Cervélo resurrects the Soloist as a more affordable, aero all

The Soloist is a legendary Cervélo design and it returns for 2022

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By Warren Rossiter

Published: September 13, 2022 at 8:01 am

The new Cervélo Soloist takes the brand's extensive design knowledge and wraps it up in a package described as an aerodynamic race bike that's easy to live with and fast to ride.

The new Soloist is aimed at amateur racers, and that's reflected in the specifications of the range. The highest-spec Soloist has Ultegra Di2 and the range starts with a mechanical Shimano 105 edition.

Cervélo claims the Soloist is a little lighter than the Cervélo S5 aero bike or the Cervélo R5 flyweight all-rounder, while being significantly cheaper than both of these flagship, WorldTour-level machines.

The Soloist's frame combines Kammtail tube shapes for the seat tube and down tube, with slightly dropped stays at the rear and a dedicated aero seatpost.

Up-front, there's a sculpted head tube that routes brake hoses and cables internally. The absence of complex integration makes maintenance and switching out parts on the Soloist easier than with some of the best road bikes.

A new threaded bottom bracket adds to the idea of the Soloist being a bike for amateur racers rather than pros with a behind-the-scenes mechanic on hand.

It's been 20 years since the original alloy Soloist debuted. Back in 2002, the Soloist was a game-changing frame design.

Rather than being mere approximations, the extruded aluminium tubes were based on true aerofoils derived from the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics).

The Soloist and its success with Team CSC set the standard for aero road bike design. The original Soloist was effectively the genesis of the modern aero road bike – something that's been part of Cervélo's line-up ever since.

The Soloist isn't a competitor for the S5 or R5. Instead, the new bike is intended to sit between the two and hit a lower price point. In Cervélo's words, the new Soloist is for "the week-in, week-out amateur racer".

The new S5 may be a whole lot easier to live with than the previous generation, but it still has a complex one-piece cockpit that makes travelling with the bike a bit more involved.

On the Soloist, you still get hidden cable routing under the stem and through the bearing cap on the head tube, but the cables and hoses don't go through your stem.

This means packing the bike into a bike bag doesn't require splitting hoses, bleeding brakes and all those things a mechanic would take care of for a professional rider.

In a further bid for simplicity, Cervélo has opted to use its BBright-47 bottom bracket, which debuted on the brand's R5-CX cyclocross race bike.

The new BBright-47 is a continuation of Cervélo's long-standing asymmetric press-fit design that debuted on its Project California R5Ca back in 2010.

The asymmetry remains, but the interface now mirrors the increasingly popular T47 thread bottom bracket standard.

This means an inboard cup on the left-hand side and an outboard cup on the right. It's a similar solution to what Factor has introduced on its latest-generation Ostro VAM.

Cervélo claims this bottom-bracket design helps ensure optimal chain line and drivetrain efficiencies, yet with the ease of servicing and replacement that comes with a threaded bottom shell.

The Soloist is designed to bring versatility to the table. The frameset has clearance for up to 34mm tyres, which is large for an aero road bike.

While the new R5 can also fit 34mm tyres, we wouldn't be surprised to see some of Cervélo's pro riders opt for the Soloist in the Spring Classics.

The geometry of the Soloist mirrors the S5, so expect the Soloist to handle as well as the nimble R5 when the roads start to get twisty.

For a premium brand such as Cervélo, we’d have expected a range of bikes fitted with top-shelf kit, like the £12,999 Cervélo S5 Red AXS.

However, the Soloist range tops out with a bike equipped with Shimano Ultegra R8170 Di2 and starts with mechanical Shimano 105.

There are also builds available with Shimano 105 Di2, SRAM Rival AXS eTap and SRAM Force AXS eTap.

If you want to build your own Soloist, the frameset is available separately in each colourway: Alpenglow (white), Embers (black) and Gold Dust (metal flake gold metallic).

Senior technical editor

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine's senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He's also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar's YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren's daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).

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