I have 3 bikes, road, tri, and cross.  I am getting a new cross bike for wifey for Christmas.  My bikes have 2 Campy 11 speed gruppos and my P3 has Shimano Dura-Ace 7900.  Doesn't it make sense to standardize on one groupset manufacturer?  That way I could easily swap wheels between my bikes and wifey's new bike. 

Generally yes it does. But how often are you likely to need to put your cross wheels on your P3? :) Also, do Campag make an 11 speed barend shifter yet? All the Campag pro teams I've seen are still using 10 speed Record on their TT bikes

I use Corima Aero+ on my road bike and cross bike.  They would be fine on my tri-bike.  Plus I could buy my wife Zipp 808 wheels for her new cross bike to ride on trails with her friends at 5 mph. :) 

Good point on the Campy bar end shifters.  Campy does not currently offer 11 speed bar end shifters.  I emailed Campy asking when they will be available.  When I get a response I will post the response in this thread.

Slightly off topic.  Personally I believe that Cervelo's anti-Campy attitude is misguided.  I like Campy products a lot and they have earned my continuing loyalty.  I was going to get a S3 in the spring of this year.  Since Campy cranks and wheels would not work on the S3, I took a pass and bought a Pinarello Prince instead.  Cervelo makes great bikes, but some of their design choices are baffling and clearly limit sales.  Hopefully the new, former BMWer, marketing director will breathe some marketing sense into the design and engineering of Cervelo.  Also I find it baffling that Cervelo is not developing a cross bike.  Even small Parlee offers a cross bike now.  Cross bikes are lot of fun and you don't have to worry about getting hit by a car going 55 mph like I was on July 5.  The potential for the new marketing director to grow Cervelo by fixing obvious issues which will lead to increased sales and make him look like a marketing genius. 

I would not say that they are anti-campy.  Campy wheels not working with the s3 was not a decision to weed out campy, it simply was a wheel that did not fit the frame, like many other wheels.  As far as cervelo specing bikes with campy, while you and some others might like it, it does not really make sense, shops just dont sell enough campy bikes.  I stock a couple bainchis with campy every year, and they never sell until they go on sale, I keep saying I will stop ordering them, but part of me feels that If I sell bianchi there should be some campy on it, unfortunatly the average customer does not agree.

I also would like to see a cyclocross bike from cervelo, I think it would be very cool, but I doubt I would ever stock one in my store, and would be lucky to ever order one for someone. 

Cervelo is stuck in the middle to small to offer everything, to big to special order.  they can just keep up with what they are doing now, if they offer more they are adding cost and time.

small companies like parlee have time to play with odd bikes, and big companies have the money to offer every component group out there-they just pass the additionial cost to you.

In the decision making process on the Zip 404's, how does one rationalize paying maybe twice as much for the Zipp's compared with a brand like Williams Carbons?

Bobby:

In the decision making process on the Zip 404's, how does one rationalize paying maybe twice as much for the Zipp's compared with a brand like Williams Carbons?

Is this a question outside this thread?  Or did you misread that he's thinking of buying Zipp 808s? 

 

Cervelo aren't anti-Campy. The SLT used to be offered as a fully built bike with Centaur, and the R2.5 with Chorus. IIRC, Gerard posted somewhere that the decision to go to Shimano was a pragmatic one driven by ease of inventory management. There was no anti-Campy animus behind it.

pharding:

I have 3 bikes, road, tri, and cross.  I am getting a new cross bike for wifey for Christmas.  My bikes have 2 Campy 11 speed gruppos and my P3 has Shimano Dura-Ace 7900.  Doesn't it make sense to standardize on one groupset manufacturer?  That way I could easily swap wheels between my bikes and wifey's new bike. 

In the abstract that seems like a good idea, but I find in reality I only swap wheels when I grab a bike to leave the house and find I have a flat. Rather than fix it, if I'm in a hurry, I'll grab a wheel. It's more useful cutting down on two sets of tools, IMO.

sam:

Cervelo is stuck in the middle: too small to offer everything, too big to special order.  they can just keep up with what they are doing now, if they offer more they are adding cost and time.

small companies like parlee have time to play with odd bikes, and big companies have the money to offer every component group out there-they just pass the additionial cost to you.

You're making excuses,sam. Cervelo is a company I would compare with Ridley: they seem to offer similar products and they seem to have a similar business model, and we all know how Ridley is doing with cyclocross. Of course being a Belgian company, they probably had no choice. If I were Cervelo, I would make a C1 (like a S1 for cross) and a C2 (R3 for cross).

Cervelo did have a stock R2.5 with Chorus: I got one in '05, and loved it. It was my first Cervelo. Alas, it was recalled, and I didn't like the R3 as much. Stiffer, but deader, in my opinion.

Cross bikes are picking up sales momentum in Chicago.  They work great on our bike trails which are both asphalt and crushed limestone.  Plus cross cycling as a sport in growing.  Cross bikes also make great winter bikes.  The quality of a carbon frameset cross bike that you can buy for $1500 is amazing.

Personally, I think Cervélo should (and will) stick to exactly what they're already doing: making really fast road/tt bikes, and making them well! Why mess up a good thing? If they started dabbling in other areas of the market then their resources would be stretched thin and their product would suffer. A cross bike? How about a mountain bike as well then? What's next, a city type "fixie"? Maybe a nice recumbent?!?

If you look for Cervelo's unique selling points, they are aero bikes and light bikes. I can't see aero qualities holding much attraction in the cross market, and lightness is more likely (IMO) to be viewed with a degree of suscipion by crossers - we get enough questions here from roadies about whether an R series will take their weight.

Re cyclocross bikes, I think Greg66 has expressed it very well by effectively asking what is it that Cervelo brings to the design of cross bikes. It is an important question because there is no shortage in the supply of cross bikes. Moreover, the character of cyclocross racing among the populace of enthusiasts is that high-end bicycles are not required.

Re the question of standardizing on a groupset, it allows the home mechanic greater flexibility in the use of spare parts. A smaller inventory of replacement parts such as chains and cassettes may be needed. One spare wheelset may be needed rather than two. These considerations are not technical but budgetary.

Cross bikes IMO are less sophisticated at present than road bikes creating opportunities in the market place.   What is not to like about a lighter cross bike?  Stevens, from Germany, is shifting the game to lighter faster cross bikes that lean toward the road bike characteristics. Ridley basically just replicated the squoval design of the R3 in their carbon fiber cross bikes.  Look at Cervelos commitment to TT/Tri bikes.  That is certainly a smaller market than road bikes and that did not cause Cervelo to lose anything in the road bike arena.  I personally believe that with the growth of the cyclocross market that Cervelo would do well with a modest investment.  I do not believe that adding a cross bike to the line up would detract from the success of Cervelo in road and tri bikes.  If anything I believe that it would even further enhance Cervelo's stature in the marketplace.  That has certainly been the case with the current cyclocross big three, Ridley, Colnago, and Stevens. 

i dont really think I am making excuses, that is the way I see it.  i dont think ridley and cervelo are really doing the same thing, several years ago I would say ridley was doing the same thing but now they have 34 different models, womens/mtb/etc.etc.  They have shifted from what they were doing and are trying to be more of a full line company now. 

yes ridley does very well with cross even though it is a smaller market, but cross is a big part of their business model and a big part of what keeps them going.  And Tri/TT is a small market but it was the main part of cervelo's business model and a big part of what keeps them going.  But jumping into other smaller markets for the sake of offereing more models, may not always work.

Even some of the larger companies when they make something like a cross bike, loose money on it in the end, and they add cost to other models to make up the difference, cervelo's are very competitivly priced, and I hope they stay that way. 

I realize that europe and US are 2 different markets, but at least here in the US.  A cross bike at that price range is not a good market.  In fact very few shops can make a living on bikes over 1500.00, that is why you see so few shops with high end bikes, but the handful of shops that can do it, tend to do it well. 

Back to the original post, getting everything the same is no fun, variety is the spice of life