Fan favorite and three-time Kona runner-up Lucy Charles-Barclay continues the athlete exodus away from Specialized with a move to German brand CUBE bicycles. She will be riding the Aerium C:68 for no-draft racing, and the Litening C:68X as her road bike.
Charles-Barclay will also change to DT Swiss wheels and Schwalbe tires. Her team replied, when asked about wheels-tires, that, “the DT Swiss and Schwalbe match is the perfect combination from what we have tested and been advised.” Notables racing on Schwalbe Pro One TT tubeless tires are Sebastian Kienle, Patrick Lange and Boris Stein with Stein (fastest bike split among men during multiple recent Hawaiian IRONMAN races contested) aboard this exact DT Swiss/Schwalbe Pro One TT combo.
The Profile Design cockpit might be on the bikes Charles-Barclay rides, or not. “Lucy is free to choose drive train, chain, pedals, saddle, cockpit, [aero]bars,” we were told. The bars and hydration on the Aerium C:68 pictured are what comes on the bike as specified.
This is a bold move by CUBE, which has been known as a brand that offers a very good value, but wishes to convince potential customers that its bikes are not simply a value proposition, but a candidate at any price. Signing Lucy Charles-Barclay is a, “new direction for 2021 and beyond when it comes to athletes/sponsoring and Lucy is a key part of it,” said Andreas Besold, who led the signing for CUBE. CUBE has been not as relevant in triathlon as it could have been over the past 5 years, since Andreas Raelert’s second-place in Kona in 2015 on CUBE, although it has some young guns on its bikes: Florian Angert who won IRONMAN Barcelona, and Frederic Funk, winner IM 70.3 Lanzarote 2019.
CUBE has chosen to remain, at least for now, with a rim brake tri bike. “The package is extremely fast,” said Besold, and he noted that CUBE’s tri bike brakes are hydraulic, not mechanical.
To recap, the CUBE tri bike Charles-Barclay are the Aerium C:68 SLT in size XS for tri, and the Litening C:68X Race in size-52 for road. The particular wheels she'll ride are the DT Swiss ARC 1100 DICUT wheels. According to her team, this includes the specific use of the Pro One TT Tubeless tires on those wheels.
The bike has on it a SRAM RED AXS eTap 1x groupset 12sp AXS but is “will be likely to change in race set up.” Likewise the Profile Design cockpit, “likely” to be changed out for something else.
There are no pedals on the bike. Charles-Barclay has been riding Speedplay in recent years, but what pedals she will ride is still not known. She’s riding an ISM PN1.0 saddle but this is subject to possible change as well.
The CUBE brand sold more than 800,000 bikes in 2020 with Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy the brand's direct market. There is a total, according tot he brand, of 2,500 retail outlets in 67 countries selling the CUBE brand. The current product portfolio consists of more than 290 models of mountain, road, cross, triathlon, e- and trekking bikes.
