Cervelo offer sneak peek at ultralight 'Project California'

8 comments
By James Huang, technical editor | Monday, Feb 22, 2010 10.30am

Cervelo's new west coast test facility has yielded its first fruit, an ultralight carbon road frame dubbed 'Project California' that is claimed to weigh just 700g in a 54cm size.

Listen carefully to the video posted on Cervelo's website, however, and it seems the prototype may be even lighter, as the one provided to TestTeam rider Thor Hushovd was just 648g.

Cervelo co-founder Gerard Vroomen would not release any additional information to what's already been revealed online but the grainy images suggest a sort of 'super' R3 in terms of the basic shape and layout.  The down tube uses a more radically shaped 'squoval' profile, the chainstays are notably tall and wide, and the seatstays are just as spindly. 

Judging by the flat black appearance, it also appears that the Project California frame has carbon fibre dropouts instead of the R3-SL's aluminium ones and some sort of integrated bottom bracket. Our guess would be either direct drop-in bearings or press-fit cups but not standard BB30 so as to eliminate the need for an alloy sleeve.

It's also unclear whether a tapered head tube is included – though it would improve stiffness and allow for a bigger down tube, it would also add grammes rather than remove them. External cable routing is evident along with a conventional, round telescoping seatpost. According to Hushovd's posted video account, the biggest difference relative to current models is the greater front triangle and bottom bracket stiffness but with the same level of comfort as the production S2 and S3. 

Project California may be ultralight, impressively stiff and yet very comfortable but it will also be extremely expensive – at least for now. In contrast to Cervelo's usual overseas manufacturing, each Project California frame will be hand-built in the USA by the same engineers who designed it, thus adding obvious labour and investment costs over mass production and making for a limited yield of about one frame per day. Scheduled availability is August 2010 and each frame will command a cost of US$9,600/€8,000 (approx £6,200).

Ultimately, though, we expect the engineering lessons gleaned from the project to make their way into production models. Shell out the money now if you need the exclusivity and 'Made in USA' cachet but patient consumers will almost certainly be able to get something similar for more reasonable prices sometime down the line.

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User Comments

There are 8 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 8 of 8 comments

  • cachet attatched to 'made in usa' are you kidding?

    and really whats the point in making frames this light when theres the uci weight limit?

  • is that the most untidy room you've ever seen in a bike company! Reminds me of my bedroom when I was a kid...

  • Great! So I can load this frame up with heavy Shimano Tiagra components and I still can't race on it! Ridiculous.

  • Wonderful! Bet Wiggins wants one since his Dogma is too heavy!!!

  • fast as fupp: it does mean a lot to some folks that the frame is 'made in USA' - or more to the point, 'not made in Asia'. I'm personally of the opinion that the physical location of manufacture isn't nearly as important as the quality of workmanship (looking at it from a pure tech point of view) but the fact that these will be made by Cervelo's own engineers is intriguing if nothing else.

    jfwall: Cervelo doesn't say in the video where it was shot but my impression is that it was filmed at the team service course, not at Cervelo. Those places are notoriously busy and generally aren't specifically arranged to be pleasing to the eye. If those guys can get their work done there in an efficient manner, that's all that matters.

    on the weight: keep in mind that few people who end up with one of these will ever have to worry about UCI weight limits! While I doubt that many CTT riders will use this in competition (yes, it'd require a fair bit of extra weight to make it legal), it probably makes more sense to look at this as an interesting design exercise. What's most interesting is what this might mean for regular consumers in the future.

  • Ha ha ha... biking is the only "sport" where a layman can have better equipment than a pro. Provided that layman got the cash.

    Or you can go the other way and build your own bikes... with or w/o heavy Tiagra stuff. Two completey different sides of the same coin.

    Guess which one I'm staring at?

  • angryasian: I was being funny but when I look at the pictures again I have to say it's more a health and safety issue than a clean and tidy enviroment one ;)

  • Hmm, an oversize headtube doesn't necessarily mean more mass. Tube stiffness increases proportionally to the square of the diameter, mass increases in line with the diameter. That's the whole principle of oversize tubing, half the wall thickness, double the diameter = same weight & 4 times the stiffness.

    As to why they would do it, because they can. Maybe if companies keep advancing bicycle science eventually the UCI will pull their heads out of the sand

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