How Cervelo got itself another big finish

With Ivan Basso, Dave Zabriskie, Fabian Cancellara and Tyler Hamiton aboard its bikes over the past 5 years, Cervelo is not without its fair share of wins in big races. But a first place finish by a pro athlete in the Hawaiian Ironman has eluded triathlon's premier bike manufacturer, until now. As with many of Cervelo's victories, news of its latest high profile result came as a pleasant surprise, not the fulfillment of an expectation.

If you're a bike manufacturer there is not one finish line in Kona, but three. One of these three becomes relevant at about 3PM on Saturday. That's the finish the world is programmed to pay attention to, and we see a men's champion cross that line right about that time every year. The women's winner will follow about 55 minutes later, on average, and this year's first female, Chrissie Wellington, was aboard a Cervelo P2C during the bike leg.

The second relevant finish line is crossed at about noon. Arguably, for bike makers, this is the more important finish. Historically, one must ask what winning and Ironman does for a bike maker. How many Schwinns, Huffys and Looks did Mark Allen actually sell while crossing that final finish seven times? How many Hamiltons did Paula Newby-Fraser sell? Did Cheetahs ever really start checking at the cash register, in light of its two athletes winning Kona a total of eight times aboard that bike?

What about the Specialized bikes ridden by Peter Reid? Did they run out the doors of America's local bike shops at the news of his victories? Who can say how many Treks Tim DeBoom sold during his two wins, his second and his third?

This is not to say these — the world's finest triathletes over history's long distance courses — were not bankable properties. Far from it. History shows, however, that the talented and intrepid bike rider whose tactics demonstrate bike course bravery (sometimes even foolhardiness) is acknowledged by end users.

Consider the bikes ridden by Jurgen Zack, Thomas Hellriegal and Normann Stadler. The prototypical bike seller is the German athlete who comes out of the water a little behind, charges to the front pack, rides through it, and waves goodbye as he pedals off the front. This sells bikes. Accordingly, Quintana Roo, Softride, Cannondale, Wheeler (Germany), Centurion (Germany), and Kuota have, over the years, done very well by these athletes. Time will tell whether Torbjorn Sindballe — who fits nicely into that mold excepting his country of birth — will do for Argon 18 what these other fine riders have done for their brands.

For this reason, the bike makers I know are even more interested in that second finish line — the bike-to-run transition — than they are the final finish. They want to know which athletes sped to the front, alone, and best yet is when the athlete breaks the bike course record. That's the holy grail for the bike maker, an all-time record over a storied course.

The third finish line is crossed at about 6PM the day before the race starts. That's when the final bikes make their way into transition, and we see who won the "bike count." If you gave Cervelo the option of having one of its riders win the race, or having as many bikes in the racks as the next three brands combined, they'd take the latter. Cervelo's 344 bikes in the bike pen will cause more people to buy its bikes next year than having the Ironman winner aboard its bike.

Of course, it's always nice when it can have both, as was Cervelo's case. Chrissie Wellington — whose middle name is not "Who?" — won the Ironman and in especially convincing fashion. Did Cervelo guess right with her? It would be nice if this were the case. Quite honestly she was a bit of a throw-in, the "player to be named later," the 4th round pick in the 2012 draft that rounds out the deal. Cervelo acquired Wellington through sponsoring the TBB Team which, if you don't know, stands for The Triathlon Boutique.

TBB is is both a retail establishment and distributor, housed in Singapore. I don't know whether this was the nature of the deal, but some customers of manufacturers are so big that they can form their own teams and the manufacturers will supply the product because they'll more than make it up in incremental sales to that customer. R&A Cycles is a perfect example. Manufacturers will line up to give bikes away to that store's team athletes, because the sales to that shop will be phenomenal.

So, in all probability, Cervelo acquired Chrissy Wellington not specifically because of her, but because of the robust business relationship between it and its largest dealer not on a continent.

When Cervelo "got" Chrissy, what it got was an ITU athlete. The first bike provided was a Soloist Carbon, because that's the bike Chrissy needed at the time. When she made the switch to Ironman she raced that bike, retrofitted for no-draft racing. A Soloist Carbon propelled her to the Big Show.

It became apparent to The Bike Boutique folks that Chrissy Wellington had game. She walked away with Korea in a fine finish time only 42 minutes behind highly regarded male winner Raynard Tissink, and insiders like Murphy Reinschreiber said, "Sam McGlone and Kate Major are my picks, but Wellington is my darkhorse."

Darkhorse maybe, racehorse certainly, thought TBB after the Korea Ironman, but they were less certain — so I am led to understand — whether Cervelo would pony up another bike for her. So, according to my inside sources, they hedged their bet by gifting her a P2C instead of a P3C. In all likelihood, this was the best bike for her anyway — cost no object — because of the bike's somewhat taller head tube.

TBB manager Ben Distel fitted Chrissy to the F.I.S.T. principles he had been schooled in several months before by… ahem… me, and the photo adjacent is of that original fit session in The Bike Boutique's old shop (it has since expanded and relocated).

In a set of coincidences, Chrissy Wellington rides a position very much like that ridden by Torbjorn Sindballe aboard his fancy Argon 18 Element 114 (I wish they'd stick to an element: Argon or the "island of stability" among heavy nuclei); they rode tactically similar races; and it was the long legs of each that their competitors saw… briefly… as they came winging by.

As Wellington crossed the finish line at a few minutes before 3:52 in the afternoon Cervelo co-owner Gerard Vroomen would've likely been still asleep, as it was 3:52 on Monday morning in Neuchatel, Switzerland, his personal and Cervelo's corporate home. No doubt when he awoke and strolled to his computer he was as surprised as anyone to find his sponsored athlete had won the race. But I imagine his initial reaction was just a smile creasing his face. He's gotten used to such surprises.