Obviously, the big story is Cervelo. And it could have been worse for Trek, et al, as the P3 Carbon only came online in July, and in meager numbers and one size at a time.
QR seems to have rebounded, passing C’dale for the first time ever (C’dale has never been out of the top 5 before). Probably 20 Luceros in the field, and this model is less than a year old, so was obviously a big seller. Also, a lot of Calientes and Tiphoons. QR’s bikes are generally of recent vintage, speaking well for QR’s efforts over the last 2 years.
Softride, Specialized and C’dale are retreating, and Kestrel is also a bit on the wane compared to its previous glory years. Kestrel finally has Airfolls selling at full throttle, and Specialized has interesting Transition models. Those brands should stem their losses. C’dale needs to start making carbon bikes, i think, in order to become a dominant IM brand again.
Kuota had a big increase. but, a lot of this is on Normann’s back. no company in triathlon every had so much riding on the efforts of one athlete on one day as does Kuota. Normann wins today, Kuota has 85 or 90 bikes here next year. Normann gets 4th, or 7th, Kuota may not see a big increase next year.
Id say the brand is different enough to quantify seperating them. QR has no road bikes and I Litespeed focuses on road and makes a few good tri bikes as well. But you could easily argue the other way.
there were 12 merlins there. i consider litespeed/qr/merlin separately, just as i consider trek/lemond/klein separately. i don’t yet know for sure, but i think ABG “beat” trek companywide, and i suspect this might be the first year this has taken place, either before or since ABG and trek have owned their brands.
My theory is that QR may do even better and Cervelo will widen their gap. From a financial perspective the sooner Trek gives up the better so they can concentrate on the parts of the bike business they do so well at.
Trek will sell a lot of their new TTX tri bikes. No idea if that is good or bad for them from a financial perspective, but I have no doubt it will happen (assuming they actually have them available to sell…).
I’m not sure about that. As nice as the Trek looks it is pretty pricey compared to the Asian bikes. Tough for them to compete on price due to domestic country of origin.
I would be interested to hear the 650 vs. 700cc numbers and look forward to the more detailed breakdown. Thank you Dan and crew for doing this.
I would expect to see QR gain ground on Cervelo next year as the Seduza (and new Caliente) is going to be a great seller and should be more readily available than the P2C (just based on the frame style already exist and the Lucero was a big seller). I also think Guru will become a bit more popular as the custom geometry becomes a no charge option.
I would be interested to hear the 650 vs. 700cc numbers and look forward to the more detailed breakdown. Thank you Dan and crew for doing this.
aye, 650 vs 700 would be interesting. there weren’t any 24"ers out there, were there?
I would expect to see QR gain ground on Cervelo next year as the Seduza (and new Caliente) is going to be a great seller and should be more readily available than the P2C (just based on the frame style already exist and the Lucero was a big seller).
QR may gain on some but I doubt they will gain on us. P3C sales alone should easily avoid that, and on top of that the P2C will be available in good numbers throughout the sales season.