Cervelo T4 Frameset

Cervelo T4 Frameset Info

The Cervélo T4 Frameset should be familiar for a few reasons. First, is that it was ridden to a gold medal at the Omnium in the 2012 London Olympics. Second, it's bears a striking resemblance to the P4 time trial frameset.
 
That tie to the carbon-fiber P4 is important. While Cervélo discontinued it on the road, they improved it and moved it to the track. It's the most aero track bike on the oval, with a fork crown that nestles into a notch between the head and down tubes, a dropped down tube that changes shape as it descends to the bottom bracket to better work with the aero needs of the bike—high up, it hides behind the narrow head tube and smoothes out the trailing edge off the front wheel, down low it is the leading edge that shields the bottom bracket juncture and the stays. They call it TrueAero. You'll also notice that where the integrated water bottle once sat, there is now a joint that smoothes the flow between the down and seat tubes. The rear wheel cutout is deep and continues a smooth shape past the flattened seat stays to a point behind the seat tube. Here, too, they're shielding the wheel and smoothing out the flow that rushes past the seat tube.
 
Topping the T4 off is the carbon-fiber Cervélo Aero UCI seat post, which as the name suggests, is UCI-compliant. The post has 75mm of smooth fore-aft travel, so whether you like to sit aggressively forward or extremely laid-back, you can find that position.
 
This frame can be used for mass-start and timed events. The rear wheel, thanks to smart carbon-fiber shaping and a lower bottom bracket drop, is even closer to the bottom bracket than on the T1. This means great stiffness for accelerations and great stability for those times when you're riding cross-eyed.
 
Cervélo has long desired a better sizing system that can better accommodate the variety of body types without resorting to overly short or long stems. If you're a Cervélo rider, your current Cervélo size should work great on the track. If not, pay attention to the stack and reach dimensions when sizing yourself up on the T4; you might just well find a frame size that works better.
 
The frameset has the English bottom bracket standard for convenience. The SRAM Omnium crank is possibly the only standard track component that doesn't work with this frame (carbon-fiber gets in the way of the arms). An internal FSA headset is installed.
 
The Cervélo T4 is a slippery bike that can save you precious meters in a discipline where hundreths of a second make the difference between victory and nothing.