cheetah. None of them is UCI legal anymore, anyways.
Basically take the P3 carbon, build a special narrow hub and a fork to go with it. Somehow integrate the brake into the fork.
Cleanup the whole fork/bar/aerobar junction. Right now bikes are constrained around the interchangeable standards. Something like Cheetah’s integrated fork aerobar has to open up possibilities for aero/weight loss.
Narrower BB and do away for any provision for a front derrailleur.
Custom narrow rear end and wheel. Basically without the front derailleur and 5 cogs on back you’ve got a bike that would handle 70% of the races. Anyone who would pony up 10 grand for a frame like this is going to have a lighweight climbing bike anyways.
Discuss amongst yourselves
Styrrell (currently tapering for a marathon, and restless)
Gerard won’t listen to you, he will only hide in the shadows and scheme and connive dirty ideas to through at us in our sleep.
He will tell you that there is no need for a carbon bike, and then like a democratic presidential nomination proceed to jump ship.
I would waste your time. Gerard is to far gone…
…By the way, Gerard, can I have one?
The BMC and the Giant TT are way more advanced TT frames than the P3C, especially the BMC. Some of the things you mention as improvements are on those frames.
I like the frames you mention and the Walser below, but none of them took a completely all out attitude as regards to interchangeability. Look up the bikes I mentioned, especially the Cheetah with arm rests coming from the top of the fork crown and the Bursford, even the saddle looks completely non- adjustable. The original Lotus was a track bike with only only one fork leg and one chainstay. The wheels were specially made for the bike.
I would agree that the BMC is more advanced than the cervelo. Tyler’s bike was amazing to look at. But, BMC doesn’t offer it for sale and very likely wont. I asked one of their reps about selling one, he replied that they get email everyday from people asking the same question. He said their engineers are trying to determine how to build it (I assume he means produce it for retail sale). He didnt sound optimistic that it would ever be for sale.
What’s the goal here? Aero? Light? UCI legal? All three?
There is a point of minimal return for TT bike design once you go beyond a certain point.
If a rider had $10,000 to spend on a “TT-go-fast-project”, which one would make the rider faster?
$2000 for wind tunnel camp, $1000 for 1yr of an online coach, $1000 for dietician/masseuse/bike mechanic fees, and a $6000 for a tricked out time trial frame, carbon fork, Rotor/DA 10 speed and Zipp 909’s
To answer the first part of your reply - none, specifically. The point is to be fastest. In my specific “fantasy request” its a cost no object, fastest, UCI legal, flat to rolling course bike.
To answer the second part or your reply, If you had 10,000 I would go with the second set, but if you could afford virtually anything (and its my fantasy, so I have lots of money) I would go with the bike I suggested fitted to me in a wind tunnel, after I had done a ton of traing under Dave Scotts tutelege, with frequent massages from Inga.
Look at either Millar’s TT bike from World’s or, as everyone has said, Tyler’s bike. They are both for sale, realistically. If somebody calls up BMC and says “I will pay you whatever it will take for you to build one for me,” they will. I forgot who built Millar’s TT bike, but the same logic applies. Unlimited funds means unlimited.
It is like the street legal versions of all cars that race at Le Mans. In order to race a car at Le Mans, you have to have at least one street legal proto. So if you really want one, you can buy it.
But in this case unlimited would mean the cash required to buy 2 or 3 BMCs as they are virtually non-adjustable (Tyler told me at the show that there was a tiny bit of adjustment in the handlbar position, but very, very minor). So if you change your position, you need to buy a new bike. And the second-hand market for bikes with completely fixed seat and handlebar position probably isn’t so hot either. I am not saying this to knock the BMC, it’s a very nicely made bike as I have said before, but utterly impractical for mere mortals and as I believe also for pros. Since even they work on their position and there is no way Birkenstock can keep up with the pros by making new bikes every time they slightly tweak their position.
And in the end, what purpose does it serve? Pay me unlimited funds and I will build you a Baracchi that not only has the stem integrated in the forks the way the BMC has but also the handlebar and aerobar. That was 9 years before the BMC (and truth be told several years after Look had the hinged fork, though not intergrated with the handlebar and aerobar).
But instead of giving me unlimited funds to build a Baracchi you can also pay me $2199 and I’ll get you a P3 SL frameset that is faster.
If you have unlimited, you can buy 10 BMC’s. And who cares if you can’t sell them. You can buy the whole BMC company and have them make you a new bike every week. But let’s say instead of buying BMC, I bought Cervelo with my unlimited funds. What would you build me that is faster than the P3C?
I think that is the question that is really being asked, but I also suspect that is a question you won’t answer (and that I wouldn’t answer if I was in your position) for a couple reasons: 1) just because it is super-de-luxe technology right now, it doesn’t mean it won’t be affordable in 10 years (or 5 or 2) like carbon was, so why give away secrets that could make it onto the 2008 Cervelos if the price of certain things changes, 2) answering the question implies that there are things that you could do better on your current bikes, and people will wonder why they can’t pay $500 more and have X instead of Y on the P3C, so you undercut your new products and/or give away the secrets of products to be.
That being said, I would be curious to know how long it took certain features that are now common (or at least mass-produceable) to come to market based on when you first thought of them. For instance, when was the wheel cutout on the P3 first conceived of and when was it first clear that the technology was something that could be mass produced? When was the P3C an wishful dream, and when did you know you would build it? To give away one of my own ideas, I think it would be fascinating to write a biography of Cervelo and to timeline the ideas and technologies as they grew. I’ll buy a copy. But I don’t have unlimited funds to pay you to write it…
Again nice bikes, but not nearly the integrated approach the Hooker, Cheatah, Lotus or Bursford took. Those bikes by and large were built with the frame/fork/headset/tribars/wheels beiing completely non interchangeable with anything on the market at the time.