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Plenty of lovely, new carbon at Tirreno-Adriatico - as well as one stalwart of the pro peloton
– the Giant TCR, a model that’s been around since the days of Once.
This one’s got a Team Blanco twist for 2013, Dura Ace groupset throughout, the wheels are
Shimano, too. Something special we spotted on Lars Peter Nordhaug’s machine – have
you seen it yet? All will be explained - first here’s team mechanic Tim Dejonghe to talk
us through this lovely bike.
So we’re using the TCR and we also have sprinters working with the Propel. All of
our riders are very happy with the bikes. One of the new features we have is the 11
speed Shimano. The big changes between the 11 and 10 speed they are the cables. The
thinner cables are easier to put through the frames and also don’t have this particular
cable for this particular part. Now you can use any cable that fits your length frame,
so if you want to use short or long cable you can do whatever you want.
It says team prototype on them but what that means from Vittoria if somebody started selling
them to somebody else, they can find it back because they are made for a team, so somebody
from a team is selling our tubes, so that’s why it’s on there. It’s a normal standard
one you can buy in the shops. We have guys who are using 23s, we have guys
who are using 25s, it’s a preference of each rider.
These are the standard Shimano brake blocks we are using. They are very happy with them.
They give us a long time using, even in the rain so they are much better than the old
cork system. He’s using the Pro compact handlebars. More
and more people are starting to use it because you can put your top lower but the bottom
of your handlebars is still high, so that’s why they’re doing it.
We’re using the Shimano C50s or C35s. We even have some guys using the 75s but that’s
mainly the sprinters using those. We have a few frames, XS, S, M, M/L, L and
XL – so six sizes of frames. Our bikes, we just tested them for Paris-Nice
for the time-trial uphill. 6.8kg our bikes were – even for the Propel.
Thanks for the explanation, Tim. Now who was paying close attention? See that little black
box on the chainset. It’s a new powermeter from Pioneer, the catchily named SGY Pm900.
The riders had it just two days when we filmed it.
So far it’s amazing. It’s very accurate, but now I’m trying to figure out more and
more and learn more and more about the program, but so far it works very good. It’s a lot
of function, it’s so much to learn. I can see the power in each crank, where I put my
power in each pedal stroke, where I put my power in each pedal stroke, both right and
left leg, so that will help in the future to develop a good, efficient pedal stroke.
Stay tuned to GCN for more tech news from the pro ranks at Tirreno and all the other
top races this season.