Today I drove up to the upper corner where PA, NY and NJ all meet to get training on the 2012 Cervelo products, have lunch, and go for a bike ride. Jon, our Cervelo rep, led the whole thing and bought us lunch. He lives in the town (Milford PA) and took us to, what he considers to be, the best restaurant in town. The food was fantastic and the conversation amusing. Isaac and Anna rode up with me, and Jude and Ryan came up in the van, so we wasted little time making fun of each other and the other people we work with.
After lunch, we headed to a shop that Cervelo had rented out so Jon could use it to educate the shops that he oversees. It was air conditioned and had a bathroom, but not much else. What it did have was a projector, an R5 CA frame and an S5 frame for us to look at. I can't talk about some of the stuff we covered, and most of it was pricing for 2012, so I wont put you to sleep with that, but I will talk about the R5 CA and S5.
R5 CA - For those of you who don't know, Cervelo has a place in CA where they build a facility so they could see through every step of the bike building process except for painting it. They came up with the R5 CA which is just a top end Frame for the R5 line of bikes. It uses a steeper seat tube angle than the normal R5, but also uses a zero setback seat post to get the rider into the proper position. The advantage, apparently, is slightly lighter weight and added stiffness.
The frame weight for the R5 CA is 690g. Yeah. It's also the stiffest bike Cervelo has ever built. I got to hold a forkless frame with BB bearing in place and seat collar and it was absolutely silly how light it was. I picked it up at the same time as the ridiculously light S5 frame and the S5 just felt like a pig. The difference is surprisingly impressive.
S5 - As you may, or may not know, Cervelo killed off the S3 and launched the S5. When I first saw the S5, I just assumed they put drop bars on the P3 and called it a day. It turns out I was only partially right.
The S5 does use the rear section of s P3, but it has been redesigned to be better. Down facing dropouts instead of rear facing on the P3, and a redesign of how the curved section that the rear wheel nestles in. They even went as fas as to use the metal plate that the rear brake mounts to as a way to prevent pebbles from entering into the space and scratching your frame.
The seat tube is different as well. The seat stays were shaped to hide the rear brake from the wind, and the fork was designed to remove a turbulent area behind the rear of the fork.
The bike is also equipped with BBright bottom bracket technology, which we all knew was coming. having been on an R3 so equipped, I can tell you that other companies need to jump on this bandwagon quickly. It is noticeable.
While that all may sound like me throwing up Cervelo's marketing to you, it only kind of is. I haven't been on an S5 yet, so I can't give you an impression, but from a technology stand point, it's an awesome bike. Cervelo has a whole bunch of numbers to support their claim that you're x% quicker on their aero road bikes than any other bike, but that's not important to me. The amount of testing, and how they test is important to me, and they're changing the way bikes are being tested and how data is recorded and that's good. Of all of the cool things that come from working at a Cervelo dealer, the amount of information they give you to show you why something is faster is second to none, and that is why I believe most of their claims.
Now that we got that out of the way, lets get to talking about the ride. Go to Milford, PA and ride your bike. Just do it. The roads around there are awesome and Jon took us on the "easy loop" which wasn't murder, but it did blow up Anna. Jude and Ryan completely bitched out and didn't even go on the ride. They just went home. So Anna, Isaac, Jon and myself went out and had a mostly relaxing but fun ride.
We did have to cross a bridge that was 150ft above a river when we crossed into Nj, and that was a bit tough for me. I hate heights. After that, it was just beautiful roads through the trees and good conversation until we got to the first hill of the day. It wasn't a super tough hill, but it wasn't easy either. Isaac tried to gain as much speed as he could in the beginning because he thinks it makes climbing easier. A quarter of the way in he had to start tacking up the hill to keep himself going. I started off going a bit quicker than I probably should have, and at about the same point as Isaac, started having difficulty. I pulled myself back, found a steady pace I could deal with and alternated between standing on the steeper parts and sitting and recovering when it was less steep. Because Isaac was tacking, I pulled him in and passed him quickly. Anna was slowly pulling up the rear, and Jon started off keeping her company, then easily closed the gap on Isaac and myself and chatted with us for the rest of the time. The three of us reached the top together and slowed up while Anna regrouped. It was about two miles of climbing at about 4% if I had to guess, which I did, because my Garmin was dead and I didn't even bring it.
The descent was awesome, but when we got back to the flat stuff (it was all rolling terrain, but not too bad) it became clear that Anna wasn't able to keep pace. She couldn't even keep up with us while drafting. It wouldn't get any easier for her.
We stopped at a craft shop to rest for a few minutes. We talked shop and I complained about how I just tightened my rear King hub and it was already shifting up to 1/4" in each direction. I'm actually really pissed about that, but that's for another time.
When we got back on the bikes, we immediately started another climb. Isaac started hard again, and this time I didn't hold back. I passed Isaac almost immediately and didn't look back. I reached the top 30second before anyone else. To be fair, if Jon wanted to, he could have crushed me, but he was awesome, riding with each of us and never leaving us or ramping up the pace because he was bored.
The hill officially broke Anna. After that, she was constantly off the back and could never get close to the front. The descent this time was long, steep and really fast. Going up would have been the hard way. I'm glad we went the easy way.
Because I had no faith in my wobbly rear hub, I was on the brakes a little more than the other guys, but Anna must have melted her rims, because she rode them the whole way down. The roads back were rolling and she was having a tough go of it. Not once did she complain, but you could tell by her face that she was hurting.
Jon had asked us early in the ride how we felt about doing a little gravel riding and we were all for it. He told us how a lot of the people he takes out on the ride have complained when he took them on gravel, so when we finally got to the gravel part, he was very clear about what we were about to do. All three of us told him we not only didn't care, but wanted to do it. He still, semi-reluctantly lead us onto a gravel path. It was awesome, and every single one of us had a blast. We had to turn off at one point and get back on the road because of how rough the path gets (it has signs warning you!) but a few miles later we hopped back on. One steep hill and a lot of wheel spin later, and a massive descent with track marks that went into the woods at the last turn, and we were back on the road for a few blocks until we got back to the store front. Anna made it the whole way. She had a great time.
I think the funniest thing about the Cervelo day was that other than Jon, we all rode Specialized bikes. Cervelo is a much, much smaller company than either Specialized or Trek, and little things like not having demo bikes at things like this are reminders. That being said, I learned a lot, and had a fantastic time. I'm eagerly awaiting next year's meet up.
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