Cervélo
Cervélo Cycles is a Canadian manufacturer of racing bicycle framesets which started operations in 1995 and is currently located in Toronto. Its founders, Phil White and Gérard Vroomen act as 'co-CEOs' and continue to run the company.
Originally dedicated to developing time trial bicycles, since 2002, Cervélo has also been providing framesets for the professional road cycling team, Denmark's Team CSC. Cervélo products combine high-end parts and materials such as carbon fibre with CAD and computational fluid dynamics design along with a high research and development budget. The company does extensive low-speed wind tunnel testing on their frames at the San Diego Air and Space Technology Center, in California. Cervelo manufacture their framesets in China like the vast majority of their rivals.
The most distinctive features of certain Cervélo framesets are their compact frames and narrow teardrop aerodynamically shaped down tubesfound on the Soloist and P series framesets. Cervelo does not use NACA compliant aerodynamic profiles as they ae designed for much higher speeds than those attained on a bike.
Cervelo framesets are curently:
1, R series, all carbon fibre, with the RS, R3 and R3-SL. These are road framesets.
2, The Soloist series, with the aluminium, Soloist Team, Soloist Carbon (Fabian Cancellara's favourite) and Soloist Carbon Superlight - SLC-SL in short. These are aerodynamically profiled road framesets.
3, The P series, with the aluminium P2-SL, P2-C, P3-C and P3-C Track. These are time trial / triathlon aerodynamically profiled framesets for road use, apart from the P3-C track designed for use in against the clock track events.
Cervélo's marketing has been approached with three strategies. First, their sponsorship of elite level athletes, most notably Team CSC, has led to widespread recognition of the brand. In advertising, they have focused their efforts on educating consumers about the aerodynamics and the research and design that goes into their framesets.
International success
On July 27, 2008 cyclist Carlos Sastre of Spain won the Tour de France aboard a Cervelo R3-SL frameset. This marked the first time a Cervelo was ridden to a Tour win.[1]