- It's the morning of the first stage
of the 2017 Giro d'Italia.
We're going to check out some tech here, at the start,
and there has also been a bunch of very cool tech
in the run up to the race.
Let's go and have a look.
(smooth jazz music)
Okay, so here's another very, very cool spot.
Back at the Dubai Tour in February 2017
Dan spotted a Cervelo bike underneath a hidden paint job,
and this looks like the next step.
This looks very close to a finished production model.
It's called the Cervelo R Series, as far as we can tell.
Still awaiting confirmation on the definite name of that.
I think, actually, my favorite detail on this bike
is the shape of the seat post
and the way the seat post bolt clamp
is just so neatly integrated into the frame.
That's very, very slick, very cool.
Don't focus on my neck, it's really burnt.
(smooth jazz music)
We are clearly at the FDJ Team and
on the roof of, I think Team Car Two,
they have got a spare bike for one of the riders,
Sebastien Reichenbach and
that spare bike looks to me very much like it is
a brand new Lapierre model, as yet unseen,
but signed off by the UCI because all bikes
used in UCI races have to be signed off by the UCI.
I think it's the Lapierre Aircode Two.
It's got silver head tube decals,
which makes it different from the other ones.
There we go.
Brand new tech, here at the Giro.
Right, so we have just bumped into the guys from Fizik
and every year at the Giro they try to bring
something special and something custom out
for their shoe-sponsored riders.
This year is no different.
This is the Fizik R1B Climb edition.
It's inspired by the hills
of the penultimate stage of the Giro.
This big one here, that's Monte Grappa.
This one here is Asiago and they're really special to Fizik
because this is where they themselves test their products
and love to ride.
They've got guys like Rohan Dennis and Geraint Thomas
using these shoes.
So the penultimate stage could well be
where the race is decided and could well be
where either one of those guys power on
to one of their very first Grand Tour podiums
or Grand Tour victories even.
I think they're nice.
Very, very cool.
Chances are that you can't miss the Guerciotti bikes
of the CCC Sprandi Polkowice team in the dark.
Those are nice, but very bright.
I grew up watching the Tour de France in the late '90s
and early 2000s and you may well disagree with me.
But I think that anything with the Cipollini name on it
is pretty damn cool.
Bianchi, the bike sponsor of LottoNL-Jumbo
are one of the iconic Italian cycling brands
and their color, the signature Bianchi Celeste,
is also one of the iconic colors of cycling.
So I think it's really cool
to see the Celeste Bianchi bikes
in the peloton at the Giro d'Italia.
Another interesting point on the LottoNL-Jumbo bikes,
is that they've got some of the newer, the 2017,
Shimano Dura Ace wheels.
And they're also still using some of their older stock.
So wheel are something that constantly get recycled
by teams that need to have a lot of them
just in case of breakage or punches.
So some of their spare bikes are still on the older wheels.
I wasn't expecting to see this at the Giro,
but Quick-Step have got two riders on this brake.
They've got their team leader for the GC, Bob Jungels
on this.
He has got the newer version of Shimano's disc brake rotors
and also his teammate, Iljo Keisse has got the older version
of Shimano's disc brake rotor system,
Now I find this fascinating because
I think it makes Jungels the first ever team leader
at a Grand tour to be using disc brakes.
The conditions here are dry, so it means to me that maybe
he's actually going to be using discs for
nearly every stage of the race, if not all of them.
Very, very cool stuff.
Another iconic Italian bike vendor after Bianchi
is called Colnago.
Colnago, back in the World Tour of 2017
being ridden by UAE Fly Emirates Team.
This is Rui Costa's bike.
Classic Italian bike at the biggest Italian race.
And also they're using these very nice
power2max powermeters.
Right, so behind me on the Lotto Soudal Team car,
you can see that one bike stands out from the rest.
That is Adam Hansen's.
Adam is one of the more interesting riders
in the pro-peloton
especially when it comes to bike setup.
So the cranks are not Campagnolo,
they're 180 millimeters long.
The chain ring, I've got no idea how big it is.
It looks like it's massive.
Probably bigger than the chain rings
that the rest of the guys on the team are riding.
Yeah, just very interesting bike setup, very unique.
So Bora-Hansgrohe and one of the other
Specialized sponsored teams have actually got two types
of Specialized advantage here at the Giro.
One of them has got matte paint
and the other one has a really glossy finish.
So the matte paint is actually a weight saving measure.
It save 100 to 200 grams depending on the size of the frame.
And when you're trying to get a really light,
really aero bike, that really does make the difference
and gets the bike down towards that lower UCI weight limit
of 6.8 kilograms.
Katusha are a fully SRAM sponsored team.
We can see they've got SRAM RED eTap on their bikes,
they've got the Zipp wheels as well.
But pretty interesting change in how teams approach gearing
and products kind of occurred over the last few years,
but for the SRAM teams this has especially occurred now
because SRAM WiFli which gives the rear mech a longer cage
which means it's better able
to cope with the large cassettes,
was released for SRAM RED eTap at the start of the year,
so these rear mechs can now cope with gearing up
to a 32 tooth at the back, meaning that even on the worst,
the hilliest, the hardest stages at the Giro,
the team mechanics of Katusha won't actually have to change
anything about the bike itself
except for a few little adjustments.
Filippo Pozzato is one of the most flamboyant
personalities in the pro-peloton,
and that is reflected in his bikes.
In fact, I think you can probably see
our filmmaker's reflection on the reflection
on the back of my head in this bike
because it's that shiny.
He's got this incredible blue one
and also on the next team car, just over here,
he has got this one,
which is silver and bronze.
And I think, I think very, very good actually.
I really, really like this one.
So I said that Pozatto was a flamboyant character
and that was reflected in his bikes
there on the roof of the car,
but it turns out he's also got another bronze race bike
and this is his podium just kind of gettin' around bike.
It's a Wilier Superleggera.
I love, absolutely love the classic kind of old-school
steel, Columba steel styling.
I just think that's a very, very cool bike.
But I'd love to see him race it actually.
But imagine that he probably wouldn't do that.
The Trek Domane behind me,
I actually got very excited
when I saw it on the roof of the car,
because I thought it must be a new model, they're hiding it.
I don't think it is, I think it's a Trek Domane.
The Trek team are sponsored by Lee Jeans,
so yeah, it's not a paint job, I guess,
it's like cover?
Something like that.
Anyway, let us know what you think of the look of this bike
and of all the other tech in this video
down in the comments.
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