Cervelo wins big in first Slowtwitch Awards
Best tri bike in 2008: Cervelo P3C
For voting purposes, consideration was given to a bike's construction, how its geometry and spec contributed to a rider's proper bike position, the bike's aerodynamics, its cosmetics, geometry, styling, the parts spec chosen by the bike company, and its price.
Registered Slowtwitch forum members totally 885 voted in this category. The P3C garnered 366 votes to second place Felt. Its DA tallied 161 votes, and the Specialized Transition was third with 80 votes. Fourth place, with 56 votes each, were the Guru Crono and Trek Equinox TTX.
The P3C is remarkably successful considering it's rather long in the tooth— it was first introduced for sale in 2005—as bike models go. Felt's DA is finishing up its second year for sale in the market, compared to the P3C's 4 years of tenure.
The DA is another success story, part of Felt's top-to-bottom tri bike overhaul just prior to the 2007 season. The Specialized Transition was new in 2008, and performed remarkably well in the Survey considering its delayed selling season. Many dealers to whom Slowtwitch spoke reported not getting their Transitions until July, well after much of the high-end selling season was over. Certainly Chris McCormack's win at the Hawaiian Ironman aboard his Transition was a factor.
Best bike company in 2008: Cervelo
Voters considered robustness of value in the bike company's offerings; the treatment of its customers; promptness of shipping; the handling of warranties; the brand's marketing and advertising; its customer service and its field support.
Again, Cervelo came out on top, and by an even larger margin. Out of 879 voters, 464 considered Cervelo the best bike company. This is the only category in the Survey where the winner gained a majority of votes. Why is Cervelo the company (owners Gerard Vroomen and Phil White pictured, left and right respectively) more popular than its P3C bike? Probably because so many people think Cervelo's other bikes—its P2C for example—are just as good or better than the P3C, as values go.
On the flip side, voters were more prone to vote for the bikes made by Trek, Specialized, Scott, Guru and Cannondale than for the companies themselves. Of companies in the Survey that also had bikes in the "Best tri bike" category, only Felt joined Cervelo in getting more votes than did their tri bike models. Clearly, end-users admire these brands. Managers of popular companies often worry that their brands are overheating, in danger of causing a backlash against the brand "everyone is buying." For the moment, Cervelo and Felt need not worry.
Specialized, Trek and Guru followed with 56, 53 and 49 votes respectively.
Best soft goods company in 2008: De Soto
Criteria to be considered were wetsuits and apparel, footwear, and the like. Respondents were to grade on styling and fit; construction; comfort; company support; and product availability.
Out of 891 votes casted, four companies polled over 100 votes, and they are as follows:
De Soto: 263
2XU: 173
Zoot: 165
blueseventy: 104
All four of these companies make wetsuits and apparel both, and are positioned to sell specifically to triathletes. Nevertheless, it is notable that Louis Garneau and Pearl Izumi—both soft goods makers that do attempt to market to multisporters—do not poll better. Voters chose them 65 and 58 times respectively.
De Soto—the person (pictured) and the company—is a Slowtwitch Forum favorite, so there is no surprise here. While the product is appreciated, De Soto may rank even higher in customer service.
That is not to say the category did not have its surprises. 2XU's second place is a bit of a shocker. The company is only just now celebrating the close of its second full year in production.
Best hard goods company in 2008: Zipp
Voters were asked to consider any bike industry company making hard goods other than bikes. Nine-hundred voters participated.
This is the one time SRAM won't mind placing second. During the voting SRAM was neck and neck with Zipp—a company it purchased during the past year—losing 212 to 209 (Zipp's Bryan Hite is pictured). So, SRAM, while shedding crocodile tears, can take solace in the fact that it more than doubled the votes for Shimano, in a year when the Japanese juggernaut debuted its electronic Dura Ace gruppo.
After SRAM and Zipp came Hed, the resurgent wheel and aerobar maker, which totaled 139 votes. Hed has been significantly outsold by Zipp over the past decade, but things seem to be turning for the scrappy Twin Cities company. No doubt the high-profile status thrust upon press-shy Steve Hed—he is fitter and aerodynamicist to Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and others—has not hurt.
After Shimano came Profile Design, Oakley and FSA/Visiontech. For some reason helmet companies didn't poll well. Perhaps helmets are not a large enough part of one's riding experience to cause a vote for a helmet company over the other companies listed here.
Best biologics company in 2008: Infinit Nutrition
Voters considered nutritionals or lotions, which included, but was not limited to, fluid replacement; bars; gels; supplements; sunblock; chamois cream.
Often, the bigger the company, the better the result in a survey like this. But not so in this case. Infinit Nutrition, all of 3 years old, and a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than the largest companies in its competitive set, won. Its 246 votes barely outpointed GU, which had 233.
Another smaller player, Nuun, was next, followed by Assos and Cytomax. Assos was included on the ballot only on the basis of its chamois cream, which indicates the affection among Slowtwitch readers for the Swiss apparel maker and its products.
Why did Infinit produce a result more than treble that of Cytomax? Certainly it is because its founder, Michael Folan (pictured), spends time on the Slowtwitch Reader Forum, patiently answering the questions posed by the readers. Also, Infinit sells directly to those readers, with formulations designed custom for them.
In that sense, the win in this category must be viewed through the prism of the direct and personal contact Infinit has with its customers. Nevertheless, this company will continue to grow at least until that direct connection with customers is no longer possible.
Breakout technical achievement in 2008: ANT+Sport
This category honors outstanding advancement of the sport from a technical aspect. The winner is "ANT+ Sport" over Shimano 7970 Di2 (electronic shifting), 384 votes to 200 votes. What is ANT+ Sport?
It's been described as Bluetooth for bikes, and for any enterprise (usually sport-related) that requires wireless communication. Garmin owns the ANT+ standard, through its purchase earlier this decade of Dynastream, the company that wrote the ANT+ platform.
But these are bike industry awards, and we're giving this award to Quarq (its founder James Meyer is pictured), because of its specific work in ushering into the bike world the ANT+Sport standard. Among the early ANT+ adopters, no company in cycling was as enthusiastic about ANT+ than was Quarq.
Ibike, Trek, Suunto, SRM, Powertap and many other companies are jumping on thte ANT+ bandwagon, and much more could be written about ANT+ than we'll write here. Suffice it to say that Slowtwitch readers were prescient in their choice of a technology that will open the door to a generation of wireless delivery of information to cyclists.
ANT+ won this category with 384 votes cast, besting second place Shimano, chosen by 200 Slowtwitch voters. In any other year, its marvelous 7970 Di2 electronic shifting system might have won, and perhaps it will win next year, once the cycling world has a chance to take this technology out for a spin.
The BB30 oversize bottom-bracket standard finished third in the balloting, with 80 votes. Years ago Cannondale got KO'd by Shimano in the battle of larger diameter bottom bracket bearings versus Shimano's wider placement of standard sized bearings. But C'dale has gotten off the mat, and FSA, SRAM have joined Cannondale as brothers in arms, championing the idea.
Quarq CinQo powermeter was next with 71 votes, Retul's motion-capture system was chosen by 62 voters, and Campagnolo's 11-speed, chosen by 42 as this year's bright idea, hasn't yet caught fire with Slowtwitchers, though it is bound to grow in popularity in the year to come.
