The Cervélo S5 sliced out a distinctive place in the pro peloton, as an early adopter of the #AeroIsEverything aero road bike movement. But the sleek, long-running S5 was in need of an update. So with the relaxation of the UCI 3:1 rule, Cervelo jumped at the chance to re-engineer an all-new faster, fully-integrated but still adjustable, disc brake only aero road bike – the new 2019 Cervélo S5….
2019 Cervélo S5 fully integrated, disc-brake aero road bike
Alongside introducing the newer, faster S5 aero road bike, Cervelo has also announced that staring in 2019 the successful Sunweb pro men’s & women’s team will start racing the new bikes.
The new Cervélo S5 is More Aero
Of course the new S5 is more aero. That has been the dominant driver of this bike’s development for about a decade. With the recent relaxation of the UCI 3:1 rule, Cervelo says they opened up a lot of room to adapt the new fork & seatstay designs where they could benefit from going deeper up to 8cm, while slimming down widths to just 1cm.
Cervelo now calls the new S5 the “World’s Undisputable Fastest Bike!” The redesign of their flagship aero road bike focused mostly on the leading edge of the bike in the wind, looking at the handlebar down to the fork & downtube.
Cervelo put a lot of the lessons they developed on their P5 TT bike into redeveloping an external steerer fork and the uniquely open & upright looking stem + bar design. The result is a claim of 45g of drag reduction for a savings of 5W vs. the previous generation of the S5. That’s not as much as the 21W saved in the last redesign of the S5, but Cervelo says we are getting closer to Peak Aero, and the gains – although real – are becoming more incremental even with the benefit of dropping rim brakes out of the equation.
A lot of the aero optimization development actually started with refining clean internal routing that was still usable. Cervelo focused hard on keeping mechanics from pulling out their hair working on the new bike, so it even gets easy access, internal routing in that new bar and stem design that is mechanical shifting friendly.
The new Cervélo S5 is Stiffer
While the new S3 is 25% stiffer at the bottom bracket & 13% stiffer torsionally from the front to rear wheels, Cervelo says it is a more balanced overall stiffness profile that actually improves the new bike’s performance. Not only trying to just build a stiffer bike, they focused on a more balanced approach, so the front & rear wheels would track in plane with each other while pedal input translated through the chainstays to the rear wheel. When the top pro sprinters make that final dash to the line, they need to could rely on the bike tracking straight through corners and translating every ounce of power into forward motion.
2019 Cervélo S5 – Geometry
The new S5 retains much of the same pro World Tour proven road racing geometry as its predecessor. But there are some refinements. Essentially the angles remain the same for the 56cm frame which the design team admits was where they had put most of their development focus in the past.
But now the smaller sizes get much improved geometry that actually adapts more to ensure the same fork trail figures, lending a consistent handling quality across all sizes. That’s a big step up for shorter riders who in the past had sacrificed a bit of stable handling at speed to get a comfortable fit. Part of that also means that smaller frame sizes also get more bottom bracket drop, again to provide a more balanced feel to the handling no matter the rider size.
Interestingly, while smaller sizes improve, Cervelo cut out the largest size of the previous model. The new 2019 Cervélo S5 is available in five stock sizes, from 48-58cm.
2019 Cervélo S5 – Tech Details
In the details the new S5 gets growing industry standards like 12mm thru-axles with aero quick release levers, flat mount disc brakes, and clearance for 28mm tires. The bike also includes an integrated computer mount, a lower bottle position for improved aerodynamics when using a single bottle, and a hidden wedge seatpost clamp in the toptube.
Cervelo specifically chose not to go with a one-piece bar & stem concept to carry over their philosophy of dialing in fits for all riders.
Instead the new integrated, but separate carbon bar and stem include 6 stem length options, 4 handlebar widths, 30mm of possible spacers under the stem, another 2.5mm spacer possible between the stem & bar, and the ability to adjust the bar angel to one of three rotation positions – 0°, 2.5°, or 5°.
2019 Cervélo S5 – Pricing & Availability
The new 2019 Cervelo S5 is available in four complete bike builds, as well as a stand alone frameset option. The $5500 frameset includes the full carbon frame and integrated fork, plus the proprietary aero seatpost, and the integrated two-piece aero bar & stem.
Looking at complete bike builds, a mechanical shift Ultegra Disc build is the most affordable option at just $6500 with a 32mm deep alloy DT Swiss P-series wheelset.
Stepping up to a $9000 build gets a Ultegra Di2 electronic shift groupsets and 35mm deep carbon DT Swiss PRC 1450 wheels.
Halo complete bike builds include an $11,500 Shimano Dura Ace Di2 Disc bike that also gets Enve SES Disc 5.6 aero carbon wheels.
Or you can opt for a wireless electronic SRAM Red eTap HRD Disc build for $12,000 with 48mm deep DT Swiss ARC 1450 aero carbon wheels.
All of the builds include aero benchmark 25mm Continental GP4000 S II tires not yet taking advantage of the lower rolling resistance of tubeless ready wheels on each bike.
If you are looking for rim brakes, Cervelo has you covered there with the new S3, available with either rim or disc brakes, and at a lower price point than this new S5.
