The 2014 race season is well underway now so it’s about time we stepped back and had a good look at the bikes and kit the pros are racing this year. We’ve rounded up the bikes of the 18 UCI WorldTour teams competing this season.
There have been quite a few changes over the winter that’s for sure, with a fair amount of reshuffling among a handful of teams. While we haven’t seen any new manufacturers enter the WorldTour like last year, there has been a notable increase in manufacturer backed teams, with the likes of Trek, BMC and Cannondale both owners and headline sponsors of their own teams.
The main changes then. Movistar have switched to Canyon from Pinarello bikes, giving the German bicycle brand two team sponsorship deals, along with continued support for the Russian Katusha squad. That currently leaves Pinarello with just Team Sky, who have extended their partnership with a three-year contract extension, which began in 2010 when the new team founded. Pinarello are clearly happy putting all their eggs in the Sky basket, and who can blame them.
Bianchi have entered a two year partnership with the Belkin Pro Cycling Team. The Italian company previously sponsored Vacansoleil-DCM, but that team dropped to Professional Continental status after struggling to find a headline sponsor last year. The other big change is Giant partnering with Argos-Shimano, replacing Felt as bike supplier and Argos (not that Argos) as headline sponsor. Trek now have their own team, having bought out RadioShack-Leopard’s existing WorldTour licence at the end of last year.
There is also the promotion of Europcar to a WorldTour status team this season, which means Colnago will be a more regular presence at the biggest races in 2014. The company has supplied their M10 and C59 frames, but with the recent release of the new C60 expect to see that making its debut at some point this season.
No change for Specialized, the company will continue to sponsor Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Omega Pharma – Quickstep, with Mark Cavendish set to continue racing the Venge aero road bike which has brought him much success, one change we may see is the launch of a replacement for the Tarmac SL4 – sooner rather than later we’d guess and we’ll take a punt and say the new model will be called the… Tarmac SL5. See more…
Maxime Bouet’s decision to leave his longtime position with Ag2r-La Mondiale after signing a contract to compete with Etixx-QuickStep for the 2015 and 2016 seasons was a move that marked a dream come true for the Frenchman.
Bouet, 27, has spent five years with Ag2r-La Mondiale where he placed third overall at the Giro del Trentino and second in a stage at the Tour de France. Despite his success with the French team, he said that competing under Patrick Lefevere’s team has been a childhood dream.
“As a child I was a fan of Tom Boonen,” he told the French newspaper La Provence. “It was a childhood dream to become a professional rider but I never thought that it would be with the best bike riders in all disciplines gathered at a team like QuickStep.”
Bouet believes that he will fill a stage racing role with his new team, in line behind world champion Michal Kwiatkowski and Rigoberto Uran. He will begin his season at the Tour Down Under in Australia and hopes to be a member of the Tour de France team next July, however, his schedule could depend on Uran’s season targets. “We will both ride the Giro d’Italia or both the Tour de France. I prefer the Tour,” he said. Read more…
The 2015 Tour de France will include just 42km of time trials but eight mountain stages, making it a race for the climbers and giving French riders Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and Jean-Christophe Peraud a chance of winning the legendary yellow jersey.
The 2015 Tour de France starts in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Saturday July 4, with a 14km time trial stage. There is no final time trial before the riders head to Paris. Instead the last battle for the yellow jersey will be on the 21 hairpins of L’Alpe d’Huez in the Alps on Saturday July 25, before the riders fly to Paris for the final stage on the Champs Elysees in the heart of the city. See more…
The 2015 Tour de France will include just 42km of time trials but eight mountain stages, making it a race for the climbers and giving French riders Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and Jean-Christophe Peraud a chance of winning the legendary yellow jersey.
The 2015 Tour de France starts in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Saturday July 4, with a 14km time trial stage. There is no final time trial before the riders head to Paris. Instead the last battle for the yellow jersey will be on the 21 hairpins of L’Alpe d’Huez in the Alps on Saturday July 25, before the riders fly to Paris for the final stage on the Champs Elysees in the heart of the city.
