Gerard -
maybe too early…if I ordered a 2006 P2 from my favorite retailer, when could I expect it to come in?
(Just a ballpark idea?)
We have 2006 P2 SLs in stock.
Sweet - thanks Gerard!
word on the street is that the non-carbon versions of the P3 will go away
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wow…that takes a big chunk of people who could afford a P3 out of the market for one then…the Team P3 in the red/white was one of the most fair deals on the market…
it will all be clear in a few weeks now…
…this from Cervelo’s newest newsletter…
“That leaves just one more TT/Tri model to be unveiled for 2006. More on that soon.”
any bets on what it is??
How about the P2.5 upgrades I suggested? 
You already have racks of the aero seat stays around. Weld them in instead.
You already have the thicker P3C seatpost, make a right size seat tube extrusion to match and use that on the P2.5 and the P(3.5?) and voila…ice cream.
I do like your idea of showing the others how to do a proper P2C tho’. Besides, your carbon engineers can’t have a few quiet days, they might get bored!
Well, with all your upgrades that frame would weigh a ton. A seattube like that is not very “weight-friendly”, it comes back to the original P2. A nose-cone is also difficult to make in a useful shape the way you describe. But I guess you could do all those things in carbon at a reasonable weight, make it more aero than all similar-looking frames and do it at a cost that is well below the P3 Carbon (because you don’t need that seattube cluster anymore). Our carbon engineers would love to have a few quiet days, they have been working on seven (sub-)models in the past six months alone, good thing we have nine engineers in total to get everything done on time.
Gerard,
If the aero seat stays work on the P3, why not on the P2?
The nose cone could be carbon, like Slowman used to use behind the headtube, on the Redstone. That would weigh 5/8 of sweet FA.
Returning to a non integrated headset may or may not add some weight, but by going 1" (for a Tri bike the 1-1/8" steerer isn’t particularly important IMHO particularly since 1" should be more aero since it’s narrower) it would make it easier to manufacture, particularly the nose cone and may offset some of the possible weight penalties of the non integrated headset and nose cone.
The thicker seat tube? sure it would be heavier, but since more of it would be cut out of the rear wheel, the weight penalty wouldn’t be huge As always, particularly with a tri bike, weight isn’t THAT important, even though lots of us bike geeks seem to obsess over it unjustafiably.
The consumer could be the judge of whether the P2SL is the better lightweight choice or the P2.5 Aero would be the better option.
Just food for thought from an anal retentive, totally bike obsessed trigeek.
TriDork
p.s. you DO realise that even with all the headaches of running Cervelo, you do have the dream job of just about everyone on ST, don’t you?
That was supposed to be a secret…
No way they will do all carbon for tri…have to have some lower end rides…not that the P2Kis a bad bike…just not a P3C
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I was referring mostly to the seattube issue. It would also be a tube that we couldn’t manipulate at the bb the way we do the P2 SL seattube, although I doubt there would be any bb stiffness issues anyway. you are absolutely corect that weight is a minimal factor, but you are underestimating the difficulties of some of your other suggestions. to meet up the carbon fairing to the aluminum headtube, finish it nicely, not have the joint crack, etc, is very expensive and the result may not be that good. Ask Slowman if he would like to do that again, and with production numbers in the thousands. I don’t know, but I suspect not.
As for non-integrated headsets, I really don’t see why. Chris King did a brilliant job of making people fear something that isn’t a problem, but I can’t run a company based on that fear. We have used integrated headsets on tens of thousands of frames, and have had to replace on frame because of an IHS issue. And that was an installation error. we have replaced more non-IHS frames because of headtube problems, even though we have sold way fewer of those. Plus, if something happens with an IHS, you end up with a perfect new frame thanks to our lifetime warranty.
1" vs. 1 1/8", in our case there isn’t really a difference in frontal area. I know that there are a lot of P2 clones with humongous headtubes, but you can’t blame that on the 1 1/8" headtube. That’s just poor design.
bottomline, I think that if we did the modifications to the P2 SL that you suggest, it would be as expensive or more expensive to make than a P3 SL or a P2C. Not that I have any idea what a P2C would cost to make.
Damn!
All good comebacks to my arguments. I guess that’s why you are the bike maker and I’m the bike buyer
P2 SL is an awesome bike for the money. and of course there is still the Dual, which personally I think is our best looking bike for next year. Not that looks matter.
For the new bike, Cervelo should come out with a non-UCI legal frame strictly for optimum aerodynamics for triathletes.
Do you remember the dancing around last year on the forum regarding the suggested wind tunnel comparisons? Gerard suggested to Adam a comparison with non-disk wheels at one point (which would certainly penalize the Softride) and conceded that the two bikes were a) very close in aerodynamics and b) the leader of their respective categories. I took this to mean the Softride likely had the edge, in at least some wind angles.
Hopefully with the P3C and the Soloist Carbon out, Cervelo can turn to something that they don’t need ASAP to make Bjarne happy. Perhaps Cervelo is ready to take on the beam/boom bike field as well?
so are you saying i’m right?