This/next week’s episode of the Nerd Alert Podcast has dropped a little early. That’s because it’s a timely chat about the new Cervelo R5-CX cyclocross race bike that was just announced.  Our guests for this episode are Cervelo’s director of product management, Maria Benson, and the company’s engineering manager, Scott Roy. Dave Rome fills in as host and chats about all the nerdy details of the new model (such as the new threaded bottom bracket!) that was designed specifically for Marianne Vos and Wout van Aert.  It’s worth a quick note to say that while the regular CyclingTips podcast does occasionally do special sponsored episodes that take a deep dive on new bike releases, this isn’t one of those. Rather we just thought it would be interesting to have a candid chat about the discipline-specific design elements that some of the world’s best racers request.