In the theme of retro... My 2008 Cervelo SLC-SL

[Cheers!]

So in August 2009 I had an itch to get an exotic road bike. I have ridden my 2006 Cervelo Solost Team for 3 years, and have about 10,000 kms on her. Back then I lusted for a SLC SL. The soloist team was my 1st road bike. Not knowing if I liked road biking I decided to get the fastest bike under 2000 CDN dollars at the time. Aerodynamic aluminum frame. Ultegra everything. Worked out well. Till I transferred my upgrad-itis habits from mountain bikes over to the road bike.

By the time I was done with the soloist team, I had made her into a 14.99 lbs aluminum bike with carbon clinchers.

So what did I do? 2009 Cervelo introduced their S3 to replace their SLC-SL. I thought the paint job sucked and there was rampant complains that the cable routing sucked causing the drivetrain to shift poorly. Much like cars when they changed generations, I thought bikes would be fire sold. I went to Cervelo.com looked up every single USA dealer and started calling. I picked ones that seemed to have a decent inter-web presence. Cross referenced to see if anyone had any complaints about them on MTBR or RoadBikeReview.

I finally found a 54cm SLC-SL frame from http://artscyclery.com/ They had it listed for 3899 on closeout. Knowing that Excel Sports fire sold their frames for 2899 when they had them I called. "Hi, I'm interested in your 54CM Cervelo SLC-SL frame, you have on your website as closeout sale. Do you still haven it?" they did. So then I said... "Can you guys do better on your pricing? I see it going for 3899 USD on closeout. It's now August 2009 and you guys are probably selling S3s now. What's the best price you can do? I have my wallet in my hand and have 4 credit cards I can choose from."

"2499 sir, free shipping"

I replied.

"I'll TAKE IT!"

gave them my amex number. Had it shipped to a postal outlet in Buffalo New York. Drove from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Buffalo to pick it up and bring it back over (saves on customs fees, and brokerage fees)

I broke down my 2006 Soloist Team. Washed all the parts. Then rehung the new frame with the old parts following NASA procedures on torquing fasteners, cleaning threads, application of threadlocking compounds, and lubes. After all I'm an aerospace engineer by vocation.

I present to you my dream bike. 13.7 lbs of bliss.

I don't have the latest picture. But one of the Tune Bottle cages cracked. So I replaced them with Planet Bike carbon cages (22g each), sanded off the logos. I also got some fibrelyte chainrings that I have not mounted yet.

 

[SStumpjump]

Nice! Refreshing to see someone mixing Campagnolo and Shimano. Very unusual, but hey, why not?
What was your motivation for doing so?

Looks like a great, light and still very functional bike! And very non-retro....

/Ulrich

 

[Cheers!]

Exactly... Why not? A crankset is a crankset. The spacing between the chains is the same regardless of the rest of the drive train.

In reality when I had my 2006 aluminum cervelo I was looking for a compact crankset. I wanted a top end one that is stiff, light, and reliable.

Dura-Ace 7800 does not have a compact offering. Shimano R700 is heavy (to me anyways).

Easton EC90 was not out yet

Zipp is mega bucks with their proprietary bolt circle diameter

I hate FSA products (I think they are garbage)

I have not had any luck with KCNC stuff

I almost bought extralite Ebones. But I felt that they would not offer the stiffness I wanted.

Stronglight Pulsions was the other option but they are hard to obtain in North America. Plus at the time everyone was having trouble with the threaded lug inside the carbon arm where the pedal goes into debonding from the crankset

That left Campagnolo Record. It had low Q factor (something I was looking for). It was from a major component manufacturer and hence reliability would not be a concern. It was also on the light side. Perhaps not as light as THM Clavicula but not where near as expensive. I think they look great as well. Their shifting is awesome too.

So Campagnolo record it was. What's the difference between going Full Dura-Ace but running FSA or Zipp? Or when you have Full XTR and you install RaceFace Next LP cranks. Same thing really.

 

[SStumpjump]

What's the difference between going Full Dura-Ace but running FSA or Zipp? Or when you have Full XTR and you install RaceFace Next LP cranks. Same thing really.

Same thing, exactly. :roll:

 

[losidan]

helluva bike...i'd kill for something like that