We’ve seen with FSA sponsoring Pro Tour teams over the last couple years, that it was tough to get their wheels, cranks, components, and limited road group offerings in the professional peloton when they couldn’t deliver a complete solution for a whole pro team for their entire season. That was really one of the biggest driving forces in the development of their new K-Force WE semi-wireless groupset introduced last summer. Now that they can provide a complete drivetrain offering for both road and TT, FSA has secured a solid position in the pro ranks where they can exhibit their bars, stems & seatposts, and Vision wheels all around their new K-Force WE road and Metron TT groups. With that settled, FSA is moving into 2017 as a big sponsor of Astana Cycling and is gearing up at the team training camp in Calpe where they are teasing images of the team’s FSA equipped bikes…
The complete groupset being shown on the team’s everyday Argon18 is the K-Force WE, which uses independent wireless shifters and a pair of derailleurs that are wired together with a single battery.
The new bike for 2017 is Argon18’s Gallium Pro, for now with rim brakes, although we previewed the new disc brake version that is actually even lighter, earlier this fall (and which will presumably sport the new K-Force WE Disc group for the return of proper braking to the UCI this coming season).
The team mechanics were setting up bikes for training with as much of the new groupset as possible. As we talked with FSA back in August, they told us not even the pro teams would get full groups before the start of 2017. That seems to be the case, as riders were mostly out riding bikes setup with the FSA cranks, brakes, and cockpits, but still using Dura-Ace Di2 shifting setups until the K-Force WE shifters and derailleurs are out of production in big enough numbers to support a pro team’s needs.
Looking forward the Astana team has two other Argon18 bikes to race in the season: the most recent Nitrogen Pro which will get a K-Force WE group and the E118 (or maybe an E119?) which will be outfitted with aero Vision Metron shifting.
