Welshman Geraint Thomas kicked off his 2014 race season with the Tour Down Under, and he was riding the Team Sky issue Pinarello Dogma 65.1 Think 2, equipped with a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, PRO wheels and finishing kit, and new Stages power meter.
In essence it is exactly the same bike Thomas and the rest of the Sky squad raced last year, aside from the switch from the SRM Powermeter to Stages power meter. Oh and there's a bit more blue on the frame this year, with stripes on the forks matching the rear stays and top tube stripe. Why change a winning formula.
Pinarello first introduced this Dogma at the 2012 Tour de France, but the team didn't really transition from the previous Dogma until the beginning of the 2013 season. We don't expect a full replacement for this bike this year, but we wouldn't be surprised if the Italian company doesn't have something up its sleeve for the summer. A lighter version perhaps? An aero Dogma?
At 6ft (1.83m) tall Thomas chooses a 56cm size frame, the same as his team mate Sir Bradley Wiggins. PRO, a component offshoot of parent company Shimano, supplies the team with custom stems. Fit is a really important aspect for all professional riders, it's something Team Sky, like all the other teams, take very seriously. Few teams get custom stems like this though. Thomas specs a 121mm stem. It's alloy as well, and painted in Sky colours. He also rides an alloy PRO handlebar, with a little blue stripe on the left side. That's a nice detail.
As the team are now running Stages power meter, they've opted for Garmin Edge 500 and 810 computers to gather up all the data and record it for the coaches to analyze at the end of each day. They've chosen the BarFly 2.0 out-front mount, which has two positions to suit the smaller and larger size Garmin computers. The mount can also be used to carry the Shimano Di2 control box, but the team instead prefers to fit the control box to the underside of the stem, as last year, using the supplied rubber band.
It’s an all Shimano drivetrain and rolling stock. A Dura-Ace Di2 9070 11-speed groupset with Dura-Ace C50 tubulars, fitted with 25mm Veloflex tyres. We're seeing the peloton switch increasingly to 25mm tyres after decades of 23mm tyres, with the conclusion being the wider tyres are faster and allow lower pressures to be run without any compromise in speed, giving the benefit of a bit more traction from the bigger footprint, plus a but more bump absorption.
Photos reproduced with kind permission of www.cyclingtips.com.au
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Pencil is a terrible idea in a closed, zero-gravity environment. FWIW. Carbon dust floating around, getting into lungs and electronics...
I think the Dogma's are really good looking bikes. I can understand that the curved forks are not to everyone's taste, but i like them, it makes them stylish in my opinion
I'm with you. It is great in my book.
It's still the ugliest bike in the peloton IMO. That's some feat with Specialized and BMC turning out such mingers.
So a possible 'Dogmaero' at this year's TDF?
I wonder how aero the wavey forks etc would be.
I guess the teams treat the bikes definitely as a tool for the job rather than prestige items to cherish. I like the custom painted stems and bars etc, I wish there were more places to get this done easily for regular riders.
I like the tyres, garmin mount and the saddle.
Rest of it is minging in my personal and humble opinion!
Is it just me or does holding a vital part of the bike's function on with a rubber band seem a bit, well, crap, to anyone else?
I know what you mean, but it's simple and works, anything else might just be a more complicated solution to a problem that the rubber band easily solves. Doesn't weigh much either
At the end of the Cold War when the US and Russian Space agencies were preparing for the joint Mir Space Station, they compared notes on tech solutions. One of the issues was that of writing in zero gravity. You may remember that NASA developed a ball point with a small pump. They sold the rights to Paper Mate who advertised the technology as the pen with the heart. The project took several years to complete and cost the US taxpayer quite a lot. But they did solve the problem of using a ball point pen in zero gravity.
The Russians were asked how they had solved the problem. the answer was:
"we used pencil".
Sorry, its a lovely story but... http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp