Cervélo Caledonia-5

One bike for everything. The cobbles of Roubaix, the white gravel of the Strade or the moderately paved roads in the Ardennes. A jack-of-all-trades, all-rounder, or perhaps generalist after all. The Cervélo Caledonia-5 promises to do it all. Ideal for long days, on which you may also encounter a lesser road, cobblestones or a gravel path. But also fast. Does this all-rounder deliver on its promise?

The previous version of the Caledonia-5 we saw at Visma | Lease a bike is still at Paris-Roubaix. Not surprisingly, because despite being a comfortable racer, it is still fast. As Cervélo itself says: All our bikes are aero bikes. Not much has changed on this beautiful bike: looking at the geometry, it's almost an endurance racer but it still looks aerodynamic too. The biggest change is the storage compartment in the down tube where you can store your tools and inner tube. This is easily reached by folding up the bottle cage. So no crammed rear pockets on this bike. 

Luxury thoroughbred

As often, the tester gets a more expensive model under his or her butt. That is the case with this one too. The Caledonia-5 differs from the Caledonia with a lighter and stiffer frame and versions with Force, Red, Ultegra and DuraAce. It is further equipped with parts from its own factory. A D-shaped seatpost that is reasonably flexible, a carbon integrated handlebar with aluminium stem under which the cables are neatly hidden. You can easily adjust the height of these without having to do anything to the cables. I do find the handlebars very wide, 42cm where I normally ride with a 38cm. I am happy to see a separate stem though, this way you have more flexibility in adjusting your bike and you don't have to replace a whole cockpit straight away. The Carbon wheels are from Reserve, with a 42mm high front wheel and 49mm high rear wheel. The metallic red colour makes this bike a real eye-catcher. I do love an eye-catching colour! 

On the Veluwe

I test the Cervélo on the Veluwe, where you can easily take in a small hill or strip of gravel in the Kroondomeinen. The bike is also put through its paces at club training sessions. And the bike actually delivers on its promises. The bike is stiff, which translates your power into speed. The frame is also very stiff around the bottom bracket, without compromising comfort. If you want to turn on speed for a sprint, the Caledonia-5 handles this well too. Yet the bike still feels comfortable, and especially on gravel or bad asphalt, this racer offers a lot more comfort than a thoroughbred aero machine.

Longer wheelbase

The somewhat longer wheelbase (over a metre in this size 56) makes the bike feel controlled and the handling easy to predict. This is also probably due to the 30mm wide tyres the bike is fitted with as standard. Incidentally, there is room for tyres up to 36mm. In really sharp fast corners, I do miss some punch in that sense, but this is just what you want to get out of a bike. 

This Caledonia-5 breathes whole days in the saddle, possibly at high speed in a group and comes into its own when let out on the less trodden trails. So does this bike have no drawbacks? The version we are riding, fitted with SRAM Force costs a hefty €7499 for me anyway. Of course, it is Cervélo a premium brand with a very complete equipment including a powermeter so you buy an excellently equipped, complete bike that you don't need to do anything more to. The geometry is comfortable for many cyclists without compromising much speed. All in all, a versatile bike that you can go either way and one that I would definitely recommend as an all-round race monster.