Some initial thoughts about my first ride on the Cervelo P5-Six

Last week I finally had the chance to pick up my 2013 Cervelo P5-Six after a lengthy wait.  Unfortunately, the week before it came in, we got hammed with about 3' of snow.  This has left the roads a bit narrower than normal.  We got some rain and some nice days and the roads are close to normal width again, so today I couldn't help myself and grabbed my cold weather gear and headed out to a local sprint loop.  Now before I talk about the ride, I'm going to confess that I haven't been on the bike much at all this winter.  I'm a better cyclist then I am a runner so I've been spending some time on the treadmill working on improving my run and hoping that my cycling legs get their memory back quickly.  In the winter, I find it pretty difficult to keep motivation with the short days and cold temperatures.  It's also my "family time." I feel I owe it to them to scale back a bit on the big training after they've dealt with a season of racing and training.  I try to get to more of my daughter's soccer games and spend some time with them.  It's the least I can do for them after supporting me all season long.

So needless to say, my legs aren't what they were at the end of last season.  Breathing in the cold sucks and definitely makes the respiratory system work a bit more.  But it didn't stop me from getting in a quick ride.

Now my previous bike was a Cervelo P2.  It was a great bike, and in fact should be serving a fellow BT'er just as well now.  My P2 fit me well and was comfortable.  Despite my P5 being set up with similar numbers, I discovered that we need to make some changes and tweak the fit a bit still.

As I started to pedal around a bit on my P5, the first thing that jumped out to me was how smooth the bike is as a whole.  Every little bit of effort seems to go into forward movement.  There's no wasted efforts on the bike.  The Rotor 3D+ crank is a fine work of machining art (I'm waiting for the 3D+ Power Crank to come in).  You feel well connected to the bike when you're on it.  The bike feels quite a bit different from the P2.  When you're accelerating and up to speed, the bike just wants to stay there.  You can tell that the bike wants to work...and it wants to go fast.

Today was a pretty windy day.  I underestimated the winds coming across the lake.  The winds were 15-20 mph with gusts to 30 mph.  The wind coming across the lake was pretty harsh, and you definitely feel the crosswinds a lot more than I ever recall my P2.  It doesn't help that I had my Zipp 808's on it today either.  I also had those on my P2 though, so the basis of comparison is good.  The P5 is a rather large sail in a crosswind compared to that of the P2.  

The hydraulic brakes are something that will take some getting used to.  They're also super responsive.  The initial feel is a bit soft at the lever, but the braking response demands some attention.

The shifting of the SRAM Red is far superior to the Ultegra that was on the P2.  The bike shifts silently, and instantly.  The Ultegra stuff wasn't bad by any means, but the Red stuff blows it away.  Going from little ring to big ring and the other way around was super smooth.

The gearing is a bit different from what I'm used to having a 52/36 instead of the typical compact 50/34.  It's not necessarily bad, just have to adjust gearing a bit.

The bike is going to need some tweaks as far as fit goes.  Despite being set up like my P2, I feel like the aero bars are a bit stretched out.  I'm going to pull them in just a bit until it feels more natural for me.  Also, the downside is that there's no good way to mount a computer on this bike.  It doesn't have a traditional steering stem to put a mount on.  Ideally I will find a mount that will go between the two aero bars in front of the rear facing torpedo bottle.  I have a Speedfil A2 for it.  I just have to come up with a good way to secure the straw when it's not in use.  I'm going to look into a couple of rare earth magnets that I can secure to the cage/straw to hold it down and out of the way when it's not in use.

All in all, despite my lack of cycling recently I'm happy with the bike.  I think it'll be a phenomenal bike to race on this year and will only get better as I get my cycling fitness back into form and get the bike dialed.  With warmer weather approaching the rides will get more frequent and I'll start to collect some miles.  

Shane