Elite Bicycles enjoys a slot in the U.S marketplace almost bereft of competitors. Like the bristlecone pine, it flourishes by perfectly exploiting a niche virtually uninhabited by contenders. In the case of the bristlecone, this means never growing very large, and having to fight and scrape and scratch just to continue to exist. But, the bristlecone's payoff is its status as the world's champion survivor -- this little pine is the planet's oldest living species.
What is the niche Elite Bicycles enjoys? It sells the mid-priced, affordable, custom tri bike, like the bristlecone living in a place where others have tried and failed to survive. First, let's talk about the need for the bike. Then let's talk about the bike.
Triathletes do not typically need custom bikes. But that does not keep us from wanting them (I have a garage-full). But, there are those who do need them, and let's explain who those people are.
In most cases they have short torsos and long legs. It's not that they can't find bikes that'll fit. It's that they end up with bikes that have head tubes too short, and bases of support that aren't long enough, as we describe elsewhere.
If these people ride quite steep, they can often ride a larger size bike, because they need that bike's extra top tube to accommodate the steep position.
Even so, it's common that these customers need shorter top tubes, to match their short torso. Or they can just buy a smaller bike, but then the front ends are too low. Absent enough head tube, you've got a bunch of spacers under the stem, with a stem that reaches to the sky. In this configuration the bike becomes flimsy and whippy because the bike's front end, which carries so much weight in a steep-angled tri configuration, is now supported by a cantilevered steer column subject to bending and flexing for which it's not designed. Plus, with these too-small bikes the wheelbase is not long enough to support a center of mass sitting up in the air on the stilts these short-torso'd riders call legs.
If you've determined in advance what your chosen aerobar is, you've further limited your options, because you can't "fix" the aerobar elevation problem by subbing in a high-profile aerobar for a low-profile one. For example, if you've decided that HED's one-piece aerobar is for you, this is a very low profile bar. You may need several centimeters more head tube length than what's typically out there for sale. If you're long-legged and you want a low-profile aerobar, forget about it. Custom is your only good option.
Then you have to ask yourself what custom bikes are out there, and this market is dominated by those who build chiefly with round tubes like Seven, Parlee, Calfee, Serotta. Yes, there's Guru, but you pay for this, probably $7000 in case of its titanium bikes. True, Guru's very popular Crono has had its price reduced since its introduction, and now is priced in line with the bike reviewed here. Still, if you want truly skinny aero down tubes, carved out seat tubes, and your budget is $4000 to $5000, it's slim pickins out there.
So that's the niche, and it's pretty barren because the triathletes who need custom don't know they need custom; because the retailers to whom triathletes go for advice don't know what custom geometries will fix this problem; and even if they did, they don't know that Elite is sitting out there as their good option.
The bristlecone chooses to live at 10,000 feet above sea level, in alkaline soils, in places of little rainfall, in frozen winters and scorching summers (but it's a dry heat). Elite lives in this dry heat as well, not because it's making a bike people don't need, it's that neither their most appropriate customers nor those customers' retailers can master what for them is geometric alchemy (Philly-area triathletes are well aware of Elite, it's much of the rest of the country that is naive of this diamond in the rough).
Me, I'm a perfect candidate for Elite, because I know precisely what I want. It's really not that hard to divine proper geometric specs, with some practice, and lord knows we present enough reading material in these pages on the subject. Still, it's a chasm that's unleapable for a lot of retailers and end-users alike. But I'll explain what I'm looking for in a bike, and how the Elite Razor Carbon -- at least the one sent to me -- stands up.
The requirements for the bike I ordered were pretty simple. I ride steep. I ride at 80 degrees of seat angle or thereabouts, measured from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the saddle's rails.
I needed the top tube to be about 57cm long, and I know this gives me enough reach so that I've got the right amount of stem on the bike.
I needed about 14cm of head tube length and this, combined with Elite's opinion that external headsets are mechanically preferable to internal, means my head tube length adjusted for integrated was about 15cm or 15.5cm. That puts me in a middle range, where I can place a low or high profile aerobar on the bike, as suits my whims, and normalize for aerobar height via stem pitch. Simply put, this head tube length gives me enough, but not too much, stack.
All the above gives me my fit, now let's talk about handling. I'm pitched pretty far forward on this bike because of the seat angle I want. This means I need the front wheel to be a bit forward as well, so that I can have a nice weight displacement when I'm descending and cornering. So, I needed this bike to be made with a shallowish head angle combined with a fork with more than common offset, typical of the latest production bikes designed for triathletes (on their newest bikes QR, Jamis and Specialized all have head angles no steeper than 72 degrees coupled with forks having at least 48mm of offset).
That's it. That's the bike. What's so hard about that? And Elite built it.
The thing about the Razor Carbon, it's really a lot like the Cannondale Slice Six13 SI, in that the very aero carbon main tubes are nested inside welded aluminum joints. Cannondale is changing -- going monocoque for next year. But it's got that luxury, since it makes only production bikes. That's not an option for customs, which is the niche Elite most elegantly inhabits.
Were I to dislike this bike, I'd have only myself to blame, because Elite built the frameset entirely to my specs. In point of fact I do like it, it's perfectly fine, and I could very successfully race this bike without any concern of any sort. This assumes that the basic duties of the frame can be executed, and they can. It was stiff enough, everything fit, the threads were chased, the machining was square, the frame was straight, the cables routed fine. There are some things to keep in mind, however, should you desire to go this route with your next tri purchase.
First, note there are some features that the Razor Carbon is missing as of this moment. If you're hinky about aero seat tube & post complexes, the seat tube is carved and able to fair the rear wheel, but accepts a round post. There are aspects to this I rather like, such as the ability to easily place a saddlebag behind the saddle and velcro it to the round post (you play hell getting the velcro to go around aero posts). Also, it's easier to microadjust the saddle heights of round posts, because you can twist them. But, look, I'm just saying, no aero post here, if this is a big thing for you.
Then there's the standard semi-vert dropouts. This means no microadjusting chainstay lengths to get the wheel right next to the seat tube. You best figure out in advance what you want that gap to be, and decide whether a one centimer gap works for you, as is the case at left. You can get a rear-entry dropout with adjustment screws from Elite if you want, but the hanger is not replaceable.
The down tube has no water bottle bosses. You'll have be comfortable living with a set of seat tube bosses, plus carrying water behind the seat or between the handlebars.
An Elite Razor Carbon frame, with Chris King headset, and an Easton EC90 Aero fork, painted in any two colors, will cost you $3500, and that's for custom. You add to that the cost of the rest of the bike, and you're probably looking at close to $5000 or perhaps above. The nice thing about this is, it's yours, built with exactly the parts you want.
The thing about Elite Bicycles, this is the most expensive frame it makes. You can get your custom bike for less, and if you're fine with an aluminum down and top tube in place of the carbon one, then you get to have your down tube water bottle bosses and you save $700 as well.
The forks Elite most often sells (usually Easton and Reynolds on request) have 45mm of offset or less. It can provide its customers, upon special order, with offsets of 47mm and 50mm. I think Elite ought to get more comfortable with the idea of selling its bikes with these greater offsets, because if you look at your geometry charts and you see what sort of trail you get with 47mm of offset and 72 degrees of head angle, that's a pretty mellow handling bike. The 50mm option gives you something a bit more sprightly, and these are the two offset options I consider most appropriate for the leggy drink o' water who needs that extra front/center. It's this that'll give him the stable descender he might not easily find sitting on his LBS's showroom floor. Those are the customers not yet beating a path to Elite's door, but ought to be.
2007 TRI BIKE PERFORMANCE TESTS
2007 TRI BIKE OVERVIEWS
