TRANSITION ELITE

This is an interesting contender in a category in flux.  It’s a $1500 tri bike — very aggressively priced by today’s standards — and even at this price sports an integrated aero seat tube & post, with the post made of carbon.  That, and the bike is outfitted standard with Profile Design Carbon Strike clip-ons, O.E. spec you would look for on a bike twice this price.

Countering that, the groupset includes Shimano 105 shifting, and the documentation states 9-speed.  You’d like to see 10-speed on today’s mid-teens-priced bikes.  But the question of 9- versus 10-speed is open.  Both this bike and Trek’s Equinox 7 promise 9-speed, but at least in Trek’s case certain 10-speed bikes have been showing up at retailers.  Perhaps this bike will upspec to 10-speed in some months, or at least by ‘07.

The Transition Elite started life with seat angles between 75° and 76°, depending on size (the larger the bike the shallower the seat angle). But its new aero seat post sports a clamp that sets the saddle forward an extra one to two degrees, and this brings the bike’s geometry into a range more acceptable to a greater audience (this is evident if you look at the saddle's position versus the seat post on either the photo above or below).

One unfortunate element of this model, and all the Transition series, is Specialized’ doggedly stubborn resistance to bikes that fit smaller riders, women in particular.  Making bikes below 50cm with 700c wheels is questionable, but certainly achievable, in road. With tri-specific bikes, it's simply a non-starter.  If you’re six feet tall, consider these nice bikes.  If you’re five-feet-four, flee from them.

TRANSITION COMP

It’s got the same frame and fork as the Elite.  For an extra $300 you get Shimano 105 calipers versus Tektro and — the biggie — the change from 105 10-speed versus the 9-speed you get on the Elite.  There’s also an Ultegra rear derailleur on this bike, and a slightly better chain and cassette.

Also, you move from Alex rims to Mavic, but it’s questionable whether, at this price level, Mavic makes a better rim than Taiwan’s premier and highly-regarded rim and wheel manufacturer.

One interesting spec decision is the Comp’s 105 Hollowcrank versus thet FSA Gossamer MegaExo on the cheaper bike.  Is it a certainty that the better crank is one the more expensive bike?

TRANSITION EXPERT

You take a $600 jump in price, to $2400, and at this point the E5 Aerotec frame is getting a big shopworn.    This appears to be the same frame and fork that comes on the Elite, but the Elite is five-eights this bike’s price.

Yes, you get Mavic Cosmic wheels, and an almost full Ultegra 10-speed bike (FSA SLK MegaExo crank).  But this bike is flat-out outframed by QR’s Tequilo and Cervelo’s P2 SL, each largely Dura Ace bikes. The Elite and Comp are better values.

S WORKS TRANSITION

This bike sells for $4700 complete, and at this price you’re competing against the varsity.  The S Works Transition must be compared to Kuota’s Kalibur, Cervelo’s P3 Carbon, the Airfoil Pro made by Kestrel, along with Giant’s Trinity, Orbea’s Ordu, and Trek’s upcoming Equinox TTX.  These bikes and others make up this bike’s competitive set, based on the price tag.

As to the frame itself, this bike represents a departure from what one expects out of the “S Works” nomenclature.  On the road side, S Works has come to mean a largely carbon frame.  But this bike is still aluminum, and one wonders (and hopes) that this Transition will transition from aluminum to carbon by next year.

One must ask the question, then, what makes this frame a value worth buying, considering the bikes mentioned two paragraphs above?  As far as we can tell, this frame and that of the $1500 (complete bike) Transition Elite are more alike than they are different. 

CONCLUSION

One assumes that a tri geometry frame worthy of the S Works designation is in the pipeline.  Until then, the real value in the Transition line seems to us at the lower end, and the lower you go the better the bike, relatively speaking.  The Elite represents a value that approaches, and maybe exceeds, the best of what can be had at its price point.  The Comp has QR’s Kilo, Cervelo’s Dual, and Felt's S22 with which to contend, but manages to hold its own nicely.

Above this level, it gets increasingly tougher to compete with bikes made by companies who do this triathlon thing for a living, some of them nonstop for 15 years.  Specialized has been in and out of the tri-specific market over the past two decades, and has a bit of catching up to do at this higher end.