Cervelo R3 v Rivals

[VeloScaper]

Why are you shilling Cervelo?

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

[davidlee]

We must be riding different R3s. I have yet to ride a stiffer frame.

Put the R3 up against a Pegoretti 830am or Fina Estampa and you will see an unbelievable difference in stiffness . Laterally the Soloist Carbon is stiffer, but absolutely rides more like an aluminum bike as far as comfort and road vibration.

[roberto]

Standard Soloist is less complaint and less comfortable than the R3.

Are you referring to the Soloist CF or Team Soloist?

Carbon........which is pretty obvious if you ride both. Guess I should have been more specific since we have the aluminum Team Soloist, the Carbon Soloist and the carbon Soloist SL and we were discussing the R3 which is a carbon bike.

Now, why are you schilling again? I own several Cervelo bikes including a R3, and like them, but have seldom seen such rabid support of lack luster quality.

When anyone tells me a frame with 5 or 10 mm longer seat stays and using a different fork rake is the "same" frame as a production bike I just nod my head and laugh. Aint drinking any of that Koolaid myself.

It may be the "same" frame to manufacture but it aint the same frame to ride. I don't give a shite about one but do about the other.

[DocRay]

I've previously posted the fact that I find Cervelo's lack of replaceable headset bearing seats a sgnificant fault. The aluminum seats are so thin you'd be lucky to recut them once if damaged. Damaged headset bearing seats would be normal wear and tear, not covered by by warranty. As a mechanical engineer, I also think the lower bearing seat should have a full tubular inner suport. The inside of the headtube also reveals the sloppy hand layup and evidence of no bladder or other internal mold to insure high density and uniform thickness. The LOOK headtube is smooth and pecise inside and out.

Saying you are a mechanical engineer does not qualify you on bike design, unless you've designed bikes. You are taking about the support for the steel head bearings, most frames have these in aluminum, as they are not the wear point, the bearing is the wear point. The only way they can be damaged is by an incompetent mechanic.
As for layup, what you noted makes no difference to strength, EFBe testing has shown this.

The finish on all Cervelo carbon frames is far below that of LOOK and many other brands, for that matter. Put them side to side and compare. If you don't agree, then you don't know what you're looking for.

Too ridiculous a comment to respond to.

I'm not "shilling" LOOK. Although I like the brand, I like others too (like Colnago), but the Colnago geometry isn't my favorite for the mountain descents that I do on nearly every ride.

Why are you shilling Cervelo?

You attack any other frame manufacturer, other than what you have purchased, as some sign of advanced wisdom you need to share with the world. My only personal experience with Look is their pedals, which broke on me on the plastic cleat.

P.S. Engineer a spell checker.

[DocRay]

Why are you shilling Cervelo?

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

I'm not Chinese. Nor is DaveS Tunisian, for that matter.

[CTiride]

The finish on all Cervelo carbon frames is far below that of LOOK and many other brands, for that matter. Put them side to side and compare. If you don't agree, then you don't know what you're looking for.

Too ridiculous a comment to respond to.

DocRay, I'm interested in how you reconcile this response with your statement that the "that the QS2 finish is up to par with the best [you've] seen from Europe, and certainly better than Cervelo" as indicated in the following thread:
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum ... 9&start=15

[chas@look]

I'm not Chinese. Nor is DaveS Tunisian, for that matter.

I'm hesitant to get involved here, but what the heck. I know you're not really knocking us for building bikes in Tunisia, but this is as good a time as any to talk about this so why not. First of all, I'm in no way trying to take a pot-shot at Cervelo and I hope my comments are not taken as such, but I think there is a fundamental difference between building your own factory, training each of the workers there, and managing this factory with a guy who has worked for your company for many years, and outsourcing your design to a third party factory in China.

There were several factors that brought about building our bikes in Tunisia, the greatest one of course being cost. Take a look how the US dollar has performed against the Euro over the last few years: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amt=1&t=5y
Not so hot, huh? Since we are a French company and the U.S. is our second biggest market (and growing), that means we could either charge more dollars for our frames (and keep building them in France), or figure out a way to lower our costs. Contrary to what people may believe, for a company that builds their own bikes, margins on most high-end frames are not very large, so lowering margin isn't really a possibility if we want to keep selling bicycles - which we do. Since we wanted to retain the production control that making your own bikes affords you, outsourcing to a third party in China was not a possibility either. Tunisia's proximity to France (directly across the Mediterranean), and the fact that French is one of their official languages is why we decided to build our factory there. After being built in Tunisia, the frames are shipped to France to be painted.

Whew! Sorry for being so long-winded, but there you have it.

Best Regards,
chas@LookUSA

[DaveS]

Saying you are a mechanical engineer does not qualify you on bike design, unless you've designed bikes. You are taking about the support for the steel head bearings, most frames have these in aluminum, as they are not the wear point, the bearing is the wear point. The only way they can be damaged is by an incompetent mechanic.
As for layup, what you noted makes no difference to strength, EFBe testing has shown this.

We've been through this before. You can't seem to make a decent argument without including a personal attack. It shows a lack of maturity.

I got my BSME from Kansas State University in 1981, at age 28. I worked for 5 years in a machine shop prior to college. I worked for 22 years in manufacturing and facilities engineering at the Honeywell plant in Kansas City, where all the mechanical components for nuclear weapons are produced. I retired at age 50 (almost four years ago) so I'm not too dumb. Once again, there’s no good way to prove any of my statements and I don’t feel obligated to, either.

You're right that the bearing seats are not normally a wear surface, but if the headset is inadvertently left too loose and ridden very far, the lower bearing will bounce around and deform the bearing seat, making it necessary to recut it. There's no way an incompetent mechanic can damage the bearing seat, but riding on a misadjusted headset certainly will.

I spelled check this response. It's really my typing that sucks, not my spelling.

[goodboyr]

This may be slightly OT, but what the hell: My riding buddy and myself up here in Canada......he's got a 595, I've got the R3. I had a slight chainstay crack ; he had a hairline crack at the top of the Epost. My frame was replaced under warranty by Cervelo, no questions asked in one week. He is still waiting for a replacement frame and is riding a loaner (going on 3 months now). So, aside from all the technical squabbles about construction, etc. these are both wonderful bikes, and the difference from my point of view is the warranty and service. Now I know, from reading chas@lookusa on various forums that the US service might be better, but up here in Canada, it sucks! Meanwhile, Cervelo rocks and like Chas, Gerard is on the forums, watching and posting. So at the end of the day, its results that count, and I love my bike and would buy Cervelo again in a heartbeat.

[chas@look]

So at the end of the day, its results that count, and I love my bike and would buy Cervelo again in a heartbeat.

And that's all this really comes down to. Cycling is a whole lotta fun and people should buy whatever bike gets them excited.

Sorry to hear about your friend's problem with the Canadian distributor. Unfortunately Canada is slightly out of my reach for service, but if you PM me your friend's info (name, contact info, frame model/size) I can see what I can find out about his warranty claim.

Best,
chas@LookUSA

[Mr.Gib]

So at the end of the day, its results that count, and I love my bike and would buy Cervelo again in a heartbeat.

And that's all this really comes down to. Cycling is a whole lotta fun and people should buy whatever bike gets them excited.

Sorry to hear about your friend's problem with the Canadian distributor. Unfortunately Canada is slightly out of my reach for service, but if you PM me your friend's info (name, contact info, frame model/size) I can see what I can find out about his warranty claim.

Best,
chas@LookUSA

Chas, you are a solid guy. More like you are needed in this industry - well done. (I currently ride a Giant but Look will be at the top of my list next time I go bike shopping....and I live in Canada.

[alienator]

Now, I'm more than happy with my Moots Compact, and I've always thought that iffin' I bought a CF frame, that it would be a Parlee, Ruegamer, Crumpton.......however, that all changed when I saw the Look 595. That is one dead sexy frame. Muy sexy. I serverly want to throw a leg over one and give it a good spin.

As for the R3...well, who knows. Everyone who's pedaled one will have their opinion, as will anyone who's pedaled a 595, a C50, or a Trek 5200. Is one frame in the bike world clearly superior? No, obviously. Equally obvious is that both Cervelo and Look make good frames (Chose them since their names are the focus, seemingly, of the last two pages of pissing and mud slinging.). Just as obvious is that they, or anyone else, have not left the rest of the bike manufacturing world in the dust. Anyone who claims that is selling something.

I do think that Cervelo could do with a sense of humor or a new ad campaign. The "stiffest, fastest, most aeroest" ads are a bit old and a bit too serious. I mean does anyone actually believe that crap?

The Look ads, with the big black cat, well, those are ads with real style.

It's too bad that Litespeed wimped out on their Carbonello--and whatever was supposed to follow--campaign: that was funny.

Cycling related ads are deathly in need of much more humor......

[VeloScaper]

Why are you shilling Cervelo?

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

I'm not Chinese. Nor is DaveS Tunisian, for that matter.

Never said anything about China or Tunisia. Wow, do you really have such a low opinion of everyone on the forum to think this response would work to avoid my point?

Your "Too ridiculous a comment to respond to" response would have been better used here, though still weak.

Anyway, never mind me. There are others who have made valid points you should respond to properly. I'll just but out.

[Herbert]

Doc Ray, what is your real job again? And what is your relationship with Cervelo?

Now let's all show some love here for cycling and not so much attitude.


Herbert

[youngs_modulus]

Oh my goodness. So many subjects dear to my heart, all in one thread. OK, here we go:

Engineering: I'm a mechanical engineer who cut his teeth in the bicycle industry. I've been a mechanic for 20 years and done many other kinds of work in the industry. Most recently, I had a brief stint at a bicycle manufacturer, designing carbon fiber components. I left partly because the bicycle industry does very little "real" engineering. There are certainly many "real" engineers working in the industry, but margins are far too low to invest much in engineering. It's very much a "make-it-and-break-it" culture. I do finite element analysis (FEA) for a living, specializing in composites. That means I work mostly in aerospace. Cervelo uses Nastran (IIRC) which, although not my favorite code, definitely qualifies as hard-core FEA. In the North American bike industry, only Trek, Specialized and maybe Easton invest as much in engineering. And Trek only does so reluctantly, IMHO.

The Cervelo R3: I bought one (a 54) ten days ago, and I'm really impressed. The inside of the head tube looks fine to me. I find the head tube a little too tall and the top tube slightly too short (for me) but the engineering and manufacturing quality is there--insofar as I can see. I'm not willing to cut my own frame in half along the major axis. It works and it weighs 882 grams, which is really astonishing.

The frame rides really well...it's stiff in torsion and compliant vertically; these two qualities are sort of the point of composites in bike frames. It handles fine. There is nothing wrong with the R3. If you'd rather ride a Look, do so by all means. They both build into wonderful bikes.

DocRay: I agree with 95% of what you say, but I think you're wrong for taking DaveS to task for not having designed bicycles. Industry experience is great, but engineering principles extend across industries. I agree with you that DaveS is wrong about the R3 headset bearing seats, but his assertions are reasonable. Wrong, but reasonable. The bicycle industry does not attract the best and brightest. It attracts those who are willing to work for 65%-80% of a typical salary in order to do something they love. Some of these people are very bright and some are not. Even the bright ones, though, are hobbled by the nonexistent R&D budgets in the bike industry. That said, engineers have an incentive to be conservative retro-grouches. DaveS is, in my opinion, being a little grumpy and retro-grouchy. But he is not saying crazy things. Again, for the record, I disagree with what he says, but these are topics about which reasonable people can disagree.

Tunisia: I visited Tunisia for three weeks in 1999-2000...I wanted to be in a country where it was not Y2K during the changeover. (It was 1420 according to the Islamic calendar, IIRC). Tunisia is wonderful country full of intelligent, urbane people (especially Tunis, the capital). The government is moderately repressive, and there are problems with islamist movements and there's a high tolerance for antisemitism, but overall it's still a fabulous place. Tunisia has a free trade agreement with the EU (again, IIRC) and a highly skilled workforce that speaks one of the major languages of commerce (French). I applaud Look's decision to manufacture frames there. Easton, Spinergy and many other US companies manufacture composite bicycle parts in Mexico; no one complains about that. Tunisia is at least as good as Mexico (and I'd bet that the average Tunisian worker is at least as highly educated than the average Mexican worker--and I've met some very smart Mexican workers).

Mainland China is a fine place to make carbon bicycle frames. Taiwan has an enormous amount of experience with carbon (mostly via tennis rackets) and, from what I hear, there's no shortage of composites expertise on the Chinese mainland, either.


Conclusion: Most people (a) have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to engineeering, and (b) have no idea that they have no idea. And that's okay. Just ride your bike and enjoy it. I heartily endorse Chas' sentiment that "Cycling is a whole lotta fun and people should buy whatever bike gets them excited."

Cheers,

Jason