Javelin Review:

Hello all! I've had a Javelin Aero now for almost a year. I principally use it for riding Time Trials, but I think the bike would be good for triathletes also. Ordinarily, I would make up a list of good and bad points about whatever I review. However, for the Javelin I really have very few complaints or criticisms. Yes, that is me in the picture, riding in the VA state TT.

Description:

The Javelin Aero is a bike (made in the USA ???link) primarily for time trials and triathlons. I first saw this frame at the National TTs a couple of years back (please don't ask how I did, ok?;)). I probably saw from 5-10 Javelins there, and they piqued my interest. My wife even got a chance to speak with the builder while I was riding the course. Anyway the design is somewhat similar to a Lotus or Hotta with a couple of exceptions: 1) The downtube slopes a bit more than either of the two aforementioned frames 2) The frame on the Javelin is... STEEL.

Because the frame is steel, it has stiffness that both the Hotta and Lotus lack. The last I heard, the Hotta frames were made from Nylon composite, and the Lotus from a carbon composite. In particular, I have heard a number of complaints that the Lotus was way too noodly.

The frame has two braze-ons for waterbottles, cables are routed externally but lay almost flush and quite close to the frame. One of the neatest features of the frame is the custom aero seatpost. this seatpost has an extreme aero cross section. It also has 3 seat rail mounting positions for fore and aft adjustment of the seat. This means that you can effectively change the length of the top tube on the bike!. If I had to guess, I would say the adjustment is about 3 inches, maybe more. In fact, I consider this to be one of the principal reasons for purchasing the frame. Depending on your upper or lower leg lengths, you may be more efficient ahead or behind the BB, and multiple seat mounting positions really help in this respect.

I ordered my bike from John Cobb's Cycle Sports (???link). Incidentally, I would highly recommend Cycle Sports - for several reasons:

  1. They gave me a fantastic price on the Javelin.
  2. I called them at least half a dozen times when I was deciding on the frame, and must have driven them crazy - they remained patient throughout the whole affair.
  3. I got to talk to John Cobb personally when configuring the componentry on the frame. When asked to recommend components, he told me frankly whether he thought certain things were over priced, and where my money would be best spent. I gave him several opportunities to sell me fairly expensive stuff. In short this man has a lot of integrity.
  4. John is extremely knowledgeable about what works and what doesn't.
  5. The bike was very carefully packed, and arrived when they said it would. There was very little assembly to be done, and bike needed no adjustments after assembled.

I selected an Ultegra grouppo on my bike with Ultegra bar-con shifters, Syntace bars, Diacomp brakes, HED clincher (!) disk on the rear, Spinergy clincher on the front, Conti tires, Judy BRC aero carbon fork, Ti seat. Total price for all this stuff, sans the Spinergy front and Syntace was around $2K.

How does it ride? Well... my previous TT machine was a converted Cannondale crit bike. In comparison to the cannondale, I would say that the Javelin is almost as stiff in the BB, but infinitely more comfortable, and much less twitchy. The frame is fast... For instance I only competed on it once last year due to an injured quadricep (which I screwed up training for nationals, but that is a long story). I was over a 90 sec. faster (time was in the low 57 minutes for 40 km), and this was with fewer rabbits to chase than in previous years. Some of this was surely due to the rear disk (which was new for me), so it's hard to say exactly how much faster it is. What I can say is that the frame was a lot more comfortable, and I did not feel nearly as fatigued at the end of the 40 km.

There are only a few things to note:

  1. If you have a Park work stand you may have trouble finding a spot to clamp onto the frame because of the strange tube cross-sections. I have a Blackburn stand, and it works fine for me.
  2. Cable routing is somewhat torturous in places. I have teflon lined cable housing for the rear derrailleur. However, the Ultegra shifts wonderfully.
  3. There is no place to put a seat pack. I have yet to find one that fits, due to the weird shape of the seatpost. So if you do any training on the bike, be advised that you need to carry tools, etc. in your pocket.
  4. A fellow Javelin owner (Bill Putt) told me that he got an Aheadset on his frame, which made it difficult to adjust stem heights. Any of you that have a TT bike know that you have to do no end of tweaking on these things before you get the right position.