What the new Cervélo R5 does for the pros, and what it can do for you

The new Cervélo R5 is out, officially. While you saw it at the Tour de France this past July and maybe you noticed it under Sepp Kuss at June’s Critérium du Dauphiné (though the company said no one caught it then), it’s now released for all to check out. My first question for Cervélo about this climber’s bike was simply, “Why?” Why did they believe in this platform now that their aero bike, the S5 that launched in July, is lighter than ever and that the pros on Visma-Lease a Bike seem to prefer it over the R5? Where does the bike fit in within the WorldTour?

Why Cervélo keeps the R5

“I don’t believe that a single platform is ever the best solution,” Scott Roy, Cervélo engineering manager, said recently. “Yes, the S5 is plenty light in a Size 51, but it’s not in a 56 or a 58.” For pro roadies, there comes a point where gravity is more of an issue than wind resistance. That point is pretty extreme even up for debate, even among folks at Cervélo and Visma-LAB. Roy mentioned that a gradient of more than 15 per cent is the incline that a pro would want to go for the R5 instead of the S5. That figure isn’t totally settled. Still, Roy is confident in the bike’s utility in the super steep stages, especially on climby finishes. “We make riders faster in specific cases, even if that’s a difference of 20 or 30 seconds at the end of a stage,” he said.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took the R5 to two stage wins and the overall victory at the Tour de France Femmes, so it seems like the right bike on the Col de la Madeleine and into Châtel les Portes du Soleil for that rider.

And that’s all great for PFP and Jonas Vinegaard, but what about riders like you and me? I’ll get into that question after a tour through the features of the new bike and how it differs from the outgoing R5.

Fit for a pro rider, changes in geometry

Oh those demanding top-level riders. One of their requests to Cervélo was to modify the R5’s geometry so that it would fit in the same manner as the S5. That meant a lower stack height and slightly longer reach so each rider’s hands end up in the same spot.

Even though the fit geo has changed, Cervélo says the handling is the same as the old R5. The bottom bracket is 2 mm lower so the whole system works well with 29-mm-wide tires. Officially, the tire clearance of the frame and fork is 34 mm, leaving a space of 4 mm all…