- For the opening part of the 2017 Tour de France,
Lasty, Si, Matt and myself have been
off around the various teams,
in search of their super lightweight product.
(chill electronic music)
- In Trek's corner, weighing in under 650 grammes
is the brand new Emonda team issue frame set.
When the Emonda was first launched back in July of 2014,
it was already the lightest production bike available.
And Trek has gone and made it even lighter.
It's so light in fact, that the mechanics
are having to look for ways to weigh this bike down,
so in Haimar Zubeldia's bike, they've used
aluminium handlebars, and they're actually keeping the bikes
below the UCI weight limit, pending the arrival
of the Velon unit, which go on the saddle,
because they add 200 grammes or so, and once I've got those,
they'll then look to add lead weights to weigh the bike down.
So, carbon fibre bike with lead weights, it is that light.
- Yet another new bike here at the Tour de France
is this one from French manufacturers Look,
being used in the mountains
by the Fortuneo - Oscaro team.
This is their brand new lightweight climbing bike,
and it fills the void in their lineup between
a 795 Aero bike and a 765, which is their endurance bike.
Now, they use what is called Optimised Inertia Section,
which is their research they did
whilst they were developing this bike.
And it means that for the right combination
of stiffness and lightweight,
but also comfort at the rear end, they have used
a combination of both round tubing and also square tubing.
And the results are a frame which comes in at
just 730 grammes, which is very respectable indeed.
And believe it or not, some sections of this frame
are just 0.6mm in thickness,
it's really quite incredible.
They've used nano-layering, so layers of carbon
which are just 100th of a millimetre thick, so a lot
of technology and design has gone into this bike.
- If you're talking lightweight, I think I've found
pretty much the ultimate in searching for weight loss
on a bike here, at the dimension data team.
This is Serge Pauwels new Cervelo R5,
so it's a new frame too, and the frame is super light,
it's designed to be even lighter than the frame was before.
But if we look at the chain ring, that is a Rotor Qarbon
chain ring, so it's a Rotor Q-ring,
but it's carbon fibre, which is very cool.
I don't know exactly the weight he's saving there,
I've not even actually seen one before.
Still, stands out but it's definitely aimed to save weight.
And if you look very carefully at the cassette,
that is Rotor's one piece machine aluminium cassette, which
saves a whole bunch of weight, over a standard cassette.
Also announced just before the Tour de France
was the brand new Argon 18 Gallium Pro.
The Gallium Pro will be used by key riders
at Astana such as Jakob Fuglsang and Fabio Aru.
We've got this rather nice custom painted edition.
Painted, the frame weighs around 794 grammes,
although it's fair to assume that Aru's bike
might be a little heavier than that, just due to
the intricacy of the paintwork on that frame.
The bike's clearly very successful, as Aru
has already piloted it to one stage victory
on an uphill finish at the 2017 Tour.
- I'm here with Chris Froome's Pinarello F10,
and I've spotted, straight off the bat,
three little cool bits of custom tech.
Let's have a closer look.
Straight away, first thing that I see is satellite shifters,
but not just normal satellite shifters, because every gramme
counts in the high mountains, they've actually taken off
the casing and the housing, so all you've got
is the shifters themselves, pretty minimalistic,
just underneath, we've got a K-Edge mount, of course
for his Garmin computer, but not just a normal K-Edge mount,
it's a yellow one, because of course,
he's the leader of the Tour de France.
And finally, the third little pimp, bit of custom kit
for Chris Froome, we have a number holder at the back,
but not an alloy one, it's a carbon one.
Every gramme counts.
- We couldn't do an episode here at GCN
about lightweight components at the Tour de France
without including these, which regular GCN viewers
will recognise as Adam Hansen's custom shoes.
It really is quite incredible when you lift these up,
there's absolutely nothing to them.
But I have, despite seeing these before,
learned a couple of things from Adam about his shoes
here at the Tour de France this year.
This are the 2017 climbing versions, so he does actually
have different shoes for climbing stages
verses sprinting stages.
So these are super lightweight.
They come in 160 grammes for a pair, which,
when you consider the lightest production road shoes are
almost double that amount, really is something to behold.
But his climbing shoes have the cleat further back
on the sole than his sprinting day shoes do.
And also, as you notice there are not bolts
holding those cleats on.
What he does is bolts the cleats to the shoes,
gets them in exactly the right position, at which point
he glues around the edge, takes the bolts out,
and then threads it with this Kevlar.
He's also told me that they are quite fragile,
so he puts them in the suitcase and if they get hit
from the wrong direction, they will break.
It's a little bit like modern lightweight carbon frames,
they are strong in the direction that they need to be,
but if they get a knock from the wrong direction,
they will break.
Last year, if you did watch that suitcase tour,
you will have also seen that he has his own
customised race radio, which is really the bare bones
of the electronics to cut down on weight, too.
He's just told me, cause I wanted to look at it,
he left it at home on the kitchen table before he came
to the Tour this year, so he's only got a normal race radio.
Right, well that brings this video to a close.
I hope you've enjoyed it, if you have,
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Now if you'd like some more Tour de France content,
we've got some coming up for you.
Down here is last year's video, where we
went through Adam Hansen's suitcase, one of the most
interesting suitcases you are ever likely to see,
not just in the world of cycling but anywhere,
and down here, we investigate how much difference
motos make when you're drafting behind them.