Lotto Soudal had the full collection of Ridley road bikes present, starting with this race-ready Helium SL and joined by their aero and endurance bikes, too. All three had fresh blue paint with the team colors turned into abstract art along the insides of the fork legs and chainstays, and along the top tubes. Check ’em out along with bikes from three other teams, below…
The Noah SL is Ridley’s quasi-aero bike, with the Noah Aero getting all the wind cheating bells and whistles. But, this one’s lighter and simpler while maintaining most of the advantages. On the far right is the Fenix SL, the top version of their endurance/fondo bike.
Timing chips were fastened to all the bikes…sometimes on the fork, sometimes on the chainstay.
What do you do when your bike is below the UCI minimum weight? Stick some weights on, of course. Fortunately, that limit is on the governing body’s roadmap of things to change soon.
Astana rolled out with their usual Specialized Tarmacs, but one rider was using some full carbon wheels…
It’s not too often you see carbon spokes in the pro peloton, but Estonian rider Tanel Kangert was rockin’ them.
Ag2R was the test team for SRAM eTAP, and they continue to use it.
We just featured the Etixx Quick-Step bike of De La Cruz (#82) from the Tour Down Under, but noticed some non-sponsor spec on one of these…along with a wide variance in stem spacer heights between bikes. Note the lengthy seatpost extension for #88 (Stijn Vandenbergh) and long stem with plenty of spacers, compared to the almost slammed stem of #83 (Marcel Kittel)
FSA’s a team sponsor, but somebody likes the ultra stiff Zipp SL Sprint stem enough to hide the logo with electrical tape.
Other gear includes a K-Edge chainkeeper and Specialized’s Allround tubulars. We spotted a team-only one on De La Cruz’s bike in 26mm, which they could have been testing here, too, since most of the tires were missing the consumer hot patch. Currently, a 24mm width is what’s for sale.
