I was very lucky this past spring to be one of the very first athletes to test ride, probably one of the most anticipated bikes of all time, the Cervelo P4. I got a chance to ride a few different prototypes and to provide feedback to Cervelo on a wide range of aspects of the new bike.
My relationship with Cervelo goes back to 1996 when I was first sponsored by them riding the Eyre road. In 1997 I even briefly worked for Cervelo back when the Cervelo World Headquarters was Phil’s house, and his rickety wooden shed in the backyard was the warehouse! Back in those days selling Cervelo was actually quite tough as no one knew who this little company from Canada was. The most frequent question I got asked by dealers was why they didn’t make the P2 in steel, times have changed! It was quickly discovered that my talent as a sales rep was limited, but that I was pretty good at breaking bikes and parts and so was much better at test riding and giving feedback than I was at selling! So from then on I have had a chance to test out many of Cervelo’s prototypes over the years.
Having had a chance to ride the P4 prototypes (I was even allowed to ride it in the daylight but with only 1 other person, Phil and Gerard like to keep things quiet!) and having talked to the team of engineers working on this project I really got a good idea of the amount of time, effort and engineering that was involved. This is really one very impressive bike, the attention to detail and the focus on performance that Cervelo puts into a bike is really incredible, and there are so many tiny details that are just not apparent when looking at the bike but all come together to make one incredibly fast package!
I am looking forward to racing on a P4 in 2009, but have yet to actually ride a finished version! Gerard, Phil, are you listening???
Pictures and a few video’s of the testing can be found here.
Nigel