Bike Questions

by John.. on Jun 19, 2008 3:02 PM EDT

Felt has a new AR bike that incorporates some of the aero traits of time trial and track bikes for a road bike. I think Cervelo has used some aero designs in ttheir bikes as well.

I'm curious as to why this hasn't been done before. Aero wheels can be heavier, but faster - why not the bike?

Velonews has a picture of the new Felt AR here. It appears to me that the bike is pictured with Mavic wheels even though Slipstream/Garmin is sponsored by Zipp.

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couple of answers

1. aero factors aren’t THAT significant in a pack. In a break, yeah.

3. Comfort. That aero downtube provides an aero benefit with the cost of soaking up very little road buzz. The aluminum cervelo soloists are super-aero and vertically assertive (as opposed to vertically compliant. Even pros don’t want to be beaten up by their bike for 5 hours at a time.

2. Wanna produce turnover in your mechanics? Make them maintain 20 bikes with internally routed cables for 3 weeks in a row.

by R Mc on Jun 19, 2008 4:22 PM EDT reply actions

Rules?

Didn’t some sanctioning body a few years back put the kibosh on a similar design because they didn’t like the rear wheel tucked so tightly behind the seat tube?

by swells on Jun 19, 2008 8:38 PM EDT reply actions

I think it applies to bikes like the Cervelo

P2K which has a seat tube that curves forward to accomodate the wheel. This looks like it’s borderline. I’m no rules expert though.

by Peter Fontecchio on Jun 20, 2008 9:03 AM EDT reply actions

The ruling was something to the effect of

You must be able to fit a card, like a playing card, between the wheel and seat tube. The reason being that when the seat tube sheilds the rear wheel so much, it acts like a fairing and is effectively an advantage over other bikes. I for one would love to ride this bike and check it out. It just looks plain fast.

If I just had one more gear, I...

by SpunOut on Jun 20, 2008 10:38 AM EDT up reply actions

curioulsy it is photographed with

very un-aero ksyriums. They couldn’t borrow some Zip 808’s for the shoot?

by Peter Fontecchio on Jun 20, 2008 11:04 AM EDT reply actions

you mean 1080’s i’m sure.

by Hons on Jun 20, 2008 7:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Those would work too

Lightweight or Reynolds too. Nothing against Ksyriums, but they don’t do well in wind resistance tests.

by Peter Fontecchio on Jun 20, 2008 8:41 PM EDT reply actions

Couple of answers - 2.0

Regarding Cervelo –
The Soloist was originally intended as a "Jack of all trades" sort of bike capable of supporting the needs of a road racer who’s his/her bike must work in the RR as well as the ITT’s.
Also, Cervelo as a company was founded initially to support the growing triathlon market and the Soloist was also intended for that RR/Tri crossover market.

Before Cervelo and the Soloist, the road market pretty much acted in a fairly conservative manner, but there were always bikes that incorporated a more aerodynamic frame.
One of the companies that always bucked the trend toward what you had pointed out was the old Felt. Unfortunately, those bikes were built out of Aluminum and were both harsh and flexy at the same time.
Litespeed also made the Ultimate, which was a good and very expensive bike.
Also Kestrel made the Talon.
The Kestrel Talon SL is still one of the best frames on the market in what you are describing, and it has been around unchanged for, if my memory serves me, more then 8 years!

But you also need to take into consideration that really only in the last 5 years has carbon fiber manufacturing become proficient enough across the board that designs like the Felt AR can be manufactured consistently within the cost parameters needed for a company like Felt to actually make a profit.

Regarding the wheels, I’d venture to suspect that the Mavics are what will be spec’ed on the bike for 2009.

by Ryan_Liles on Jun 22, 2008 2:57 AM EDT reply actions