Hmm… perhaps you and Herbert should have a friendly wager on this - for charity, of course. 
Gerard i would dare say that the tide of lemmings is starting to shift to other brands. you are losing several dealers across the country that i know and while you may have a 10:1 ratio of other dealers waiting to pick up the brand i think the continuity of care will be broken and the brand will suffer at a grassroots level. These dealers you are losing helped to establish your brand (at the grassroots level) and they will now help establish the next brand(s) with their superior customer service/ fittings, etc… while the dealers you may be establishing will just be bandwagon riders. it will still take another 2 years but i suspect that the tide has crested.
–let the flaming begin now–
Didn’t Tom say he couldn’t give the Lucero’s away? Colorado cyclist had the frames an sale for ~$1500 earlier this year. It possible the bike count for the Lucero’s isn’t indicative of their actual place in the market.
Gerard
You state that the P2C will be available all through the sale’s season, however it is frustrating that know bikes won’t be out until March at earliest. For those planning to race next year starting in April, a March release is too close of a deadline… Really frustrating for those excited about the P2C. Why can’t you step it up a bit and get things out the door by February?? 
Yes, they are seprate but also the same (house)… personally I like to think that ABG is the winner at the Kona Bike Count. Nice job Herbert. And with all the good stuff coming off the line for '06 I say it will be interesting come Kona count next year.
tacky - could have just sent the man a private message.
-mike
Well John,
I don’t think any flaming is needed, the truth will suffice. I don’t know who you are other than that you’re a dealer that sells QR, Guru and Javelin, but you are simply wrong. We haven’t lost the dealers that really established our brand, in fact those dealers believe even more in Cervelo today than ever before. We aren’t really adding that many dealers either, despite the fact that so many would like to become a dealer. you obviously don’t know anything about our dealer development, so I wonder why you need to post about it at all. I guess you are from the state of Washington and as an example, we have been with SpeedyReedy, by far the best triathlon shop in Seattle, for years and years to everybody’s satisfaction.
We did not go into complete model details but on the QR side there were quite a few new Luceros, 05 Ti-phoons and Calientes, plus on the Litespeed site there were quite a few 05 Blades and Sabers plus several 06 road bikes.
Cheers from Kona,
herbert
Litespeed / QR
as a guy about to pulll the trigger on a Lucero, I find this an interesting comment. would anyone care to expand on it?
“we have been with SpeedyReedy, by far the best triathlon shop in Seattle, for years and years to everybody’s satisfaction.”
i am a big fan of reed (from speedy reedy), but have certainly felt that a town that attracts the largest starting field of any single triathlon worldwide, without allowing any men to enter, deserves two good tri shops.
in fact john teeters from triumph multisport appears to me to be that second shop. i would recommend both triumph and cervelo acknowledge each others’ respective place in the market, because there is one truism in business that never changes and that is… things change.
otoh, if either or both of you would like to engage in a flame war, may i offer my thanks in advance that you’re dong it here, and not on, say, tri newbies or some other place
“as a guy about to pull the trigger on a Lucero”
i do not have the benefit yet of having analyzed the count, but there seemed to me to be four new models of high-end bikes i kept seeing over and over: Cervelo P3C, QR Tiphoon (the remade Tiphoon), QR Lucero, and Kuota Kalibur. it is likely to remain the same next year, with the possible additions of Cervelo P2C and Trek’s TTX.
there is one good reason to reconsider buying a Lucero. you might want to look at QR’s Seduza and Caliente first. as for the Seduza, i hope QR stocks this deep, because it’s at or near the most bike you can get for under $3000.
likewise, if you’re thinking of a P3C there’s one thing to make you want to reconsider: the P2C. for some people, the P2C is a better bike than the P3C, same money. and, i think it might be the better Kona bike.
i think it might be the better Kona bike.
Because…?
for some people, the P2C is a better bike than the P3C, same money. and, i think it might be the better Kona bike.
Wow, that’s a loaded statement. Care to delve into further detail, especially the Kona part? Or shall I forcibly castigate you.
EDIT: Saber, you are quick on the keys…
EDIT PART DEUX: Dan, is it a function of 1) two water bottle holders, 2) you perceive the seat-tube of the P3 to be less effective w/o a disc, or 3) something else entirely…
I’m sorry to disappoint you on this Dan, but there is no intention on my part to start a flame war. I just need to set the record straight when it comes to Cervelo, as I know that company fairly well. I have no intentions to make any judgments about Triumph Multisport, as I simply don’t know enough about them.
I’ve never been a fan of Cervelo, from a perspective of manufacturing and marketing not design, but what they have done as a business model is amazing.
For a bicycle retailer to ‘dump’ on a brand he does not sell sickens me to the core and shows a complete lack of professionalism.
I always wonder where QR would be now had Dan not sold it, Dan???
“Wow, that’s a loaded statement. Care to delve into further detail, especially the Kona part?”
the geometries are essentially the same, but the p2c is a bit taller in front (2cm taller in the head tube than the p3c). in general, i think kona-bound athletes are going to find the p2c’s head tubes easier to manage. look at the photo of zabriskie at the top of this page, in the cervelo ad. that’s a wonderful position, maybe the best anywhere. and it’s on a p3c. but that’s probably a deeper drop than is likely to be found on all but a very few kona athletes.
certainly you can get the position you want on a p3c, you just add more spacers. but i’m not a fan of spacers, i’m a fan of frame material. so, tho it’s a small point, i’m saying the p2c is a slightly better geometric fit for long coursers, all things equal.
consider for a moment how many felt bikes were in kona. felt makes wonderful bikes. but they’re really short course bikes, geometrically. jim felt designed his geometries around those athletes with whom he worked, and tho paula was one of them, his geometries mostly closely mirror positions ridden by the likes of michellie jones, back when she vowed never to race an ironman.
the p3c has a head tube closer (tho not as deep) as those made by felt. the p2c has some extra height, and i think this height will be advantageous to long coursers, esp if they choose bars with low profile armrests.
one should not make too much of this, but when one considers what i write about above, and the $800 you save, the p2c is just such a great bike. it’s going to be the single biggest model sold to kona aspirants in '06.
Dan, thanks for the response. After seeing your comment, I just ordered the Lucero - from the guys at Nytro. I had not done business with them in the past, but over the past few days, with no guarantee of any sale to me, they have been incredibly patient and helpful (a plug for their store).
They answered all sorts of fit related questions (confirming what I think I know about the fit), and priced out the bike at all sorts of specs, based on where I told them I wanted to be. Result: Full Ultegra right at the price point for the Seduza, no sales tax for me, a good wheelset, carbon seat post and the other “upgrades” in a Lucero and, perhaps least of all but still on the radar, the color scheme is better looking in my estimation.
Sorry if no one else is buying them. I am looking forward to getting on mine.
I’ve got a P3C and it’s the most amazing bike I’ve ever ridden. I’m sure the P2C is nice but what would make it a better bike for Kona? I sure would like to know what your reasons are for making such a statement.
“I always wonder where QR would be now had Dan not sold it, Dan???”
after QR and i went our separate ways, the brand nosedived for a year or two (why isn’t “nosedove” a word?). but that got itself turned around after ABG bought it and got its arms around how to make bikes in the orient. as of now QR is clearly (in my mind) the #2 tri bike brand in the world. it is either closing the gap on cervelo, or at least the gap is not widening. cervelo and QR and distancing themselves from the rest of the field. there is NO WAY i would be making bikes any better, or even as good, as the bikes made by ABG right now, were i still running QR. i am VERY happy with QR’s bikes, and very thankful that ABG is making bikes worthy of the QR name.
otoh, look at De Soto’s T1 wetsuits. were i at QR, i’d be making that, except they’d have “QR” on them. this isn’t to say anything bad about QR’s wetsuits, they’re great. it’s just that i think current wetsuit technology is old, and needs some new thinking. nobody’s thinking outside the box.
funny you ask. night before last i woke up in the middle of the night, wide awake, with the “new” longjohn in my head. it was crystal clear, EXACTLY how to make it, and nothing like it is currently made. so i’m just sitting on it right now, letting it ferment in my noggin.
“Wow, that’s a loaded statement. Care to delve into further detail, especially the Kona part?”
the geometries are essentially the same, but the p2c is a bit taller in front (2cm taller in the head tube than the p3c). in general, i think kona-bound athletes are going to find the p2c’s head tubes easier to manage. look at the photo of zabriskie at the top of this page, in the cervelo ad. that’s a wonderful position, maybe the best anywhere. and it’s on a p3c. but that’s probably a deeper drop than is likely to be found on all but a very few kona athletes.
But one thing to consider is that Dave, as with all Team CSC riders, loves to ride a relaitvely small frame. If he were a triathlete and I would set him up on a bike, he would without a shadow of a doubt ride a 56cm frame, not a 54cm as he does now. And I am 99% sure that is the size you would put him on too. On top of that, he would probably not ride one-piece Visiontechs but maybe the clip-ons. Those two things together give him another 2-3 inches of height, if he wanted to, without a single spacer.
So while I think that there definitely will be people who can fit more easily on a P2C than a P3C, it really depends on the person and it won’t be a case of 90/10. In fact, many people will fit well on either, simply because a simple flip of the stem will give you more height adjustment than the headtube length differential. So the split will more be like 80/80 between the potential to fit a P2c or P3C or 20/60/20, whichever way you want to slice it. And with a move towards steeper positions (which I have been predicting for a while now and I see happening) the lower positions will also become easier to attain.