The Biggest Takeaway from Cervélo's New Bike is That They Are Scared of Asian Bike Brands.

One of the most important shifts happening in the cycling world right now is that traditional bike brands are facing a sharp increase in competition they haven't historically faced. The new category of products to blame for the increased competitiveness is all the high quality frames and complete bikes coming from Asian companies.

Over the last few years, we have seen lots of high-end carbon road bikes being sold by Asian companies, and most of them are listed for significantly less than the high-end options from traditional brands.

If I were running a traditional bike brand, I would likely view Asian-based bike manufacturers as the biggest long-term threat to the traditional bike company business model. Cervélo is one of these traditional brands who are the most exposed to Chinese brands undercutting their margin, and they are starting to show some signs that they are in fact nervous about this too.

 Cervélo just released some new road bikes with the start of the Tour this year, and the message that Cervélo is promoting is tailored specifically to create separation between their bikes and the new competition from Asian brands.

Despite the messaging on performance bikes always being focused on things like weight, stiffness, or aerodynamics, Cervélo's messaging with this new release is that apparently it is now easy to make a bike that is fast, in fact any company can do that; what is actually hard is to make a fast bike that rides and handles well too.

I've heard this message being said in a few places. First was on a podcast ad segment where the podcast host interviewed someone from Cervélo, and the first thing that the representative said was this statement basically word for word. I noted this straight away as interesting, because it is contradictory to all the performance-based marketing we normally see. Then, as I was watching a YouTube first look of the bike, the presenter kept on circling back to this same conclusion that fast bikes are easy to make, but the challenge is actually to keep the positive riding characteristics while making a fast bike. At this point, it became more apparent that this message from Cervélo was selected very intentionally, and with one goal in mind.

It is oblivious to me now that the traditional brands no longer have measurable metrics to charge a premium for, they are having to turn to less tangible things like ride characteristics to be able to charge more for their products. What they are attempting to imply with this message is that they are better suited than the Eastern competition to tackle the hard task of developing frames that ride well.

On first thought, this makes sense: they have made some of the best frames in the world for a long time, and surely, they can use this expertise to make the best modern frames in the world. However, upon digging deeper, Cervélo moved their manufacturing to third-party factories in Taiwan well over a decade ago. Therefore, wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that the experts in Asia who have actually been making the products are better suited to the hard task of making the bikes ride well?

To be honest, this messaging from Cervélo kind of rubs me the wrong way. This is mostly because such a strong part of the messaging is putting other products down, implying that these other companies are not as capable as them to make bikes that ride well. In addition to being mildly racist, it’s simply just not true, and I do believe that practically all of the best carbon bikes are already made in Asia, so there are little reasons why Asian brands can’t sell the best bikes too. While It may take some time for the cycling industry to adjust to this change in the landscape, as a consumer, I am excited to have more and more brands offering high performance bikes to choose from. With some luck, this increase in competition will end up with more people riding on high quality bikes and therefore, enjoying the sport more.