Well I don't know if this is my favourite bike, and it's probably the ugliest bike I've ever owned, but it certainly makes me smile more than any other bike I've ever owned.
Since there's very little in the way of time trialling in the UAE, most of my races are relay triathlons (hey, what's the point being crap at 3 sports when one will do quite nicely), and if there's one thing UAE expat triathletes love more than racing, it's being seen racing. Every race is a steady procession of bike porn. I'm afraid to put my bike next to some of the machines in the transition zone in case I scratch them and have to remortgage my house to pay for the damage.
Being notoriously cheap and permanently skint, I couldn't justify such expenditure to the accounts department (and she already has a problem understanding why I would need a 5th bike anyway), so had to resort to ebay to fulfill my time trial bike requirements. The result was this original 2001 Cervelo P3 bought for a mere $450. Prize money paid for the extravagantly expensive wheels, apart from that it's all spare parts except for the forks. My good friends at the VW workshop in Abu Dhabi looked after the respray in return for a box of dates, and the replacement stickers were another $25 from ebay. The result? A very unaerodynamic ear to ear grin and an audible 'kerching' every time this beast overtakes one of its more expensive bretheren. And what's the best sound on the time trial course? Your disc wheel? No, it's the sound of the disc wheels you overtake.
Fugly but fast...form follows function etc. The wheels are sweet. Won with prize money - that must have been some prize list.
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