Javelin Lugano

June 17, 2009

One of my regrets in this business is the commoditization of our industry. Bikes roll off the assembly line like green plaster-of-paris frogs destined for the phalanx of street-walking traffic-line salesmen at the Tijuana border crossing.

Yes, they may be $3000 plaster-of-paris frogs, nevertheless, frogs they remain. The art of the pro bike is gone, largely in road racing, completely in triathlon. (Let me be clear: today's production pro frames are wonderful works of modern technology; my complaint is the lack of care and attention-to-detail between the popping out of the mold and the transformation to complete, straight, true, well-fitted, adroitly-spec'd, properly-assembled, bike for a connoisseur owner.)

I continue to hope for the resurrection of the true pro bike business model, and the Javelin Lugano is the sort of bike that would fit nicely into a pro shop's line-up.

I'm not going to write about the Lugano as a production unit. I don't see the utility in buying a Lugano off the showroom floor, any more than you should buy a Guru Crono or an Elite Carbon Razor that way. These are bikes that can be made custom, so, why not get yours made specifically for you?

I'll be you didn't know a Lugano came custom, did you? Not only can you get yours this way, this bike offers some flexibility not available to you from most of the other custom tri bike makers.

First, let's talk about this bike's aerodynamics. It's hard to get a custom bike to be aero, because the flexibility required to customize and vary geometry plays heck with the attempt to keep a bike slippery. Imagine if United Airlines said to Airbus, "Our North American customers run fatter than you Europeans, so, for our A320s on order, can you make them four feet wider?" Sudan Airways might ask Airbus to make its order of planes a foot taller, to accommodate its Dinka tribesmen clientele. As to aerodynamics, what would be Airbus' expectations under such conditions?

Certain companies—Elite Bicycles comes to mind—have engineered methods to get aero tubes into custom geometries. Nevertheless, joining aero tubeshapes at nonstandard angles remains a challenge. The Lugano does contain the sort of aero tubes and shapes that one would expect to find in one of the high-end monocoque production bikes with demonstrated aerodynamics.

You might look at the centimeter and a half gap between the back of the seat tube and the rear wheel and inquire whether that can really be aero. I mean, that's the thing that stands out at you. I'm no aerodynamicist, but, upwards of a century ago it was discovered that if you squared off the trailing edge of an otherwise NACA-shaped symmetrical airfoil (the Kamm tail), you didn't lose much. The auto racing industry has known about this for decades and you'll see the technique employed on the racetrack and even in certain production cars, both muscle cars and, today, notably, in certain hybrids.

The Lugano can be built with a seat angle of 78 degrees, maybe even 79, which is right in the meat of the bell curve, when you fit a person properly aboard a tri bike. This is about the rider seat angle contemplated nowadays when Cervelo, Felt, QR, Kuota, Kestrel, and other top companies design their new models. The ability to build an aero custom tri bike at a seat angle this steep is atypical. Elite can do it. Not many other companies can.

A notable feature about the Lugano is its integrated headset. This is not just a stylistic element; Javelin can make the head tube as short as 95mm. This allows for a pretty small bike, and the integrated headset makes it smaller still—Javelin need not allow room for an external headset's bottom stack (an extra 13.5mm). This means a Lugano can be built low enough for shorter folks who want to ride an aggressive position.

What don't I like about the Lugano? It is advertised to ship with the Blackwell Time Bandit fork. This is no doubt a great fork, but is not a precise match—fork crown to head tube bottom—with the frame (though it's not far off either, and you have to look hard to find the very slight mismatch). Also, this fork only comes in a 43mm offset. One of likeliest scenarios calling for a custom is when a rider is long of leg, short of torso. This invariably calls for a shallow head angle and a fork with a lot of offset (to keep the trail constant while adding front/center). The sort of fork that works nicely is the 3T Funda, with its available 49mm and 53mm offsets (in addition to the other, more standard offsets). These large offsets work nicely with head angles of 71.5° and 71° respectively, certainly not a steering geometry required for everyone, but nice for the leggy set. If this is you, see if you can order your Lugano with a fork other than the one spec'd on the bike.

The other limitation of the Lugano is the inability to make the bike with 650c wheels. Frankly, though, the smaller the bike, the less a custom is needed, because angular changes are greater on smaller bikes through dimensional changes (in other words, moving the saddle forward on the rails of a 48cm bike gives you an extra 2° of seat angle versus the rail's centerline, but moving the saddle forward on the rails only nets perhaps 1.5° on a 60cm bike).

The Lugano is not an inexpensive solution. The frameset (frame and fork, seat post, headset) will set you back $8600. That means a complete bike, outfitted the way it ought to be if you're starting with a frame such as this, will be well north of ten thousand. You'll get your Lugano in about 60 days post-order and, of course, custom color is your option.

My advice: be very sure of your fitter. There are two ways you can foul up this sort of transaction: your fit coordinates are not properly mapped and established or—assuming the fit coordinates are correct—the geometry of the Lugano is not correctly determined from the fit coordinates. Of course, these two issues attend every custom bike transaction, road or tri, and with every manufacturer.

The Lugano is made in Italy (but not in Lugano; more likely in or around Cremona, on the other side of Milano).

Talk to the folks at Javelin for more info about this interesting custom option. Perhaps I've been over-sequestered, but, this is the only carbon monocoque-style bike made in custom geometry that I know of that appears likely to have aerodynamics you'd want to get out of the elite set of production tri bikes.