Down we go
A few day ago I brought my beloved and trusty R3 to the bike shop. The gears needed proper indexing, my hubs were not as tight as I wanted them. In short, my bike needed an inspection. The other reason I went there was because….
As every cyclist knows the answer to the perennial questions of how many bike one should own is: n+1. With n being the number of bikes one already has.
This is only bounded by another formula: s-1. With s being the number of bikes you own at which your partner leaves you. Them the rules - I didn’t make them. So… With that in mind I asked said bike shop owner if they had the successor to my Cervelo R3 in stock. Point being that Cervelo no longer makes an R3. Haven’t for years. What they do sell is the R5. It is the top of the line Road Bike (hence “R”), with top of the line components. There is nothing better on the market and it is literally used in the Tour. Yes, Jonas Vingegaard, two times winner of the Tour de France, will be riding a Cervelo R5 on mountain stages. Clearly, that’s not my speed. Not my level. Even if I had the spare 9000€ for an entry level R5, I wouldn’t get one. I’d be out of place on a clubride with my mates. The R3 was the smaller brother of that bike. A few 100 grams heavier, not quite as twitchy in its geometry, a bit more comfortable in its setup. The “human” version of a bike made for superhuman efforts. Aspirational, but not extravagant. Alas, Cervelo chose to discontinue that line. And extend their product range to gravel bikes (the Aspero and Caledonia) and also create an interesting hybrid between the S5 (S for “speed”) and the R5. It’s called the “Soloist”. It has its own pedigree and is billed as the race bike for the rest of us. It also combines subtle aero design principles from the S5 - shallow rear wheel cutouts in the frame - with classical lightweight design from the R5. For my purist tastes, it is less elegant than either the R or S bikes - but then aesthetics doesn’t always trump practical considerations. So a Soloist is now the bike for my speed. I’d have to ride one.