Sitting outside their completely enclosed team tent were the Parlee Chebacco bikes of Danny Summerhill and teammate Travis Livermon. As part of the Maxxis-Shimano team, their bikes were kitted out with a full Shimano Dura-Ace group except the bottom bracket, and were running a mix of carbon tubulars…some XTR, some prototype. And the big chainring was team issue only.
The cockpit was all PRO components, including saddle. As the name decal suggests, Kogel Bearings is another sponsor.
With Shimano as a title sponsor, they weren’t altering the derailleur with their own ceramic bearing pulleys, but Kogel did outfit the BB30 frames with their adapter-free bottom brackets to fit the 24mm spindle of Shimano’s cranks.
The cranks were outfitted with a special 46-tooth big ring that’s only available to the pros. It’s not a brand new item, though, they’ve been offering it for a while, and you can actually get one in Ultegra level as a stock item. The difference is that this one’s paired with a 39-tooth small chainring, and the stock combo is 46-36, which works quite well for us mortals. Personally, the 39 is closer to the 40 or 42 most 1x setups most people are running for cyclocross. Another observation: SRAM’s crew were taking tallies on the start line and said some categories were as high as ~80% SRAM, and of that it was virtually all 1x groups. Even among the pro bikes, full Shimano-equipped bikes were much rarer. Shimano, please made a proper 1x cyclocross group!
Out back, it appeared to be an 11-32 cassette, which means an Ultegra part since Dura-Ace stops at 28-tooth for the largest cog.
An XTR carbon tubular was on the front of one bike, but the others were prototype carbon tubulars.
According to team mechanics, these are wider, burlier versions of the road tubulars made specifically for wider cyclocross tires and the beating dished out during a race.
The Maxxis Raze is their only tubular cyclocross tire at the moment, which we spotted on their team bikes last year and became official at Eurobike. So, for conditions where other tread patterns are needed, the team blacks out the logo on Clements and runs what’s needed. Check them out at Team-Maxxis-Shimano.com. And huge thanks to Shimano for the nice, warm tent and hot chili!
