Nat Bromhead
Scan our website and social pages and you’ll quickly see we are smack-bang in the middle of new release season. 2021 bikes are dropping thick and fast with the vast majority being upgrades (and lighter weight incarnations) of familiar model lines.
Cervelo have been in on the party, recently announcing updated colourway and groupset options for their premium S5 and R-series road bikes. Today the Canadian innovators went one better with the surprise announcement of a versatile new road model.
Described in launch notes as “not fitting a box”, Cervelo say their new Caledonia was conceived on the research & design team’s “Thursday night rides—routes that often play fast and loose with the term road ride.”
“As we tried to stuff bigger tires into our R5s and streamline our Asperos, a new kind of bike was born,” Cervelo say.
“Caledonia is a bike for the way riders ride. It’s not a Grand Tour bike, where the skinniest of chubby tires rub the stays, and it’s not a gravel bike butting up against an 1989 MB-1.
“It’s a bike for the rides that kick off at the café, hammer up thoroughfares to get out of town, wind through chip-seal backroads, take that cutty dirt road that links up to the base of the mountain, and then scream downhill back toward home. Caledonia doesn’t fit in a box nicely, and we like it that way. It was conceived on our Thursday night rides—routes that often play fast and loose with ‘road ride.’ As we tried to stuff bigger tires into our R5s and streamline our Asperos, a new kind of bike was born.”
Bicycling Australia have not yet ridden the Caledonia but it’s fair to say we are chomping at the bit to do so. From first impressions the platform looks to be an extremely versatile all-rounder, a bike equally at home on smooth, black top bitumen as it would be on light gravel country roads.
Aero optimised, the build screams ‘less is more’ and looks to be an ideal endurance machine and solid choice for Gran Fondo riders. Overall weights are not currently available however the Caledonia 5 frame is listed as 935gr and the Caledonia 1031gr.
The Caledonia will be available in a base model and the top end ‘Caledonia 5’. Pricing will range from the Shimano 105 disc equipped Caledonia for $4,000 through to Dura Ace Di2 Caledonia 5 listed at $15,000. Other models include the Caledonia 5 SRAM Force E-tap for $10,500 and Caledonia Ultegra Di2 for $6,900. Caledonia and Caledonia 5 framesets will also be available.
The full range and specifications can be found at www.cervelo.com
