While he may have only won a single finish line sprint this year, Cavendish’s new Specialized Venge ViAS at least looked to be in top form. Most every other bike in the pits was the standard Venge, providing Cav the biggest aero advantage to keep him speeding along to the end where his real show would have begun.
He also kept his custom painted green and white bike from races past, and other bikes showed off how the GPS trackers switch from bike to bike and where they hid the Di2 junction boxes…
The new Venge ViAS was introduced with bold claims, offering to subtract a full two minutes from a 40km ride, and even more when paired with new clothing and gear.
FSA’s a team sponsor, hence the stickers on the bar tape, but that’s Specialized’s new Aerofly ViAS handlebar.
2014 World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski rode the standard Venge.
He, like many others in the Tour, had his own way of identifying key spots on the stage. This one was from Stage Two and showed the kilometer marker for the sprint, feed zone, a 90º turn and the finish.
Cav’s prior Venge with custom sprinter’s green was on the rooftop as a backup.
With the FSA team sponsorship, he’s switched from the massive brick of stem from PRO he used to run.
The oversized Vision stem is the same new one spotted on Nacer Bouhanni’s Orbea.
No surprise to see the Specialized Shiv bikes ready for TT action.
If you’ve noticed small dongles protruding from the riders’ saddles this year, those are the GPS trackers used by the race organizers and television crews to show live tracking. When we found this one, we also spotted the team’s hiding spot for their Di2 junction boxes, which put the charging port conveniently close to the internal battery. It’s a clever mounting spot we hadn’t seen before.
