At the Criterium International this weekend Contador was back aboard the Specialized Shiv, albeit after the bike had a little nose job. You see, recently the bike was banned from UCI competition due to the enlarged nose cone which supposedly violated the UCI’s 3:1 aspect ratio rule. Basically the nose cone made the head tube “too” aero for the UCI.
After being told two days before the final time trial of the Volta ao Algarve in Portugal that he could not ride the bike he had been training on all winter, Contador was forced to ride an S-works Transition that was built for him the night before the race. Untill this weekend, the Shiv had been sheathed and not seen in competition since.
While there are no pictures that I can find so far, keen observers of the Criterium could notice that Contador was back on a Shiv that looked a little less sharp. Apparently, removing the offending nose cone was all that was needed to appease the UCI, for now. I’m assuming Specialized is still working on a new design to re-release the bike, rather than to just ditch the nose cone and be done with it. Overall the lack of the nose cone’s aero advantage didn’t seem to harm Contador as he cruised to a second place finish in the Time Trial, just 2 seconds behind a stellar ride from David Millar. This was also the day after Contador suffered badly from supposed allergies and couldn’t keep the pace that Vinokourov was setting for him causing him to fall off the back of the lead group in the final climb.
See how Contador and Lance stacked up, with final race results after the break!
Final overall
1. Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom, at 7:11:59
2. Michael Rogers (Aus) HTC-Columbia, at 0:014
3. Tiago Machado (Por) Team RadioShack, at 0:15
4. Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Esp) Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 0:19
5. David Millar (Gbr) Garmin-Transitions, at 0:19
6. Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team, at 0:22
7. Christopher Horner (USA) Team RadioShack, at 0:25
8. Maxime Monfort (Bel) HTC-Columbia, at 0:26
9. Ben Hermans (Bel) Team RadioShack, at 0:35
10. Benat Intxausti Elorriaga (Esp) Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 0:39
