The R3sl is the even lighter version of the R3, but without sacrificing anything in stiffness, weight or comfort. With roughly 300 pieces in varying shapes, with different fiber angles and using four different types of carbon (some focused on stiffness, some on strength), the effort to find ways to squeeze more stiffness and strength out of less material never ends, and the R3sl represents the current high-water mark in the industry.
UPGRADES FROM R3
Lighter frame - We don’t like to talk about weights, as many other manufacturers have made a mockery of it with outlandish claims. If weight is important to you, ignore claimed weights, have your retailer weigh the frames and see how light the R3SL is compared to its competitors in the real world.
The bike industry loves to talk about features (tube shapes, materials, etc). But a feature is useless without a benefit! Ask yourself, would you prefer a poorly engineered frame made of “Ultra High Modulus carbon” (a feature)? Or an intelligently engineered frame that uses the material to create something lighter, stiffer and stronger (real benefits)? Even more than benefits, you want experiences. The aforementioned lightness & stiffness may be benefits, but what you really want is the experience of higher performance, through quicker acceleration and better climbing.
This is why we list not only features, but also the accompanying benefits and experiences. To recap:
Product Feature: “Which innovative shape, material or design solution was used on this frame?”
Technical Benefit: “What is the advantage of this shape, material or solution?”
Rider Experience: “How does this feature & benefit change my riding experience?” This usually involves experiencing higher performance or more comfort. Some features also offer an aesthetic experience, and although we would never sacrifice performance or comfort for beauty, sometimes you can have it all.
Squoval™ (Square Oval) tubing
A square shape put lots of material far away from the center plane of the frame to create more lateral stiffness. The slight ovalization makes the shape extremely resistant to denting. The resulting frame is very light, very stiff and very strong.
Higher performance as higher stiffness creates better power transfer and better cornering, lower weight helps with climbing and acceleration while higher strength makes it bomb-proof.
Razor-thin seatstays
Super-small cross-section for seatstays reduce weight and increase vertical compliance for the rear wheel.
Higher performance as lower weight results in better climbing and acceleration, while the vertical compliance assists in providing comfort.
Multi-shape toptube
Each cross section is optimized in shape and lay-up for local loads, creating a shape that handles lateral and torsional loads very well at a very low weight.
Higher performance as lower weight and higher stiffness aides climbing, acceleration and sprinting.
Oversized bottom bracket
Big shape and fluent form aligns the carbon fibers with the complex loads in this area for better lateral stiffness (excellent power transmission).
Higher performance through excellent acceleration and efficient power transfer – no wasted energy.
SQUOVAL™
The dominant forces on the downtube and chainstays are lateral bending forces. The best way to resist those is with a lot of material far away from the center plane. Square tubes do this best, but can easily buckle. A slightly ovalized square creates the best of both worlds, which explains why Cervélo’s Squoval shaped frames win stiffness and lightweight tests everywhere.
The front and rear of the toptube also use the Squoval shape to counteract lateral bending, but it transitions to oval in the center to counteract the torsional loading in that section.
SMARTWALL™ FOR CARBON
Upon hearing Smartwall™, most people immediately think of Cervélo’s method to obtain excellent lateral stiffness in an TrueAero® tube. But the Smartwall™ principle is universally applicable, not just on aero tubing. After the tube shapes are optimized, the lay-up allows us to further refine the character of the bike. In fact, Squoval tubes are very well suited for the Smartwall application as they have two sides that are very far removed from the central plane – i.e. adding even a small amount of extra material there increases the lateral stiffness significantly. To properly distribute the loads from the Smartwall section into the rest of the tubes, the additional plies are feathered.