Introduced earlier today via live video from Rotterdam, the Scott F01 will be the bicycle of choice for Mark Cavendish, Bernard Eisel and a few other lucky HTC-Columbia riders in this year’s Tour de France.
Now, finally, we’ve got some good hi-res photos to show you.
The Project F01 bike’s goal was to take the lightweight and stiffness of the Scott Addict, the one that Cav’s been racing on, and make it more aero like their forthcoming Plasma 3 TT/triathlon bike that debuted at last year’s Tour.
The result is an 840g road bike that claims to be one of the most aerodynamic frames on the road. Tested in the Mercedes Benz Gran Prix wind tunnel, the tube shapes use an aero leading edge with a virtually flat trailing edge. Scott graphed this design as reducing drag of the rider plus bike by 20 watts at 45 kph (28mph) between a 0º and 20º crosswind, which translates to 20% to 30% less drag than conventional tubes.
Scott says 20% of the rider’s power output is typically lost to drag from the bike’s frame, and that 20 watts saved on the bike equals a 4% to 5% (power, presumably) gain on flat ground. Drag2Zero assisted with the aerodynamic studies.
Frame weight alone is 840g. Frame with fork, seatpost and clamp is 1277g, which is only 5% heavier than the Addict road bike.
It also measures stiffer at the bottom bracket and rear hub than the Addict and bikes from other major manufacturers that you’ll see racing at the Tour. The one area it wasn’t on top, but was still pretty high up and above 60% of the other five bikes they tested, was in headtube torsional stiffness.
The front triangle is made using Scott’s IMP (Integrated Molding Process) tech, which they say saved about 13% in weight versus tube-to-tube construction.
So far, there’s no word on availability or pricing for consumers.
