Annemiek van Vleuten’s palmares is too long and varied to do justice in an introductory paragraph. She is one of the most decorated cyclists out there, having won (to pick a handful of results), the Tour de France Femmes, The Giro d’Italia Donne three times, gold and silver at the Tokyo Olympics, Strade Bianche twice, Flanders twice, Liege twice… getting the picture yet?
Van Vleuten has also graced the top step of the podium at the World Championships too, twice in the time trial, and twice on the road. As such she gets treated to a one-of-a-kind, world champions edition paint job for her 2023 race bike. Most riders dream of having just one of those in a career, so to have now had four is pretty spectacular – We wonder if the fourth is still just as special? Luckily for you, we’ve got a gallery of it from Opening Weekend so you can, to some extent, see for yourselves.
What is Annemiek van Vleuten’s bike for 2023?
Van Vleuten opts to use the Canyon Aeroad, rather than the latest generation Canyon Ultimate. It’s still the more aerodynamic of the two bikes, despite the latest Ultimate definitely closing the gap. As per the rest of the Movistar team, she’s running Sram Red and Zipp wheels. In this case, they are the 303 Firecrest set, but they will likely swap depending on the course.
The primary talking point over and above the rest of the team bikes is the custom paint job. The black base coat is a satisfying counterpoint to the all-white look of Remco Evenepoel’s bike, the other rainbow set up on the road this year.
It’s a very simple paint job, consisting of rainbow bands wrapping the headtube and extending at an angle along the top tube. No glitter as we saw on Elisa Balsamo’s rainbow bike, just gloss colours, perhaps in an effort to balance the need to honour the jersey and please the sponsors, but also not add too much additional weight to the frame.
What size is Annemiek van Vleuten’s bike
Van Vleuten stands at 5ft 6in tall, and while we didn’t spot any frame size stickers on her bike at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, we know from past experience that she rides an XS in Canyon sizing (53cm top tube). Her saddle is bang-smack in the middle of the rails, and her stem is neither crazy short nor extremely long.
We didn’t get a measure on the stem, but it appears to be 90mm. While some riders favour a position more over the front of the bike (Cecile Uttrup-Ludwig’s bike is a prime example of this), van Vleuten clearly sticks to a more neutral position.
Annemiek…
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