Transitions - goodbye to Wellington and welcome Pre

“I LOVE DI2”!!!!!! A few seconds later “just in case you didn’t quite hear me I LOVE DI2!!!!!!”

That would be the repeated words of good friend Andrew Smith as we rode the coast loop a couple of weekends ago. It was his first ride with his newly DI2 set up P5. It was to be unintentionally a Cervelo ‘Team ride’ I guess with the 3 of us (myself, Andrew and Marc) all on a Cervelo, and a long day but with my brand new Cervelo P3 I was outwardly laughing at Andrews excitement but inside I was like “hell Yeah DI2 rocks!!!!  I had been exclaiming the same words to myself for the last few weeks! I knew exactly how he felt today!!!

A few weeks a go I was absolutely stoaked to receive a new Cervelo P3 with a sponsorship from PRV NZ. Right from the very early days in Triathlon I had had my eye on the Cervelo as my ultimate bike. I was pretty naive coming into the sport of Triathlon and even though I was riding a Genius Cleo with tiagra gearing and was surrounded in Pinarellos, there were one or two Cervelos in my training group (courtesy of Craig Gregory aka Cream Puff and Janelle Rennie) that really caught my eye and from that point on if I was ever asked what bike I would pick out as my dream bike my answer has always been a Cervelo.

So when I was offered the opportunity to ride a new Cervelo P3 I was obviously sooooo excited! But then within that excitement I felt a very unexpected and sudden twinge of guilt and hesitancy…  Wellington... what about Wellington?

Craziness! I hear you exclaiming, you’re getting to ride a brand new Cervelo!! Then maybe a question of who is Wellington? Is running through your mind?

Wellington was my trusted 2-wheeled training partner, a 2010 Scott plasma, whom I have spent endless hours with over the last few years. So my question was is it okay for me to just ditch my training partner like that? Followed then by a sudden embarrassed feel of ... It’s just a bike.... I was so excited about the opportunity to ride such an amazing new bike not to mention the chance to get a better set up on it. But it’s true I can't deny it with the hours I have spent with Wellington I felt a bit sad about upgrading and moving on. I have no idea how a jockey goes from one horse to another.

Wellington

I am sure I am not the only one who personifies their bike. I mean its not like we dare talk about it much but we as triathletes do spend a heck of a lot of time alone on the bike and I am sure there are at least a few of you out there (probably more than will willingly admit) that do or have at least gone as far as giving there trusted 2 wheeled training partner a name.... I can think of a few off the top of my head and I reckon you know who you are :)

I have had my black and yellow plasma 10 Scott since the end of 2011. I will be honest it was not my preferred bike with a colour scheme of black and yellow, and me been very much a lover of the colour blue, but it was a very fast/ good bike within my price range, that was my size and since I was in desperate need of a bike to replace my broken Argon, I took it. It didn’t take long for me to warm to her (yes my Scott was a girl) and I decided the colour wasn’t so bad either considering it was the city of Wellington’s colour scheme and would then give me a reason to call her Wellington without revealing to obviously my die hard fan attitude and admiration for Chrissie Wellington which is whom the bike was officially named after.

Wellington was my very first full carbon bike and although we had a few issues to start with in terms of slipping seat posts and set ups I was in absolute heaven riding her. I had no idea as a relatively new rider what an amazing feel it was to ride a carbon bike compared to an alloy frame. I had always scoffed at the carbon bike thinking of it as a fancy but not necessary option, but wow how naive and wrong I was! Considering the hours I was in the near future to spend riding her on our NZ roads which for those non kiwis reading this are not known for there smoothness! I was saved a huge amount of rattling and I was really happy I had made the swap!

Over the next couple years Wellington and I were to become great training partners and ended up traveling all over the world to train and race, and believe me when its just you and your bike and your feeling pretty shattered and isolated and a very long way from home, its kind of nice to feel like your 2 wheeled training partner as more of your companion, with you through thick and thin, through the fast days and the not so fast days, the highs and the lows...fronting up to race day, always ready to roll...

So I had a mixed bag of excitement and unease when the new bike showed up almost like I couldn’t act to excited as I didn’t want to be disrespectful to Wellington, but…. I was to find my feelings of unease to be very quickly forgotten as soon as I rolled out the driveway on the P3 to be exact.

Pre

It officially took one ride around the block, which is literately 400m for me to be sold on the new bike. Wow wow and wow is all I can say! I thought carbon was carbon but this bike was the smoothest ride I have ever ridden and even though my set up was pretty slammed and aero I felt completely comfy right from the first few pedal strokes. No more remorse for the loss of Wellington this bike had everything, it was the right size for me, it was compact and light it had DI2 and Magura Breaks, it was ridged yet smooth… It was like going from driving my Nissan Pulsar to a BMW… come to think of it the only BMW I have ever driven was none other than Craig Gregory’s the famous Cream Puffs as well! Obviously a man of taste.

I am not a technically minded person, for me as a Pilates instructor and athlete its all about how the body feels and moves so I cant rave on about the mechanics of this aspect and that of the bike that I think are amazing and I am not going to pretend that I can. What I am going to say is that this is a top of the line bike with an amazingly smooth ride. Its so much easier to handle on descents and is so much lighter for climbing then my old bike yet its solid enough that you really feel like you can get the power up and slice through the air on the flats. I originally felt no need to get DI2 on a bike but now I have it I am as I presume Andrew is ‘in LOVE’ with my DI2! It has taken changing gears to a new level of smoothness and I find because it’s so easy to do that I am more efficient with my gear changes. It so easy you just press the button!

So all raving aside, I guess I now have to complete my story with the proper introduction of my new Bike, Yes ‘she’ has a name, It was a very long solo coast loop that helped me pick her name. Yes again the new bike has already done 4 coast loops in the 4 weeks I have owned her!  

So training details aside here goes… drum roll please. “I would like to officially introduce ‘Pre’ my new and very cool P3” I don’t expect many of you to know why I have chosen, that name except maybe a few of my American based running friends, and to be honest I don’t care, its personal, but know that it will be of huge inspiration to me as I continue my journey of professional triathlon racing with the company of Pre.