Following its bumper 2022 season, Team Jumbo Visma has today publically announced a quartet of new sponsor agreements as it looks ahead to 2023. We’ve also spotted a fifth, which we’ll get into shortly.
The official announcement centres around the already-confirmed partnership with Sram, the American groupset manufacturer that is also the parent company of various household bike industry brand names such as Zipp, Hammerhead, Time and more. However, as we’ve come to learn, none of those sub-brands is being called upon.
Images released alongside the announcement show their Cervelo bikes equipped with the new sponsors’ equipment. Unsurprisingly, this includes the existing Sram Red eTap AXS groupset, even though sightings of a new Sram Red groupset have surfaced from the fellow Sram-sponsored Movistar team camp.
According to team management, Jumbo Visma has over 180 Cervelo bikes in its possession and with new groupsets required for every single one of them, the end-of-season overhaul has been a busy one for the mechanics.
“Dismantling a bike is done in less than an hour,” explained Head of Performance Equipment, Jenco Drost. “But building up takes much longer. We have been working non-stop on that since the end of October to ensure that every racer had access to at least one adapted bike during the training camps in December.”
Injury-avoiding attention to detail
Jumbo Visma is a team that has gained a reputation for its close attention to detail. The team’s Tour de France winner, Jonas Vingegaard, claimed as much after that very win: “I think why we are so good is the preparation we do,” he protested, when asked why the collective public should believe in the legitimacy of his result. “We take altitude camps to the max step. We do everything with materials, with food, with training; the team is really the best within this.”
Further evidence comes from Performance Manager, Mathieu Heijboer’s detailed consideration of the touchpoint ergonomics following the swap to a different shaped shifter.
“It’s crucial that they ride the bike with as minimal alteration in posture as possible,” he explained. “Since the brake levers are being changed, we are adding a new contact point to the handlebars. Additionally, the shifting will soon change. You could believe these are insignificant details, but the riders will notice them. We will provide them with appropriate guidance to avoid injuries.”
Reserve becomes first-choice
The switch to Sram…
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