Review of New Cervelo R5 California press release

Originally published March of 2013
I removed this post because My Cervelo rep almost  got me fired because "the upper management wasn't happy" about my blog but, now I am no longer associated with Cervelo so I am putting it back up along with the apology that I never posted.


Almost 6 months ago
I was riding bikes with the Cervelo sales manager for the Eastern half of North America and he said "we are working on a new R5 California, it's gonna be awesome" when I tried to get a little bit more info, all I got was a snide comment about how Trek thinks their new Madone is so aero.  Considering the $10,000 price tag of an R5ca I was interested to see the new tech but not likely to sell one so, R5ca went to the waaaay back of my mind.

FAST FORWARD
In the past few days I have gotten several interesting emails from Cervelo, not me personally, they don't know or give a shit about my blog.  The first was letting me know that Phil White was getting a second job (times are tough all over) as the Innovation Officer of the Pon Bicycle Group. Phil will be using his extra paycheck for Rogaine -so he doesn't end up looking like Gerard Vroomen- and Poutine, because he's Canadian.

White, checking the Laminar flow of the S5 was heard saying "she's got a real set of balls on her".

The second and more interesting email was one that had details about the supposedly Trek embarrassing R5 California. Included in this email was a warning not to disseminate any contained information until 9am today so Bikerumor tactfully waited until 9:00:07 to blow the lid off the new bike. The Bikerumor.com post is filled with charts and graphs and absolutely no dick jokes, so that makes my post better than theirs.
The new R5 is lighter by 8 grams! BOOOM!
If 8 grams alone does not justify the price: the new R5 gets more aero. According to figure 16 (not  shown here) the new r5 goes from 24 down to 9ish, that's pretty impressive considering that bikerumor.com doesn't qualify those numbers and they could mean ANYTHING! ALSO BOOM! These new squovals will save you ten watts over a normal road bike, which may qualify them as super-squovals.

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In the sell sheet above Cervelo uses several fun made-up phrases that I will attempt to explain below.

• Future proof: You can use your garbage mechanical shifting now and someday in the future if you can afford bike parts again, your frame can accommodate electronic shifting. Side note; I have a Dremel and will "Future Proof" any other Cervelo for about $200.
• 3M Powerlux Composite (TM): The claim of "inter-laminar shear and compression strength" should mean a frame that you cant tear in half but, you probably weren't going to do that anyway.
• Limited edition Light Transit bag: That's right, buy a $10,000 frame and you get a sweet ass lightly padded, polyester travel bag AND water bottle. Free bag just buying a frame? Thanks Obama! This will also allow douchy bike salesmen to say "buy this $10,000 bag and get a free bike",  I said it first anyone else who says it is infringing on copywrite.

Other notable improvements include internal cable routing to piss off your mechanic, and an internal magnet for your power meter crank, which is actually brilliant.
Indicated in my emails (but not on the internet) there will only be 325 frames made and, presumably only 325 bags.   The new R5 starts shipping in 4 days, unless you want a 51,58, or 61 in which case you are waiting until August.

As a bonus I have included a picture of what Gerard Vroomen sees when he looks in the mirror

"Ziss peecture eez totally unrelateed to ze rest of ziss blog post"