As the inventor of aero road bikes, Cervélo continues to lead the category. Aero road frames are the most difficult frames to design, as they have to be everything in one: aero, light, stiff, comfortable. Cervélo has worked to optimize this balance between the various requirements since its inception 13 years ago.
For the S3, the engineers at vroomen.white.design used the R3 seatstay technology, rotated the stays 90 degrees and gave them a proper Cervélo aero shape. This reduces the weight, increases the vertical compliance and improves the aerodynamics. Sounds simple, but the structural design is extremely complex, which is why only Cervélo has such stays. The chainstays were also redesigned to optimize aerodynamics. Finally, the new ICS3 Internal CableStops offers another improvement to our cable routing technology.
UPGRADES FROM S2
Lighter frame - The S2 is light, the S3 is amazingly light. Aero benefits without a weight penalty when compared to most frames, with the S3 you can have your cake and eat it too.
More aero - The S2 has led the aero road bikes in windtunnel performance until now, the S3’s new seatstays and chainstays make it the newly crowned king.
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.
Razor-thin Aero seatstays
Super-small cross-section for seatstays reduces weight and increases vertical compliance for the rear wheel. Their aero shape and the reduced frontal area also lower aerodynamic resistance.
Higher performance as lower weight results in better climbing and acceleration, while the lower drag saves you power in maintaining your speed. The vertical compliance assists in providing comfort.
Massive aero chainstays
The chainstays appear big when looking from above, but what the airflow sees is a shape that is optimized to minimize turbulence and thus lower aerodynamic resistance.
Higher performance: Lower resistance means you need to generate fewer Watts for the same speed.
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.
Stealth aero headtube
Narrowing the section between the bearings reduces the frontal area and thereby the aerodynamic resistance (which is linearly related to the frontal area).
Higher performance as lower weight and higher stiffness aides climbing, acceleration and sprinting.
ICS3
With ICS3, Cervelo continues to lead the industry by adding toptube entry and an integrated trim adjuster to the system. New internals reduce the friction compared to ICS2, while the adjuster on the toptube allows on-the-fly fine-tuning of your shifting, a first for internal cable routing systems. Smoother shifting & better finetuning lead to less drivetrain friction and fewer lost Watts for the same speed.
TRUEAERO®
Airplanes require different airfoils than bicycles. Sounds logical, but many companies are so proud to say their airfoils come from the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). So was Cervelo, 13 years ago.
But now, they design their own specific airfoils, and it has led to significant improvements. It’s one of the reasons why they spend weeks and weeks in the windtunnel each year, not hours (if any) as is customary in the industry.
When you have the most and the best engineers working on aerodynamic improvements and you give them more time to play in the windtunnel sand box than anybody else, you end up with faster bikes. Simple.
SMARTWALL FOR CARBON™
Patent-pending technology from our carbon materials and manufacturing group, Smartwall™ elaborates on the Squoval tubeshape. With the sides far away from the center plane more important, we concentrate more material there to increase the benefit.
Strips of High and Ultra-high modulus carbon stiffen the sides of the main tubes to resist lateral bending. These strips are feathered in to properly transfer the loads from the joints into these tubes.