TOUR TECH: The Bikes

Pez Eyes are rolling all round the Tour pits, and we spy a wee look at the dream machines that these guys get for free! All they had to do was be one of the best couple guys on the best teams in the world…

Mr. Fab-ulous Cancellara started with Pinarello’s spaceship Montello… Mavic 5 spoke fronts and Deda head stock steered him to Yellow (his legs had something to do with it too…)

Next up rolled Lance and the rest of the Discovery Postal Berrys. The team prize for day 1 came with Head 3 spokes and what are Bontrager (Zipp like) rears. Lance might have been rolling on a set of the Z series ceramic bearing dimpled rear.

They’re missing David Millar (plus a team doc and several other riders…) But Cofidis still got a Tour start on their Decathlon machines…

You know you’re a pro when you get a mega bike spec’d for warm –up work. In this case it’s Credit Agricole’s sweet Look 486.

We’ll get you more gear pics, but the Cricket chirped his way into the Polka Dots on FSA’s light weight team edition cranks. Note too the new Mavic Carbons, complete in standard “subtle” Mavic advertising…

We bet these don’t weigh seventeen and a half pounds like out test bike did, Cannondale’s legal Six13.

Good to be a God, It’s also an easy way to tell the stars from the water carriers by the spare bike layout. This one should be Oscar Sevilla’s BMC complete with the megabuck super-bearing version of Zipp’s 303 wheels shown with the stealth sticker color ( and costing a couple times more than the standard sweet 303’s with red labels).

You can see the red labels again on CSC’s upgrade Cervelo 2.5 frame.

Something to note in the pictures are that you will see very few light weight saddles or Carbon stems at the Tour (although the pictures above have a couple). Those are areas where the pro’s simply don’t need to show off to the other folks they ride with by having the lightest thing rather than the best thing.

While we at PEZ are hard pressed to say something positive about the UCI most of the time, we do like the minimum weight rule. If they leave it in place, it won’t be long before you’ll have a 15 pound bike that is perfectly suitable for riders over 140 lbs. Of course, we are just getting to the point where the rule will do some good, which is probably why they are rumored to be contemplating removing it…

More to come.

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