Road Cycling - Race Bike of the Year

Anyone interested in a good race bike review, purchase "Cycling Weekly" for August 30th, 2003.

They compared 8 race bike of different makes and models, and the reviews were quite interesting.

Here are the results:
1st - Colnago C40 HP
2nd - Litespeed Capella
3rd - Viner Pro Team
4th - Hinde Airplane
5th - Pinarello Prince XL
6th - Specialized Allez Comp
7th - Giant TCR ONCE Team
8th - Bianchi XL AL EV3

No Treks?

Or 'Dales?

Guess they wanted to write about something that not everyone has read about ad nauseam since they left those two out.

I can't get cycling mags where I live, so I'll rely on someone recapping the article for me.

Really no treks or C'Dales. I've never even heard of #s 3 and 4.

Originally posted by ImprezaDrvr
I can't get cycling mags where I live, so I'll rely on someone recapping the article for me.


Man, what color is the sky in your world? :p What do you mean you can't get bike mags where you live? No mail service? Or ar you so far out in the boonies that there's no B&N or BAM?

I'm hoping for a team deal on #8 this winter but I haven't heard what will be offered yet. My other option is to try and pick up the EV3 AL on the cheap via frame replacement if my current EV2 meets the same fate the first one did.

Yes, you pointy headed little devil, I am so far in the boonies that I don't have a B&N. There is a Waldenbooks (remember those?), but not a bike mag there. I can't afford to subscribe to all of them, so I don't.

Actually, I'm a pointyheaded angel, but no matter....

We have Waldenbooks at the local mall, as well a a B. Dalton, but the hot new one is Books-A-Million, or BAM for short. It's like B&N but with a much bigger magazine collection.

it's a british magazine. maybe they didn't do US bikes for that reason (ok, the spec. is in there...). interestingly, though, i read another british magazine that said the pinarello frame/fork was crap, and that the trek frame was better. sooooo, i'd take an article like that under advisement.

They picked an Allez? Why not the S-Works E5 frame, if you were going for "Race Bike" ... that's simply ********.

By leaving out the Trek 5900, the Cannondale Saeco bike and several other heavily raced frames (where is the Time that Quick-Step rides, etc ...) what a joke of an article.

I'm surprised the Cervelo R2.5 isn't there. That's gotta be the success story of the year. From (pro racing) obscurity to 3 TdF stage wins (and several other CSC victories) in one season.

Didn't the CSC team get to ride the prototyped R2.5 SL for the tour? Before seeing the list, I was thinking for sure the R2.5 would be on the list knowing how Tyler had a great spring and their team had a very good Tour, like mentioned by F1_Fan.

Having seen and touched the Once TCR ONCE Team bike, I'm surprised its that low too!

Jay

Originally posted by Jay H
Didn't the CSC team get to ride the prototyped R2.5 SL for the tour? Before seeing the list, I was thinking for sure the R2.5 would be on the list knowing how Tyler had a great spring and their team had a very good Tour, like mentioned by F1_Fan.


I'm not sure what the production status of the R2.5 was at tour time.

The bike launch was June 8 according to the Cervelo site. Sastre's bike was a prototype (it had the Vrooman White Design logo but not the Cervelo graphics) but IIRC, the rest of the team were on models with production graphics.

Poor Cervelo... Sastre wins a stage and there's no logos on the bike :D