I saw the P3 Carbon at Ralph’s Half Ironman. It is really awesome looking and I am thinking of buying it- but I have a concern.
Cervelo has mastered the art of making aluminum tri bikes and those bikes are at a very developed, advanced stage in their development cycle. However, I am concerned that it will be a risky investment to purchase a P3 Carbon given that Cervelo has not made carbon tri bikes before. My concern is that if I buy an initial release model, I am becoming a labrat for cervelo to work out the kinks. The beneficiaries of my purchase will ultimately beenfit the 2nd or 3rd generation users. I want to buy a bike that is already awesome and that won’t take a few generations to deliver its promise.
The reason for my concern is that if I recall correctly, Cervelo had significant problems surrounding the launch of the R2.5 Carbon which caused the company to switch manufacturers. If so were the customer who bought those bikes in the initial release negatively impacted?
My thought on the situation is that the issues have been resolved previously through validation of the P3 design and of carbon fabrication through the R2.5 which has consistently tested better than competeing bikes in independent tests widely published.
What consumers fail to realize or refuse to hear as they whine about “delays” that actually never eally did happen (the program has been on schedule to the second fom day one if you actually *listen *to what Cervelo has said) is that the time it takes to bring the product to market is the time it takes to do it right.
Consumer expectations, be them as they may, are often times utterly unrealistic. The P3C is not an untested product. It is not late. People have done a great job trying to convince themselves of both, but in fact and reality- neither is true.
Well, I am a consumer of Cervelo products both at wholesale as a reseller and as a rider who owns and operates them personally.
If I weren’t employed in the bicycle industry, for instance, if I still worked in government, I would own a Cervelo as a consumer.
So, I did not have any reservations about purchasing the new P3C after speaking at length with Cervelo about the bike, its testing, design and development. I do place an extremely high degree of trust in Cervelo based on my prior expereince with the product having been a dealer since they started selling bikes. Based on my experience with the company, that trust has been validated again and again.
Five days ago I spoke with a Cervelo employee who told me our P2SL’s would be here today. They are.
No product or company is perfect- especially mine, but Cervelo is very good.
As for your P3C and P3SL question: Well, truthfully, I hesitate to answer since I do own a P3SL but have never (obviously) ridden a P3C. I have a set of expectations for the bike, and I have purchased one for my personal use, but I will wait until I have used it to pass judgement.
And your question about P2K(SL) and P3(SL): In my **opinion **the P3 is significantly faster than the P2K(SL). I believe it ia combination of improved ride quality and frame/rear wheel aerodynamics when combined with a disk wheel that make the P3(SL) faster than the P2K. The P3 is optimized for use with a disk, and I almost always race with a disk.
Don’t early adopters always assume some risk? Would you rather have a 2002 Soloist or a 2005 Soloist? They’re still essentially the same bike.
As for the differences between the bikes. It’ll make a difference in your mind, which is all that really matters. Because in the end, “significant advantage” is user defined. Neither one is going to save you 30 seconds over a 40K versus the other.
“Would you rather have a 2002 Soloist or a 2005 Soloist? They’re still essentially the same bike.”
Are you sure? I see a lot of difference just looking at them. This is the first year I have seen a chain stay bridge welded between the chainstays of any Soloist. That is just one conspicuous difference at a glance.
Maybe he does have a point; maybe not. I don’t think the test should be whether a Soloist from 5 years ago is as good as a Soloist today. In 5 years, technology changes, research chnages, production change, processes, change-- so I think it is reasonable to expect some changes over 5 years. An early adopter may be worse off not because he was an early adopter but simply because in 5 years things get better.
I associate the risks of being an early adopter with more wholesale, conceptial risks. For example, does the bike have intrinsic design or manufacturing flaws that causes it to perform suboptimally relative to its target specifications and reasonable expections of the customer. And how does the bike stack up to its existing competitors.
So for the P3 Carbon, the question is how will it stack up to the P3Sl and how will it stack up relative to other carbon tri bikes that are currently on the market.
Well Cervelo does have a pretty damn good warranty for it’s products. Free from defects for the time the original owner has it. I assume that this same warranty is going to be extended to the owners of the carbon. So even if there does turn out to be a design flaw (which I doubt), it seems to be that the consumer is in a no risk situation, because the company would (hopefully) honor the warranty, you get a new frame, and you’re back on the road. Piece o’ cake. Does anybody know if my assumption of the warranty on the P3C is correct?
Interesting about the warranty on the P3C. Undoubtedly, it will have the full lifetime warranty for the original owner, but the P3Carbon page is the only bike page on the website that doesn’t have the warranty link at the very bottom. I’d bet a bunch that they’ll stand behind their work. The customer service is really good regarding replacement. I have a 2002 soloist that developed a crack and they send me out a brand new one before I even shipped mine back. I also had a first gen (03) 2.5 which had a bunch of issues (seat tube oversized and incorrectly labled the wrong size). They wanted all the first gen 2.5’s back and replaced mine with a brand spankin 05. If you buy that the new P3C you’ll have nothin to worry about
Interesting about the warranty on the P3C. Undoubtedly, it will have the full lifetime warranty for the original owner, but the P3Carbon page is the only bike page on the website that doesn’t have the warranty link at the very bottom. I’d bet a bunch that they’ll stand behind their work. The customer service is really good regarding replacement. I have a 2002 soloist that developed a crack and they send me out a brand new one before I even shipped mine back. I also had a first gen (03) 2.5 which had a bunch of issues (seat tube oversized and incorrectly labled the wrong size). They wanted all the first gen 2.5’s back and replaced mine with a brand spankin 05. If you buy that the new P3C you’ll have nothin to worry about
The P3 Carbon page just hasn’t been finished yet, but you are correct in that it has the same limited lifetime warranty as all our other bikes, carbon or Aluminum.
As for the risks of a new design, I would say in the case of a Cervelo there is none. first of all as you say, if there is something the matter we fix it. BTW, from the first generation of R2.5s, there was just a small number that we asked to get back, and it wasn’t anything structural that was wrong with it). That first generation was deemed by all Team CSC riders to be the best bike they’d ever ridden when we asked them after the 2003 Tour. So I don’t think anybody who bought that bike would be unhappy with it.
It’s true that Phil and I weren’t completely happy with it, but we never are. That’s part of our job. The closest we’ve ever come to being satisfied with a design is probably the P2K and P3, those simply work so well that we don’t feel the need to change anything significantly (and dealers also ask us to please change nothing). Which is also why we have spent three years on the P3 Carbon, it had to be significantly better than the Aluminum P3 and that’s not that easy.
This is Gerard you’re talking about! You might as well be riding the man himself…that’s the kind of dedication I feel is put into making sure the bike is as good as it can possibly be…even early in production. This isn’t some nameless, faceless grunt in a sweatshop cranking out product. You do have a point in that some subtle changes may be forthcoming due to what is seen on earliest production models, but, I’d bet it won’t be anything earthshattering…more along the lines of 100 grams of weight saved from using a different paint technique…you know…no really significant thing.
Thanks for your response. You have addressed all of my concerns and I have decided to get the P3C. My brother rides the P3SL which is awesome so I can only imagine what the P3C will be like. Thanks for building such awesome bikes.
I have to disagree a bit with Cervelo hitting their target date - true for the small sizes, but nothing was ever said about having to wait till mid summer, as it appears now, for the 58cm. That’s a summer of racing missed by those that ordered them expecting to be able to race on them this summer (which bike dealers and Cervelo really did nothing to discourage those expectations).
“This is the first year I have seen a chain stay bridge welded between the chainstays of any Soloist. That is just one conspicuous difference at a glance.”
Just to pick one nit, I have a 2004 Soloist Team with the chainstay bridge. They added that with the 2004 model, not this year’s.