This is just one of those situations where two people see things apparently very differently.

Cervelo started the "skinny" stays revolution.
Cervelo opened their own composite research facility in California. Specialized hired out McLaren.
Cervelo released the P3 carbon, the bench mark for aerodynamic bikes 3-5 years before Specialized released the carbon Transition.

Cervelo's R5 VWD is far lighter than anything Specialized is making. Their P4, which is many years old, is still as fast if not faster than Specialized's Shiv. Finally, their RS and S2 are cheaper than the competition.

Specialized is big and they do have money but Cervelo from day 1 has been purpose building their bikes. They have always been driven by engineers.

You're wrong is all...which begs a much deeper philosophical debate. Do you believe in creation or evolution...or perhaps a blend of each?
God, if there is such a supreme being, clearly understands it. Perhaps one day you will be able to ask him.

When you start to examine the biomechanics of the curved spine, asking why it’s that shape, and what’s good about it, you find that the arch of the spine has a beautiful purpose. Like the arch of a bridge, it adds strength. Because of that arch in the lumbar spine, a person with a lumbar lordosis can lift proportionally more weight than a gorilla with its kyphotic (opposite curvature) spine!

http://creation.com/standing-upright...rter-interview

Hard to believe you are really a mechanical engineer...taught in every introductory strength of materials class...tensile forces are cancelled by compression and hence section modulus and weight can be reduced for equivalent strength and deflection. A domed football stadium is simply a 3-dimensional arch...same principle.
In fact there are so many manifestations of design principle in nature...including the arch of a foot everybody takes for granted except for those with foot issues...is why so many scholars are torn between creation and evolution including me. We weren't around for creation but Darwin certainly taught us there are examples of evolution all around us.

This is going to end up like one of those motor oil threads on car forums. Its going to go 10 pages with no resolution.

To say Specialized does more R&D vs another company (especially Cervelo) is pure speculation. Nobody on this forum or any forum can prove that Specialized or Cervelo or any of the large manufacturer "makes" a better bike or does more research than the other.

I bet if you go down to the Arenburg at any time in the off season...you will find more than one manufacturer testing there.

I highly doubt that Cervelo and Specialized are going to put out R&D info on their bikes to the public. So how do you prove that one company does more R&d than the other?

haters be hating

When I was shopping for a road bike, I planed to spend a bit less than the RS was going for. But, I wanted to do as many test rides as possible, you know, make an informed decision. So it was another of a bunch of nice bikes. Then I rode it. It had a lot more get up and go than the other ones I was looking at (as well it should, being 50 % more expensive than the most affordable one I was considering) and a few seconds into the test ride, a big smile came over my face. Then I took it up Queen Anne Hill, and was slightly disappointed at how easy the climb was, because I wanted to see how it felt climbing out of the saddle. So I figured I'd come down the hill and go find an even steeper one. The descent was fantastic - stable, very controlled around the corners, etc. The smile was still plastered across my face. And I decided I wasn't giving the bike back to LBS.

This dated stuff ... the point of bike technology improvements is to make for a better ride, whatever that means to any particular rider. So how many bullet points there are in the ad should take a back seat to how the bike feels under you. Try the bikes you're interested in, as much and often and long as the shop will let you, and get the one you like.

Then ride it like you stole it.

Quite right...no resolution. People will have their favorites at the end of the day and both great bikes. We are just talkin' bikes is all. Pretty good choices when it comes between high end Specialized and Cervelo.
As to the difference in the bikes, you have to ride them and decide. To my eye, the carbon fiber molds of Specialized bikes are more complex. Does this make them better? Perhaps. One poster mentioned how they look. At the end of the day many may prefer the aesthetic of a bike that appears to be more sculpture than stick figure. In the eye of the beholder to be sure. I honestly would be happy on either bike. The reason I chose the Roubaix for example versus the RS, mostly is because of geometry difference. I prefer Roubaix geometry for my long leg to shorter torso ratio versus the RS which is also a bike that is postured more upright which I could ride as well.

How the hell did you take this into the realm of creationism vs. evolution? Your linked article is totally irrelevant since a bicycle top tube is not loaded like a human spine (or an arched bridge, for that matter).

Because the divine creator if you believe in such a thing...btw I am not a particularly religious guy...understood that an arch is stronger than uniform beam. In mathmatical terms it can be explained with moment of inertia. Archs were used as early as Roman times because stone is much stronger in compression than it is in tension. Carbon fiber is no different.

Same experience for me this past summer. Both my Specialized road bikes were stolen so I was in the process of replacing them and I would not even test ride the Tarmac or Roubaix the shop set up for me after two hours on the RS.

As for dated, it is a subject that pushes my button a bit. I find more and more in all my activities people appear to be fixated on the latest and greatest. The vast majority of the time the latest and greatest is just cosmetic or a minor performance improvement at best. I include myself in that group, I constantly have to fight the urge to upgrade my toys as the newest whatever comes on the scene.

But you counterdict yourself. The RS was the latest and greatest 3 years ago and it hasn't changed much. There is no stop the march of technical progress. Pretty much everything improves with time from cell phones, to automobiles to airplanes to computers. Major companies almost never step backwards...based upon the discipline of engineering and competitive analysis where most competitor's products are tested in the laboratory for benchmarking.

The beam isn't uniform... The carbon layup on the toptube doesn't have to be continuous throughout. PS, I hope you can explain why all trusses for bridges aren't arches

Really? I'm confused; when my bikes were stolen, I purchased a three year old design as a replacement for my road bike.

Good post. Its OK to disagree as we only disagree in part. The RS is one hell of a good bike. I personally think the Roubaix SL3 is a better balance of ride compliancy and torsional stiffness because of the engineering behind it but difficult to quantify.
Below is a review/technical description of the Roubaix SL3 frameset. The design is pretty awesome in total and Specialized have in fact created an out and out race bike with a supple ride...a BMW that performs like a Porsche as it were. The RS does pretty well in this regard as well, but I harken the performance of the Roubaix SL3 to rival the R3 only with as good if not better ride than the RS.

Speaking of seat stay technology, I believe Specialized takes it to a different level...have a read if interested...I have this frameset on order from my lbs I will build up with Campy for the 2012 riding season:

ROUBAIX SL3

Smoother is faster. That was the Specialized motto as it developed the Roubaix and it used the cobbles of the legendary Paris-Roubaix Spring Classic as the testing ground. 2010 winner Fabian Cancellera claims the Roubaix SL3 feels as stiff as his Tarmac SL3 only much smoother on the cobbles. This year, the Tour de France rolls over those cobbles on stage three, and many riders on Astana and Saxo Bank will be aboard Roubaix SL3s.
Eliminating vibration and jarring on rough roads and finding the highest level of performance for the largest number of riders was the design focus. That put compliance above all else. Specialized improved its Zertz inserts and engineered the stays for a degree of flex with nearly 6 mm of vertical deflection or flex.

It all starts with the seatstay design. Rather than using a complete cutout, Zertz inserts are now mechanically fastened to the stays. The increased tension of pressing them into the frame provides greater consistency and improved durability across the board. A new stay molding with one bladder per leg was also developed for a higher level of compliance. The stays have a new 3D shape which hourglasses from the dropouts to the seat tube to further enhance compliance while adding additional side-to-side stability. Since compliance seems the opposite of high performance, overall stiffness had to be addressed even further. Specialized did this by using the same one-piece top tube/head tube/down tube mold as the Tarmac SL3, its top of the line race road bike. The "Cobra" has a dramatically wide and thin top tube. At the head tube-top tube junction, the top tube is actually wider than the headtube's circumference. This eliminates flex in the joint and eradicates the need for additional material or internal bridges. Specialized also has a proprietary bearing size that's less than 1 1/2" (too stiff) and more than 1 1/8 (not stiff enough.) The lower bearing is raised above the fork crown for better fiber alignment and increased strength in the fork.

Another focal point on the Roubaix SL3 is power transfer. Specialized went with a one-piece, oversized bottom bracket shell and chainstays. Press-in bearings eliminate the internal alloy insert and the elimination of a tube junction increases stiffness for better load transfer. The bike definitely delivers as promised. When the pace heated up near the summit of Ute Pass on the first day, the Roubaix felt more like a Tarmac than any previous Roubaix. On the high-speed run into town it retained that race-bike aggression but imperfections in the road were easily chewed up and shaken off by the frame. Overall compliance was impressive even at speeds near and over 30 mph.

Other noteworthy additions include internal cable routing for mechanical cables as well as Shimano Di2. The same molds and manufacturing process trickle down to the Pro and Expert level machines.

This exactly incorrect. Carbon fiber carries load only in tension, not compression, not shear.

You should have bought it 3 years ago. Now it dated...lol.

How about the epoxy matrix that encompasses the carbon fiber? Last time I looked, would say on most carbon fiber frames the seat tube is comprised of carbon fiber. If a seat tube can't handle compression then the frame will fail...or at least become shorter with time...lol.

Absolutely none whatsoever.

Hell, I'm dated:lol:

which means they arent installing the 1.5mm space between the derailleur and frame. It ships with the bike. it shifts just fine if you use that.

Nope not true. There is one particular customer who I ride with and is good friends wit the owner of the shop. He has the Ultegra level 2011 SL3 and he has terrible shifting issues. They have tried everything even and even Specialized service technicians have worked on this bike and not been able to get good shifting out of it. They are all stumped and it sounded like they were going to give him a new bike. The GM says it is what he rides and while he hasn't had an issue they have had a lot of trouble with it.

The matrix does allow it to take some compression, but carbon fiber is far more efficient in tension. Also... hearing about carbon seat post failure is rather common. It's because the matrix fails and the CF can't handle the compression.

Just for clarification:

The R bikes remained unchanged until the 2011 model year. In 2011 the R3 and R5 received a more relaxed geometry, comparable to the 2010 RS. This was for "extra stiffness". There were so many people riding the R bikes with a stack of spacers underneath the stem that Cervelo decided to raise the headtube up a bit claiming that having a bigger headtube and no spacers made the bike more stiff than a shorter headtube with a stack of spacers. Probably true. However, anybody who wanted a racing geometry without a clownish stem had to get the 2010 or earlier R3. I fell in love with the 2010 R3, found the 2011 R3 to be lackluster and kind of boring and am too light for the S2 which is a full pound heavier than the R series bikes anyway so it accelerates a tad slower. With that said, the folks who keep saying the RS is good enough for Paris-Roubaix: anybody who actually rode an RS in Paris Roubaix did so on essentially a rebadged R3, that said also, most chose the R3 anyway. They're called the TESTTeam for a reason and that reason is because they get all kinds of crazy modified cool stuff like an R3 frame with an RS rear triangle and a custom fork.

This thread may shine a little extra light on the subject

http://forums.cervelo.com/forums/p/3598/24288.aspx

Has to be a case of the blind leading the blind....kind of like the rash of BB30 clicking on the web...owners and so called techs at bike shops don't know how to set them up. There is a lbs in my town that has been in business for 20 years and they don't have a clue how to set up a derailleur properly. I end up tuning my friend's bikes from there.
The source of rear derailleur sticking has to be traced. This is pretty easy to do. Ultegra 6700 sticking isn't just endemic to the Roubaix SL3...it is all bikes with internal cable routing. There is nothing extraordinary about the cable routing on a Roubaix. The way to pinpoint it...you pull the cable from the frame and start there. The rear loop has as broad a loop as you cut it. Typically and same for Campy the longer the loop the lower the drag. Campy too has struggled on internal cable routed bikes but can be made to work if the tech knows what he is doing. Cable binding is additive. It starts by how the cables are cut on their ends. Handlebar tape compression contributes to it....also whether the cable are routed thru a given handlebar...like a FSA Kwing versus around the bar....also whether the cable is mounted in front or behind the handlebar. Rear derailleur springs vary in tension. A bad stack up of...a poor cable job, not pin pointing where the drag is emanating from and/or a bulky shifter or rear derailleur are the root cause...not Roubaix SL3 cable routing. If anything how the loop exits a Roubaix SL3 frame has less drag than a std external cable stop on the rear chain stay. Btw Dura Ace 7900...also with under handlebar tape routing is often criticized for sticky shifting in back versus 7800 with external cable routing. This also is due to the above. Techs don't know how to set them up.

As bike technology increases which it clearly has to deliver the best performance...and its never been better, this places more onus on set up. A Ferrari is more difficult to tune than a Pinto but the performance is just a bit better.

Yeah...what the pros ride is often times much different than available to the public. Not always, but often the case.
Same for Specialized. Boonen comes to mind...grafting Tarmac + Roubaix molds to create a custom bike geometry. Also as mentioned, the public and that would include me often appreciate longer head tubes. Not so with racers. In response, Specialized offers a race version of their frames for Pros who want to slam the stems lower which is generally the case. Cervelo with the R series basically emulated Tarmac geomety for larger frames in particular and Tarmac is going to a shorter headtube for racers.

Clearly you never bought a car made in the 70s or early 80s.

And there are entire categories of consumer goods (like appliances and power tools) where quality has been drastically reduced as a tradeoff for equally drastic price reductions. It is by no means safe to assume that "newer" implies "better".

Designers make mistakes.

And besides, His Noodliness the FSM isn't an engineer.

DG