This company rates a closer look. Yes, we wrote about its bikes near the end of last year, and not a lot has changed as regards the bikes themselves, with one huge exception: their prices! So we look at them again, 7 or 8 months later, with an update. First, a little background...

Javelin is in the middle rounds of a very difficult prize fight, where the lightly regarded slugger attempts to dethrone the champ. The odds are long, and you tend to take some hard shots before you prevail.

This is what it's like rising yourself up from boutique builder to top-to-bottom maker of tri-specific bikes. QR, Felt and Cervelo have successfully done so. Nobody else has, as of yet.

Javelin is off to a good start, based on solid financial backing and the signing of some high profile athletes (Simon Lessing and Mike Lovato, among others). And, of course, there are those tremendous, Feltlike, values. Here are their tri bikes for '06.

SIZZANO
VARESE
NARNI
FRAMESETS

SIZZANO

The Sizzano is Javelin's entry level tri bike, and at $1200 it's an honest effort at a huge discount versus the other brands.

The Sizzano is a true tri bike, built around Shimano 105 9sp. This brand does something nobody else does, and a lot of companies ought to do: spec all its 700c tri bikes around compact-style gearing. The Sizzano, and all Javelin's built tri bikes, sport 36x50 teeth cranksets.

The Sizzano is the one entry-level tri bike that rivals the spec value of the Felt S32. No, it's not got the frame features from the seat tube back of the QR Kilo or Cervelo Dual, but those bikes are $400 to $800 more at the cash register. The spec is smart and intuitive, with Oval's aero bar, Tektro's brake levers, and functional parts throughout. This is bike will be less likely than certain others to cause the nigglling problems that exist on models that just go too cheap on the bottom bracket, chain, brake levers, and so forth.

VARESE

Here's the thing about Javelin's tri bikes. You have to ride them the way they're built, which is to say, Javelin makes no mistakes in its geometry. As opposed to some companies that make mid-steep bikes with top tubes too long, so the bike is pretty much a perfect steep bike (after you move the saddle forward to make the bike's cockpit fit, you've make a 76° bike into a 78° bike), the Javelin is an honest, properly made, 76° bike. So, then, if you want to ride an 80° crotch-rocket, this might not be the bike for you. If 76° is your cup of tea—okay, 77° is fine as well—then you're in good shape with Javelin.

This describes the $1600 Varese, geometrically. It's a serviceable frame, nothing too fancy except its carbon seat stays, which are fancy. It's well made and sharp-looking. The singular features of this bike are its 10-speed Campagnolo shift system around a 36X50 Truvativ Roleur crankset and, of course, its price!

Back to the drivetrain. This 36X23 low gear is easily swapped for a 25 or, as long as your dealer will swap out your derailleur cage as well, for a 29t cog. This makes the Varese a bike that is more universally applicable, right out the gate, to a range of courses than almost any other tri bike made today in any price range (at least when it comes to gearing).

NARNI

I keep wanting to add an "a" to this bike's name. Then it would be a truly mythic bike. Anyway...

Add $300 to the Varese and you get the Narni. It's $300 well spent, and makes this really an interesting alternative to Felt's S22. Wheels, rear derailleur, crankset and fork all get upgraded.

Also, the paint goes two-tone, and at this point you've got a bike that really does like it could be ridden by the first guy into transition.

COMPLETE BIKE OVERVIEW

Let's talk some more about value. Javelin is a deja vu experience for the industry. Go back 5 or 6 years and it was Felt taking the world by storm, both in entry level tri and road. It "bought" business through its extremely aggressive pricing, and we wondered how long it could keep up the torrid pace. In point of fact, Felt's foot has never come off the gas pedal, and it continues to be a value leader.

Javelin appears to be trying to out-Felt Felt in entry-level tri, and it's not doing a bad job of it. With the spit-canning of the S25 Felt abandons the battle between $1400 and $2400, and QR no longer enters the market until you reach the $1900 price point. Javelin strategically places two complete tri bikes beneath $1900.

Certainly QR has frame features that Javelin doesn't have at the sub-$2000 price point. But Javelins are spec'd creatively and tactically, and the bikes may outflank the competition at certain price points. What Javelin needs is credibility, and it gains this through top performances (Lovato recently won IM Arizona aboard a Barolo), and through tenure in the marketplace.

But these complete bikes above are not the end of the story. It makes framesets at the higher end.

FRAMESETS

Javelin makes three of these frames, and they can be paired with Javelin's build kits or you can spec them yourselves. When you're talking about frames that cost $1300 (Arcole), the $2400 Barolo and the very interesting $1475 Asti it's nice to be able to put exactly what you want on them.

First, let's talk an intriguing bike. About the Asti, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? (Well, do ya, punk?) This, because one must ask whether Javelin is ready for prime time as a titanium frame maker. We're not saying it isn't, we just have no basis for yet knowing. But at under $1500 for frame, fork, headset and seat collar one realizes this bike can be built pretty nicely for under $3000. If the bike comes out nice, man, what a bargain!

The Arcole and the Barolo (pictured) are essentially the same frame, except the latter has a carbon rear end. Usually we say pfffth to this, because we just don't believe that carbon rear stays, sexy as they are, live up to their billing. However, they are stiffer than the proverbial metaphor only used in select company, and when Javelin chooses a minor diameter of 25.4mm for its down tube, anything that might laterally stiffen a bike frame is welcome (keeping in mind that the seat stays are going to be of limited benefit to this, as the frame is fixed to the ground at the front and rear wheel contact patches, leaving the chain stays and down tube doing the lion's share of the work toward keep the bike from flexing in a lateral plane).

The Barolo is the bike Lessing is riding this year and, as noted, Lovato is already making headlines on it. Javelin has done just about everything a company can do to make a #7005 tubeset aero, with the exception of rear entry dropouts (and even those are available upon request). The seat post and seat tube telescope, it's sticking with one-inch steerers to keep things narrow, and even its seat stays are slippery (at least they look slippery).

CONCLUSION

Javelin is out the gate with some tight product. It's already a player within two years of its "grand reopening" as a soup-to-nuts bike company. If Lessing or Lovato wins Kona this year, Javelin might try to elbow its way to the front of the line.

One thing bears repeating. Javelin was brave, ingenious, and shrewd in spec'ing both Campy 10-speed and Truvativ's 110mm cranks (allowing for a better gearing range than any other production bike in production triathlon). It also has chosen wisely in spec'ing Oval's aero bars. One can quibble and argue on behalf of either Visiontech or Profile Design, but Oval deserves more spec than it's getting. Javelin may be one of the shrewder product-managed companies in triathlon.

JAVELIN's website can be found at www.javbike.com. Triumph Multisport (Seattle), Jack & Adams (Austin), RB Cyclery (Memphis), Run, Bike, Swim (Las Vegas) are some of the larger retailers as of mid 2006.