Competitive Cyclist

CERVÉLO S3

It's no secret why the riders of the Cervélo Test Team chose the Cervélo R3 and RS for the cobbled Spring Classics. The flat, thin seatstays of the R-series bikes are the closest thing to suspension you'll find -- a true luxury (and a competitive advantage) on the shattered "roads" of Belgium and northern France. And, likewise, it's no secret why they choose the S2 for races in more well-manicured terrain. At the Tour of California and Milan-San Remo the roads are finger-licking fresh blacktop. Since the road surface is a given, the team can focus on pure performance from their bikes. The aerodynamic profile of the S2 sheds 100g of drag at 30mph -- that's a hardly-insubstantial savings of 10 watts.

Let's go back in history for a moment: When Cervélo introduced the SLC-SL in 2007, it was to marry the lightness of the R3 to the aero upsides of the S2's predecessor, the Soloist Carbon. Based on our sales volume (it's the best-selling $3,000+ frameset in the history of Competitive Cyclist) and on the seemingly-unanimous feedback we've heard from our customers (is it feedback, or is it delirium?), we can assure you Cervélo's efforts were appreciated by many. With the introduction of the S3, Cervélo is taking this marriage to an even higher level.

With the S3, Cervélo makes a giant leap forward with aerodynamics. Most apparent is the clever use of internal cable routing. With the SLC-SL and Soloist Carbon the derailleur cable housing wended around the head tube and fed through the upper portion of the downtube. But on the S3 the derailleur cables route through the top of the top tube, right behind the headset. The housing feeds into cable stops on the top tube, then naked wires run down the headtube, through the down tube, into the BB shell. This is an aerodynamic improvement, yes. But we appreciate it just as much for practical reasons: You'll no longer have to cope with the dreaded cable housing rub on the sides of your head tube. And since there's no more housing slap against your frame, your bike is certain to be quieter.

The 2010 version of the S3 has one significant enhancement to this internal cable routing: It uses Cervélo's new ICS-3 system, which is a series of stainless steel cable routing tubes with replaceable Teflon linings that are bonded into the frame where the cables enter the top tube. This new cable routing system controls the cables' entrance, their curvature inside the frame, as well as their exit angle towards the bottom bracket area. You'll end up with more consistent shifting quality, and perhaps the greatest advantage of the ICS-3 system is the improvement in the speed of the bike build. And contrary to recent speculation about the new cable routing system adding an inordinate amount of extra grams, our in-house measurements show the 2010 frame to be right in line with 2009 frame weights give or take 10-20 grams.

Other than the cable routing change, the front triangle of the S3 is identical to the SLC-SL. The rear triangle, though, gets a complete facelift. The chainstays are a new, measurably-more-aerodynamic shape, identical to what you get on their uber-TT frame, the P4. At a glance you'll see how much thinner the S3 seatstays are in comparison to the SLC-SL. Their surface area dramatically decreases, another aerodynamic improvement. But of greater consequence is the influence of the R3 seatstay design here. They have a thinness reminiscent of the R3, and they're designed to provide exactly what you get from the R3: Noticeable comfort on lousy roads. No, it's not the same seatstays as the R3, but their relationship is obvious.

The S3 is Cervélo's most aerodynamic road frame, but it delivers vertical compliance to a near-R3 degree -- unlike anything you've ever felt in the S-platform before. It does this while weighing close to what the SLC-SL weighted (the S3 tips the scales at about 80g heavier -- roughly 1080g for a size 56cm), and with no loss of the SLC-SL's stiffness-under-power. And this stiffness was on full display under Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara at the 2008 Olympic Road Race in Beijing. After 6+ hours in what many described as the worst heat and humidity they'd ever raced in, Cancellara bridged across not 1, but 2 groups in the final 2km in order to snatch a bronze medal away from two fellow Team CSC teammates -- Alexander Kolobnev of Russia and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. A neat fact: The Olympic Road Race served as the S3's public unveiling, and 3 of the top 5 places were earned by riders on the S3.

The palmares of the S3 stacked up throughout the 2009 season, including two awe-inspiring Cervélo Test Team stage victories in the Tour de France. Thor Hushovd won a fearsome uphill field sprint in the rainy streets of Barcelona. Heinrich Haussler then followed it up with an epic solo win, again in the rain, in the Pyrenees.

The 2010 edition of the S3 has one other change of note: The chainstays have been modified to offer more clearance, allowing for the use of wheelsets such as Fulcrum, Campy and some Shimano that were not compatible with the 2009 S3.

The S3 comes with a one-position Cervélo Aero Carbon Fiber seatpost that gives you an effective seat angle of 73 degrees. Cervélo's two-position reversible seatpost will fit in the S3, in case you'd like the option to give it an effective seat angle of 76 degrees for time trial applications. The S3 comes standard with a 3T Funda Team carbon fiber fork and a Cane Creek S2 integrated headset. It requires a braze-on front derailleur and an English bottom bracket. It's available in 6 sizes between 48cm-61cm.

 Share this Page

2010 Cervélo S3 Pricing

2010 Cervélo S3 Geometry

Size	Top Tube	Head Tube	Head Tube Angle	Seat Angle	Standover
48	51.5	10.0	72.5	73.0	70.9
51	53.0	12.0	73.0	73.0	72.9
54	54.5	14.0	73.0	73.0	74.6
56	56.5	16.0	73.0	73.0	76.4
58	58.0	18.0	73.0	73.0	78.1
61	59.2	20.0	73.0	73.0	80.0