This past weekend the racing season properly began in earnest. Not to detract from the Tour Down Under or the early season racing in warmer climates like the UAE Tour, but for many of us the season only begins when we see racers clattering over musky cobbles, and panicked Italian neo pros wearing every layer imaginable, unable to comprehend that someone would stage a bike race in sideways hail.
After a train journey, a long drive, another train journey, and another long drive I arrived in Ghent, armed with a camera, a press pass and a curious disposition. If you want to know all the tech trends from opening weekend then I’ve already scribbled down my thoughts on where Classics tech is headed, and what we can learn from it for the upcoming season.
Now, though, I’m going to try and bring you a flavour of what the pit area for Omloop Het Niewsblad is like. The sign-on for the men’s and women’s race takes place in an ancient aircraft hanger. It’s a little gloomy, a little grimy, the surfaces are rough and the atmosphere is febrile; a perfect metaphor for the classics season if ever there was one.
Fortunately, the tech was shiny, and the music wasn’t overly intrusive as the riders processed through the clamouring crowds to the stage.
Have you ever tried to park a car in a crowd and got a little flustered? If you have then you can appreciate the skill of the team bus drivers, piloting the sponsor-clad, mobile team headquarters through a throng of people into increasingly tight spots. Hats off!
First up I headed to the big pink bus of EF Education-Easy Post, mostly because it’s the most eye-catching. The team’s Cannondale SuperSix Evo bikes have a wonderful paint scheme as always.
The Momo handlebar was launched last year along with a new, upper-tier Lab71 frameset. While EF has been using the mid-tier HiMod frameset (and continues to do so), riders are at least now starting to receive the new cockpits.
Some riders still prefer to run a separate bar and stem, usually to get a longer position. While I didn’t measure it, this FSA stem looks to be a 150mm, with the hoses extremely neatly wrapped in heat shrink below.
While super long stems have more or less gone out of fashion, Jonas Rutsch is flying the flag still in a big way. This FSA stem is 170mm, and no longer produced. I got in touch with FSA recently about…
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