Sprinters bike

slow turner

What are the differences on a sprinters bike e.g. mark cavendish, to make them ideal for sprinting as apossed to an all-rounders bike?

Cheers

Arran

pst88

Don't think there is much difference. If someone were to have a sprint specific bike it would be no good in a TDF stage because they've still got to get over the hills just like everyone else. The main difference is the rider!

rick_chasey

stiffer and less comfy.

softlad

slow turner wrote:

What are the differences on a sprinters bike e.g. mark cavendish, to make them ideal for sprinting as apossed to an all-rounders bike?

Cheers

Arran

no difference. Most of the Columbia team are on Scott Addicts, including Cavendish...

redddraggon

softlad wrote:

slow turner wrote:

What are the differences on a sprinters bike e.g. mark cavendish, to make them ideal for sprinting as apossed to an all-rounders bike?

Cheers

Arran

no difference. Most of the Columbia team are on Scott Addicts, including Cavendish...

Aye there's probably no difference between each team members' Addict, but the "team addicts" have about 300g extra of carbon layups compared to the retail version of the addict.

Sprinter's bikes do tend to like their stiffness more than other riders, so they like stiff bars and stems - e.g. Cav likes the Pro Track stem and Pro Vibe bars

sparkins1972

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/pro-bike-mark-cavendishs-htc-columbia-scott-project-f01-tdf-26951

Monty Dog

Sprinters have a penchant for stiffer bikes to ensure every watt of power is transmitted to the rear wheel - most frames are up to the job, but may mean stiffer bars, stems, cranks and wheels. The compromise is comfort.

If you want to develop your sprinting capabilities, suggest you either ride track or get yourself a fixed-gear bike with shorter cranks - being able to give maximum power at high cadence i.e. >120rpm is critical to having the 'jump' and maintaining high speed.

Pross

sparkins1972 wrote:

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/pro-bike-mark-cavendishs-htc-columbia-scott-project-f01-tdf-26951

Ditched that after a few stages I believe and then went back to winning on his old Addict.

pianoman

Doesn't it just mean you need to pack more carbon into the bottom bracket area?

I seem to recall there was a review of a Cervelo where no less than 200 layers of F1-standard carbon had been fused into the frame. I bet you don't get that on a Ribble Nero Corsa or whatever it's called these days........

Monty Dog

PianoMan wrote:

Doesn't it just mean you need to pack more carbon into the bottom bracket area?

I seem to recall there was a review of a Cervelo where no less than 200 layers of F1-standard carbon had been fused into the frame. I bet you don't get that on a Ribble Nero Corsa or whatever it's called these days........

I think that Cervelo are being a bit optimistic - you'd never lay-up that many layers and still get good structural integrity. We make the composite structures for the back end of fighter jets and they're a little bit stronger than a bottom bracket and yet don't use that many layers.