Tour Goodies: Cervelo

You had to figure that the Canadian manufacturer that was single-handedly responsible for the creation of the aero road bike segment would apply their ultra-high-end manufacturing technology found in their R5 to their aero design. The answer to that un-asked question is both yes and no.

Behold the S5.

The first, most apparent aspect of the bike’s appearance is that it appears to be the sloping top-tube love child of the S3 and P4. And that’s not far off the mark. Though it looks familiar, the S5 required all new molds to be cut. The folks at Cervelo say it’s their most aerodynamic road bike design so far. It’ll save 36.8 seconds over 40k, almost a second per kilometer, 92 grams of drag and 9.2 watts. They are just different ways of saying the bike is purported to give you free speed.

You want something more impressive? It weighs in at 990 grams. The “it” is the frame, fork, paint and derailleur hangers. That’s sub-kilo for frame and fork. But they say it’s not a noodle; they claim testing show it is 12 percent stiffer than the S3. They didn’t happen to mention if that was in torsion or in the vertical plane.

So what’s it handle like? The bike features the same geometry and sizing found in the R3. That’s six sizes with handling proven to work in the world’s most challenging races. Special steps were taken in the design to accommodate items like water bottles and brakes into the aerodynamics, eliminating the need for proprietary brakes or water bottles.

Naturally, this bike won’t be cheap, or widely available, but it won’t be quite as expensive as the R5. The S5 with Dura-Ace Di2 will go for $9000; with SRAM Red it’ll be $7500; with Ultegra Di2 it’ll be $6000 and with regular Ultegra it’ll be $4800. I’m looking forward to a chance to actually ride one. I’m hearing it’s not supposed to be harsh the way the SLC-SL was; I’m curious to see if they succeeded. It’ll be quite a victory if they did.