The Bikes For The Cobbles | Tour De France 2014

Stage 5 of the 2014 Tour de France covers some savage sections of pavé and cobbles, meaning that the pros will need some specific kit. This is what they’re using.
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We took a very close look at three of the bikes used in this stage, including spending some time of the Trek Domane ourselves before it was pressed back in to use as a spare bike by the Trek Factory Racing Team.

The Cervelo R3 Mud is a bespoke bike used by the Garmin SHARP team, and Sebastian Langevelde’s bike is one of the most tuned and tailored in the race, including an entire groupset chosen for it’s performance on the cobbles.

Finally in contrast, the Specialized Roubaix used by the Astana team looks almost retro with the alloy rims. If they use them on race day, they may be the only team riding them.

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stage five of the tour this year hits the cobbles of northern france and this brings with it a really specific demand on the equipment the riders use one look at matt here riding a section of pave shows that this is terrain that pushes road bikes to their limit although there is 140 kilometers of smooth tarmac the bikes have to withstand 15 kilometers of brutally rough cobbles so what will the teams be changing and why now this is garmin sharps bike for the cobbles this is the cevello r3 mud now the head mechanic has told us they’re keeping it exactly the same as they would for power bay they’ve clearly done their homework too they know that it’s going to be a seriously seriously tough stage so this is sebastian langeveld’s bike and it’s exactly what we rode back in april trek factory racing kindly lent us one of their spare bikes for our own cobbles recon the demanite was designed almost specifically for this terrain also sharing slightly longer geometry like the cevallo to add stability trek differs from its competition though with the addition of the iso speed decoupler the junction of the seat stays and the top tube which adds a bit of extra cushioning and even helping with traction in a small way now for just about every other race of the season langeveld will use shimano’s di2 but the team said that for the the demands of the cobbles he uses mechanical so what that means essentially is that it’s a little bit less sensitive to fingertips the i2 you don’t have to move your fingers hardly at all to change gear and that’s not necessarily a good thing of the cobbles as your fingers vibrate and potentially end up in a gear that you don’t want to be in so for this one stage he uses mechanical duration other changes they’ve made are the wheels these are mavic specific cosmics for paru bay so they’re a little bit thicker a bit wider to accommodate the thicker tubs because that’s because the teams run massively thick tires for that stage because the cobs are so rough they run thick tires to give them more traction better puncture resistance and then also more grip so they’re actually running 27 mil tubs whereas they normally run either 23s or possibly 25 the trek factory racing team will be running 27s as well and with this shot you can clearly see why matt is using 23s on the left and 27s on the right look closely and you can see that exactly the same pressure the 23 compresses all the way to the rim over each cobble this is when pinch punches occur so you can really see the advantages of the 27 although they don’t eliminate impact punctures they do reduce the risk significantly he’ll also change one other thing on his gears and that’s down at the chain rings normally he’ll run 39-53 as well just about every other rider in the peloton but again because roubaix is so flat there’s no climb so who doesn’t need 39 so what they do is they put a 44 in a ring on which gives them something to push against on the cobbles and they can actually use that chain ring whereas if it was a 39 they would never touch it for the whole stage this is the bike of one of the big gc favorites vincenzo kneebly now it’s a really interesting looking machine because it’s a mix of very cutting edge technology and also very very retro so it’s got the specialized ruby frame now crucially for vincenzo this is going to feel exactly the same as this tarmac the top tube is the same length the handlebar is the same distance away but the bike itself is two centimeters longer that’s because he’s got longer chainstays and longer trail at the front the chainstays are going to be helping accommodate the massive tires he’s got on so he’s running 27s now we talked about the wheels but this is quite a talking point there’s not many guys going to be running aluminium rims in the tour de france but i suspect astana are probably the only team doing it these are really retro ambrosian nemesis we’ve not seen them for quite some time on the cobbles of rupe now with the exception of the frame this looks very much like a bike that’s been put together by a team that doesn’t spend much time on the cobbles now this specialist kit is all well and good but the dangers of cobbles are for many actually less than the roads that precede them that’s because all the riders know that it’s important to be at the front of the bunch for pave and unfortunately for these dangers there’s no tech at all to help