Cavendish's bike

rick_chasey
rick_chasey Posts: 72,738
edited March 2011 in Pro race
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/ma ... laren-bike

Because a 4 wheeled 300kph car is the same as a 60kph (for about 10 seconds) push bike which isn't allowed to have any fairing....

Comments

  • Yellow Peril
    Yellow Peril Posts: 4,466
    Perhaps a bit of psychology here. If Cav thinks he's on the fastest bike he'll re-discover his mojo for the M-SR.

    With regard to car design, I hear what you say but those guys are probably a 100 x more anal about design than most cycle designers and maybe they can add a little bit of "outside the box" thinking.
    @JaunePeril

    Winner of the Bike Radar Pro Race Wiggins Hour Prediction Competition
  • pitchshifter
    pitchshifter Posts: 1,476
    Anyone see a UCI approval sticker?
  • Should the Manxman need to change the battery for the electric gear-change mechanism, he will find a spare neatly hidden away inside the seat tube

    M-SR is a long race, maybe he'll have to stop and change it on the Poggio?

    :D
  • Neil McC
    Neil McC Posts: 625
    All the advertising blurb here http://venge.specialized.com/#
  • csp
    csp Posts: 777
    Perhaps a bit of psychology here. If Cav thinks he's on the fastest bike he'll re-discover his mojo for the M-SR.

    With regard to car design, I hear what you say but those guys are probably a 100 x more anal about design than most cycle designers and maybe they can add a little bit of "outside the box" thinking.

    All Specialized sponsored teams will be using the new bike.

    http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... -bike.html
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,738
    I'm a formula one fan as well and HATE McLaren. I've never been keen on Cavendish, and this isn't helping...
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    McLaren's PR on it: http://mclaren.com/news/2011/03/17/mcla ... pecialized

    Nice to see my former employer is wasting time and money on more useless projects. Although it's more a case that the way things are going on and off the track they need side projects ;)

    May be interested if they do an MTB though. But not Spesh.
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    Apart from the fact that the bike in all the photos is equipped with SRAM and therefore not a HTC team bike, what the hell is going on with the front brake and gear cables? They look like they were fitted by someone wearing welders gloves and a blindfold.
    While on horseback.
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • TimB34
    TimB34 Posts: 316
    What's interesting is that the cables are going into the frame in fairly standard places - most of the other aero bikes on the market (cervelo, canyon) insert them behind the head tube where it's claimed that the airflow is already turbulent.

    Perhaps the rest of the bike is sooooo aerodynamic that they don't need to bother... or the others are telling aero-porkies... or Specialized are...

    PS anyone remember last years Tour when Cav set off on the latest Scott F01 aero bike? He had to go back on the Addict before he won any stages!
  • Stone Glider
    Stone Glider Posts: 1,227
    I thought that it was some Swiss guy who had the battery powered bike? :?
    The older I get the faster I was
  • acidstrato
    acidstrato Posts: 945
    I'm a formula one fan as well and HATE McLaren. I've never been keen on Cavendish, and this isn't helping...

    I'm sure both parties will be devastated to read this :shock:
    Crafted in Italy apparantly
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,738
    acidstrato wrote:
    I'm a formula one fan as well and HATE McLaren. I've never been keen on Cavendish, and this isn't helping...

    I'm sure both parties will be devastated to read this :shock:

    Understandably.
  • eh
    eh Posts: 4,854
    Nice to see my former employer is wasting time and money on more useless projects. Although it's more a case that the way things are going on and off the track they need side projects

    I thought there were two McLaren companies; one is the F1 team and one is a company that does the the McLaren road car and also sells consultancy services, so I assume it is road car / consultancy business that has been involved in this. I guess we can expect to see Button at his next triathlon on one.

    Have to say I think it looks pukka, but you'd have thought they could pump the tyres up for the photo shoot and as for the price of £5000 for F+F :shock: :!:
  • pedro118118
    pedro118118 Posts: 1,102
    Was interesting to hear some guy from Spesh talking about his long-standing "dream" of applying TT-style aero-benefits to a road bike for years. Errrrrr................haven't the likes of Cervelo, Felt, Canyon etc for ages??!!! The S1 (or Soloist) is almost 10 years old isn't it?

    It does 'look' fast though!

    As for who's using it - I understand only 3 specially "chosen" riders from HTC, Saxo and Astana will have access to this latest tech.
  • Yellow Peril
    Yellow Peril Posts: 4,466
    Perhaps it's Maclaren and not Mclaren. I understand the former have more experience with toys being thrown out the pram.
    @JaunePeril

    Winner of the Bike Radar Pro Race Wiggins Hour Prediction Competition
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    It gets better:

    Aero savings are interesting too. Specialized have conducted track testing with the Venge against their current top line race bike, the Tarmac SL3. Claimed watts saved by the Venge range from 3W at 20km/h to a whopping 23W at 45km/h, and presumably a lot more than this at Mark Cavendish's sprint speed of around 70km/h

    By my reckoning, if you take this bike and install Chinnys new super-dooper bearings, you'd be pretty damn close to some form of perpetual motion device., once you got it to about 60 km/h

    It does beg the question - what sort of parachute must the Tarmac frame be if the savings are 23W, in just the frame alone? Even if you were to assume a 25% saving in drag (which would seem enormous), it would imply that the Tarmac frame takes over 90 Watts to push through the air @ 45km/h. That can't be right?
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • greasedscotsman
    greasedscotsman Posts: 6,962
    edited March 2011
    eh wrote:
    I guess we can expect to see Button at his next triathlon on one.

    In Jenson's Head and Shoulders ad he appears to be using a Specialized.
  • mrushton
    mrushton Posts: 5,182
    Thiose will be the wonder bearings he may/may not have used (sponsors are funny like that). Amazing what F1 and BS can do for a bike.
    M.Rushton
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    eh wrote:
    I thought there were two McLaren companies; one is the F1 team and one is a company that does the the McLaren road car and also sells consultancy services, so I assume it is road car / consultancy business that has been involved in this. I guess we can expect to see Button at his next triathlon on one.
    Yeah, they split it up, though it's all under the McLaren group and based at the tech centre. Ron I think runs the road car stuff etc. MAT from what I understand is one of the side-line companies looking into projects outside of F1 (or even the Road project). Gives them some back-up plans for when things go wrong or Bernie/FIA change the rules (which is on a daily basis it seems). Also allows them to produce things that are of benefit for their F1 stuff but that they can flog independently outside of F1 or even to other teams (bearing in mind they also have contracts to supply the grid with kit at the moment).
  • pedro118118
    pedro118118 Posts: 1,102
    Looks like a marginally sleaker Tarmac to me - smoke and mirrors!
  • Ron Stuart
    Ron Stuart Posts: 1,242
    He was going a lot quicker on a Scott paticularly the Addict.


    Guess what I ride? :lol:
  • TimB34
    TimB34 Posts: 316
    Ron Stuart wrote:
    He was going a lot quicker on a Scott paticularly the Addict.

    Hmm, GreenEdge announce Scott as multi-year bike supplier : http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/greened ... ott-sports

    Adding 2 and 2 and making 3million I henceforth predict that GreenEDGE recruits the cream of young Australian cycling for 2012 (Goss, Renshaw, Matthews) AND with financial backing from Scott they bring Cav on board - Cav gets to keep Renshaw for lead-outs, Scott get Cav back on their bikes (must be worth a bob or two) and GreenEDGE are based in Italy (so no country change for Cav).

    It'll never happen.
  • TMR
    TMR Posts: 3,986
    Ron Stuart wrote:
    Guess what I ride? :lol:

    Not as quick as him though; but judging his recent performances perhaps you could take him at the line :P
  • TMR
    TMR Posts: 3,986
    TimB34 wrote:
    It'll never happen.

    I don't think it will ever happen. Principally because Goss has earned his 5 minutes of fame - they'll stay on different teams if they both leave HTC.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,738
    http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2011/03/m ... le-racing/

    Check out the comments at the bottom:

    "sorry got the clarification – the whole bike weighs in at just over 2kgs"

    "I hear it has some kind of electrics in the gearchange too."