So I am finding that I enjoy riding my road bike quite a bit more than my tri bike for whatever reason. I don’t have any aspirations as a cyclist, but I do enjoy group rides and training with friends. In the hunt for a new ride, I’ve come across some pretty good deals on the Kestrel Talon SL- seems like a pretty nice setup for an all-roud cyclist.
You can set it up as an aero road bike (albeit not a super high end one) with some pretty impressive drag numbers for a bike that retails under $2k complete. You can set it us as a fairly solid Tri rig as well, and I would wager that the different between a Kestrel Talon and a Cervelo P2, beyond fit differences, would be relatively minimal unless you’re up in the 1 hour 40k range (don’t hate Cervelo guys, I’m honestly not going to crap my pants over 30 seconds).
So with all that, does anyone have any experience with the Kestrel as a road bike? Easy/ difficult to set up? Quality of the Carbon? Ride qualities, performance? I’m looking for good, bad, or indifferent. FWIW, I’m 6’0", 150ish, and I’d be lucky if my FTP is much north of 220w. Not a powerful guy, I’m a runner at heart.
The Talon is a great bike and well worth the money. I’ve been riding on mine since 2004 as a road set-up with tri bars. Comfortable ride. Easy set up. Light weight. Long lasting. Cool looking. Use mostly as my training ride. I’m biased towards Kestrel as I race on my AirFoil most of the time and on my '95 200 SCI sometimes (another road bike set-up with tri bars). All races are tris. I’m 6’00" 157#. Thanks, Doug
I run a 2009 Talon SL as a road bike. It started life as a Tri bike but got converted when I bought my speed concept.
I really like it. Other than the seat post binder mechanism I have no complaints. It took a lot of trial and error to get the seat post not to slip, but once i found the right combo of carbon paste, hair spray, and not over torquing the bolt it has been solid for over a year.
Running the cables through the frame can be a pain in the ass, but it comes from the factory with plastic tubing to make it easy the first time. If you have to recable it like I did when I converted it, it is a different story.
Overall I am very satisfied with it as a road bike, amd would not hesitate to recommend it.
I will try and get a few pictures of it tomorrow. I keep taking my camera with me on rides and forgetting to take a good picture of the bike.
So with all that, does anyone have any experience with the Kestrel as a road bike? Easy/ difficult to set up? Quality of the Carbon? Ride qualities, performance? I’m looking for good, bad, or indifferent. FWIW, I’m 6’0", 150ish, and I’d be lucky if my FTP is much north of 220w. Not a powerful guy, I’m a runner at heart.
Im on a Kestrel sponsored team (just a fundraising squad, I certainly didnt get picked for my racing skill) and I’m buying a talon for road this week. From the people who have them Ive heard nothing but good things. Plus, they sell just framesets if you want to have it built out with what you want.
The Talon is a great bike and well worth the money. I’ve been riding on mine since 2004 as a road set-up with tri bars. Comfortable ride. Easy set up. Light weight. Long lasting. Cool looking. Use mostly as my training ride. I’m biased towards Kestrel as I race on my AirFoil most of the time and on my '95 200 SCI sometimes (another road bike set-up with tri bars). All races are tris. I’m 6’00" 157#. Thanks, Doug
I have a 1999 200 SCi which is a warranty replacement for my 1991 200 SCi…talk about milking the original frame. The 200 SCi is not my trainer bike. I have a Talon road bike and an Airfoil pro tri bike. I used Kestrel for 20 seasons before I was sponsored by them, so no real marketing fluff. I’ve always liked their bikes.
Here is the original 200 SCi at IMC 1991 climbing Richter pass. All clothing Fleck approved…anyway the Talon is just a touch better than the original 200 SCi, which is not putting down the Talon, just saying how good a road bike the original was
So with all that, does anyone have any experience with the Kestrel as a road bike? Easy/ difficult to set up? Quality of the Carbon? Ride qualities, performance? I’m looking for good, bad, or indifferent. FWIW, I’m 6’0", 150ish, and I’d be lucky if my FTP is much north of 220w. Not a powerful guy, I’m a runner at heart.
It’s a great frame. I picked up an '09 SL with the plan to make it a TT bike, and rode it as a roady for about a year. It’s won ag bike splits, and I really like it in either configuration. It feels just as good as my Masi roady.
On the technical comments, as is common with carbon, it’s a good idea to use fiber grip on clamping surfaces. As for running new cables in the frame, you use the mechanic’s trick to slide a couple of feet of small diameter tubing over the old cable so it sticks out at each end before you pull the old cable. That way you just thread the new cable in the tube.
I have a 200 sci also. Awesome bike. Was interesting seeing Chris Lieto riding the 300 ems when he won the 2002 Ironman Wisconsin.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the 200/300 mold actually break? When I was inquiring a long time ago (maybe almost 10 years ago) about the Talon (SL), the Kestrel rep told me that when the mold broke they decided to go with a bonded 2 piece carbon mold, thus the Talon. Either way they build very good bikes.
The Kestrel Talon is a true pioneer bike. It really was the first “aero” road bike that doubled as tri bike. The Cervelo S3/5, Venge, Foil, etc, all owe their heritage to it. A pro friend of mine was sponsored by Kestrel and rode the Talon when it first came out. He had a 2:22 bike split at Wildflower on it which is friggin’ impressive. He banked all of his training miles on it in “road mode”.
It’s a great bike even if it is “older” tech. Why don’t you just ride it road mode and put some clip ons on it?
I just picked up a 2010 a few months ago and I am absolutely loving it. It is only set up in road mode, looking forward to getting a tri fit and some clip ons for it. For the money I feel like I got a sweet ride out of it. I’m 6’1", 190lbs, went with the 57cm. Fits great for a road bike, hopefully it will in tri mode too!
x whatever. I had a Talon I rode in tri configuration for a season or two, then converted to a road configuration. It is a fine job at either it is a very versitle bike that is sometimes overlooked for its ride quality.
I’ve had my original Talon since 2001 or 2001 and it has been a great ride. The only issue with it is that it is very tough to replace the cables. Get ready to sweat a little when it’s time for new cables.
I’ve been looking at these as well. Does anyone know how the newer RT1000 SL compares to the Talon? It’s not that much more, wondering if there is any useful improvement.
The Kestrel Talon is a true pioneer bike. It really was the first “aero” road bike that doubled as tri bike. The Cervelo S3/5, Venge, Foil, etc, all owe their heritage to it. A pro friend of mine was sponsored by Kestrel and rode the Talon when it first came out. He had a 2:22 bike split at Wildflower on it which is friggin’ impressive. He banked all of his training miles on it in “road mode”.
It’s a great bike even if it is “older” tech. Why don’t you just ride it road mode and put some clip ons on it?
Also Macca raced a sub 8 hour IM on a Talon. It was either Roth or Frankfurt, I can’t remember which one.
but the bike that was really ahead of its time was the original Kestrel 4000. Mark Allen road it to his wins at Nice and Kona in 1990. When I saw that, I wanted that bike. I actually had one for 3 weeks in 1991, but it was not the right size and my dealer could only get me the 200 SCi in the right size. Here is a picture I got off the web. I believe the Talon in around 2002 was an attempt to make a slightly more aero version of the original 1990 4000, although I think of all Kestrel bikes over time, the original 4000 had the sweetest lines. Watching Mark Allen ripping down the Col de Vence outside Nice on the original 4000 still sticks in my head like yesterday.
So is there any real difference between the Talon and the Talon SL? The website isn’t terribly informative…
I think the only difference is frame weight, and that they tend to put the more expensive component sets on the SL. Here’s my secret of the day: call Funseekers in Palm Desert if you need to buy one. Most of their Kestrel business was online/ebay when I got mine, and tends to beat competitive prices over the phone. They’ll answer technical questions like this.
you can buy the kestrel for 1400$ on directbikes.com as road or tri set up. I purchased it with road bars, and added on profile t3 aero bars to get best of both worlds
