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TDF2015 Tech: Team Sky’s Pinarellos, and the winner is…

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Team Sky proved to not just have the best support cars, but also the best rider. Fending off plenty of attacks and surviving the final stage rolling champagne party, Chris Froome took home the yellow jersey with an overall win of the 2015 Tour de France.

Check out the team’s Pinarello bikes below…

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Froome and double Gold Medalist Geraint Thomas’ bikes were kept on the outside edge of the team cars, putting them in quick reach. The second car behind it had duplicates so no matter which one was where, they were ready.

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Froome’s bikes were running some “unofficial” chainrings…

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The wild looking Osymmetric rings had their logos taped off with varying degrees of success, but the shape would give them away regardless. If there were any doubt remaining about the benefits of non-round chainrings, here’s a pretty good nail in the coffin.

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Fellow teammate Peter Kennaugh had a special paint scheme to celebrate the fact that he’s British national road race champ.

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The water bottles were marked with their names for sports drink, with code for what was in them. Bottles with plain water had blue bite valves.

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The Pinarello Bolide carried the riders through the time trial stages.

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The bikes were outfitted with the Textreme PRO carbon tubular wheels. The team originally helped test the wheels during development and had first dibs on them last year.

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The cockpits had a wide range of bar shapes and extension angles and spacers.

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Richie Porte’s Bolide was custom painted to celebrate his winning the Australian national championship for road race and individual time trial.

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Congratulations to Chris Froome on his second Tour de France win!

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Penny
Penny
9 years ago

The white F8 is smoking hot. Wiggins team bikes are as well.

Keris
Keris
9 years ago

“If there were any doubt remaining about the benefits of non-round chainrings, here’s a pretty good nail in the coffin.” Sample size =1 does not proof make.

Penny
Penny
9 years ago

That’s 2nd win on osym rings and wiggns’ makes 3. And Cobo won la Vuelta on Q-rings.

So…

Forest
9 years ago

The plural of anecdote isn’t evidence.

goridebikes
goridebikes
9 years ago

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3990898/
Oval rings, statistically insignificant 3-6% power increase in short sprints only.
Surely that is why Froome won TdF.

Great journalism. Confronting science with anecdotal conjecture and fanboyism!!

goridebikes
goridebikes
9 years ago

In case the above is unclear… Oval chainrings are bunk. They do nothing. The claimed increase in power was statistically insignificant and therefore not CAUSAL. OVAL CHAINRINGS DO NOTHING. Besides make even Di2 shift poorly…

muf
muf
9 years ago

they might do nothing they certainly dont seem to do anything wrong either (unlike some older iterations?)

never tried the osimetrics, but the qring and similar ones feel pretty good to pedal specially at lower cadences, no knee pain ftw (which for me is also important)

Penny
Penny
9 years ago

Don’t listen to the nay sayers I bet $5000 cold cash they have no real idea. I have done extensive testing with a power meter and qxl and original q-rings vs sram red rings and they make a difference after adaptation. (deleted)

nik H
nik H
9 years ago

I’ve done about 30,000kms on Rotors. My legs certainly feel fresher on/after longer rides

matt
matt
9 years ago

Porte is only the TT champ. Heinrich Hausler is the Road Race national champ.

WK
WK
9 years ago

Imagine Oval ring as a hybrid. A combination of small ring and big ring.

When your foot or crank arm at 3o’clock and powering down.
Where is the chain? Its at 12 o’clock.
(Simple physics, using length as leverage or by force vectors.)

It would be as if you are on a bigger chain ring… Makes sense?

Then transition to a smaller ring (smaller radius of oval section) = lower gear ratio, faster spin or sudden increase of angular speed.
(Similar to car engine RPM when shift to lower gear)

1. This helps to ease the burden on “smaller” muscles on the leg.
2. And also speeds up the cycle and setup for quad muscles to push the strongest.

New Shimano crank now has four point to hold the ring where it is most stressful or effective. Top half for right leg and bottom half for left leg.

Same concept applies to oval rings…

***Only drawback is => setting up the FD and shifting is a b*tch.. LOL
***(deleted)..

charango
charango
9 years ago

Is that a normal Osymetric, on Froome’s bike, or something custom? I haven’t seen a lot of these in the wild, but the rings on Froome’s bike look particularly oddly shaped (not just an oval), as if it is customized based on his pedal stroke… Anybody know?

craigsj
craigsj
9 years ago

Yes, “plural of anecdote isn’t evidence” but this isn’t even an anecdote. One could just as easily claim that the margin of victory would have been greater had the rider used round rings. All we know is that the rings did not prevent the win.

“I have done extensive testing with a power meter…”

Non-round rings violate assumptions that are made in power meters causing them to read high.

Non-round rings are a placebo, people read into them what they want. The problem with them is they lower the maximum cadence for a given tooth count. Most of these rings are sufficiently mild that the rider doesn’t notice anyway. Sure they feel smooth, they don’t do anything. Try riding a 20 or 30 percent oval, which I have, and they tell us how smooth they feel.

I rode rotor rings for years on both road and MTB. They are costly, hard to set up, shift crappy, and don’t help with performance. They’re a current fad, though.

Joe P
Joe P
9 years ago

SO does oval pizza taste better?

Padrote
Padrote
9 years ago

they should start making oval shaped campagnolo seat posts. imagine the horsepower gains.

Myles
Myles
9 years ago

Joe.p you are correct, depending on the ovalization, pizza will taste 4-12% better .
It’s scientifically proven by science.

muf
muf
9 years ago

osimetrics are not perfect ovals. some say its not that good compared to qring/absoluteblack “actually ovals” ring. Dont know though.

Ko
Ko
9 years ago

Is Sky team use Continental tyres ?

Antoine
Antoine
9 years ago

Osymetric are kind of cams in a petrol engine. The leverage is evolving under a predifined law and does not try to be oval or whatever geometric form.
Froome is usng regular osymetric.
Given how complicated it must be to make shimano swallow the fact froome don’t use their rings and given all the tech Sky can get i’m pretty sure he use those rings for a good reason.

PS: i use doval rings which are mostly osymetric with a good shifting at a decent price and ‘im very happy with those.

Craig
Craig
9 years ago

Here is something to consider as to why non-round rings work well for many riders. A cyclist is not actually pedalling in circles, we pedal in an oval motion. Here’s why. The the top of the pedal stroke our “total effective distance above the BB centre” is crank length + pedal stack height. (eg> 170mm + 17mm = 187mm). At the bottom of the pedal stroke this distance is crank length minus pedal stack height (eg. 170 – 17mm = 163mm). At the 3o’clock and 9o’clock positions, when the pedal stroke is nominally in a vertical motion, the pedal stack height does add or subtract any distance to the total length from crank centre.

Various off-set pedal axle systems over the years have aimed to eliminate this issue from the pedal stroke. Non have really succeeded as it either requires a proprietary crankset or the pedal bearings need to be placed in a way that increases Q-factor substantially.

Sooo….non-round rings attempt to deal with many factors, the transitioning of muscle group activation throughout the pedal stroke, the affect of gravity on the pedal stroke, and the fact that we don’t actually pedal in circles.

Anyone who says non-round rings do not provide any benefit for anyone is either misinformed or uneducated as to the technical details surrounding the biomechanics of a cyclist. Do like them, don’t use them, but the reality of that for some riders the benefit is enough to be worth dealing with the poor front shifting…

opl-oi
opl-oi
9 years ago

“Anyone who says non-round rings do not provide any benefit for anyone is either misinformed or uneducated as to the technical details surrounding the biomechanics of a cyclist.”

The opposite is true and your “explanations” are proof that you are “either misinformed or uneducated”, craig.

Why measure only to the pedal stack height, craig, why not measure say to the top of the arch or even the top of the foot? It would drive home your point even more. The fact is that the pedal spindle travels in a perfect circle by definition. The pedal stack above it may well travel in a perfect circle as well, just not centered on the BB. One thing’s for sure, craig, it doesn’t travel in an oval path nor could an oval ring hope to counteract any perceived problem that arises from such an issue.

Jake
Jake
9 years ago

Has anyone tried the funky oval chainrings with a single ring set up? like for MTB or cross?

schmiken
schmiken
9 years ago

Yep, works perfectly.

Pillz
Pillz
9 years ago

Uh oh, it’s anti-oval troll season! No mention of Biopace this time?

craigsj – I love how you state your opinions as facts.

“Non-round rings violate assumptions that are made in power meters causing them to read high.”

OK buddy, that’s why Quarq’s firmware has a rings table that allows you to assign the proper slope depending on ring changes. QXL and normal q-rings are available in the firmware and that change should be made when you change rings. These are facts Craig.

goridebikes
goridebikes
9 years ago

Pillz… your “facts” are support for exactly what he is saying.
UNLESS YOU ADJUST YOUR POWERMETER IT WILL READ INCORRECTLY with Oval rings.

Given that most people using powermeters are unaware and unable to simply press the calibrate button on their garmin, I can’t imagine the success rate of reprogramming the slope to be particularly high..

Michael Rycroft
Michael Rycroft
9 years ago

Some people get really aggressive and self righteous with their comments. At the end of the day you like what you like, not everyone is the same. It’s just good to have the choice.

FWIW, I rode Osymetrics for a couple of seasons and liked them. I felt that they helped me climb better as I had a higher cadence with them. I ultimately switched to QXLs though as the Osymetrics really are a pain to set up correctly. QXLs are very easy to set up. I really like riding QXLs and have them on my TT bike also. They’re certainly not for everyone but I don’t get all hot under the collar about it like some others on this thread.

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