It does not take a Nostradamus to divine in advance what tri bike is most favored by Slowtwitchers or, for that matter, any group of multisporters of just about any geographic or affinity group. Cervelo is the clear leader now, as it was in 2007, when we polled our readers with the same set of questions.
But the dominance is not quite so overwhelming. Last month 1,115 readers responded to the question, "What brand do you want to buy next?" This, compared to 1,277 back in July of 2007. Cervelo is the choice of 26% of our readers, compared to 31% in our earlier poll. To what do we ascribe the 5% decline? The rest of the bike world is catching up a bit in both technology and focus.
The focus of these companies is more on pro cycling team sponsorship than on triathlon, nevertheless the triathlon market is the beneficiary. Consider Cannondale, Felt, Scott, Specialized and Trek. Did they make their new Slice, B2 and DA, Plasma, Transition, and Equinox models for triathletes? Or for their cycling teams, the sponsorship of which (excluding product provision) can cost between $1 million and $6 million a year, depending on the team? No matter. The point is, the investment in a pro cycling team is enormous; the TT is a much bigger part of pro bike racing than it used to be; so these companies have upped their timed race bike game, and that's all conspired to take an incremental bite out of Cervelo's (still dominating) lead.
The big mover in our poll is Scott. This company came from nowhere, grabbing in our latest poll 135 votes in to Felt's 131. Will Scott actually sell bikes to triathletes in numbers equal to Felt? That's highly doubtful, because Felt has, as of now, better distribution in high-end tri shops, and Felt has a broader range of price points. Still, this shift in popularity toward Scott is something Scott can build on.
In both the 07 and 09 polls, we had an "other" category, for those whose favorite bike was not among those in the first poll. It seems, based on our polling, that the bigger brands might be consolidating their positions, if you place any stock in the fact that "other" received 20% of the vote in 09 versus 30% in 07. Still, there were some movers in the "other" category. Litespeed remains popular and even gains, perhaps because of the recent upscaling of the Blade and Saber. Ridley debuts in our poll at 18%, and Look, with the introduction of its well-conceived 596, leaps from 2% in 07 to 21% in 09. It shows you the difference a well-fitting frame makes. Look's 496 has plenty of advanced aero features and is a very sexy bike, but was a bust on our 07 poll. The 596 fits more athletes more of the time, hence its new popularity out of the gate.
The big mover in custom is Elite. Guru remains strong, especially its Crono, which is no doubt the most popular model of custom bike (The Crono is favored by 21% of voters, all other Guru models 3%). But Elite has clawed its way to equivalency with Guru among Slowtwitch readers.
Litespeed again polls high, and while the poll does not differentiate between Litespeed's models, that company's head engineer, Brad Devaney, says the Saber is its hot custom seller.
This graph adjacent lists all the companies gaining more than 5% of the vote in our poll. Certainly Seven, Calfee, Serotta, are worthy custom bike makers, but they all polled at 5% or below. It's notable that the half-dozen companies making the cut all have an aero or shaped tube model, while Seven, Serotta and Calfee are all less far along in producing and selling a custom bike in the shapes that Slowtwitch triathletes tend to admire.
