Tour de France pro bike: Dan Martin's Colnago V2-r

This is the Colnago V2-r that Ireland's Dan Martin is riding in this year's Tour de France. 

Dan Martin finished eighth in last year's Tour, got himself a stage victory and won the overall combativity award as a result of numerous attacks, livening up the race as a spectacle in the process.

UAE Team Emirates riders have the choice of three different Colnago road bikes: the Concept, C64 and V2-r.

The V2-r is a lightweight all-round and climbing bike with some aero benefits. The tube profiles aren't especially deep compared to those of a true aero bike like a Giant Propel, for example, a Cervelo S5 or Colnago's own Concept. The seat tube isn't cutaway around the rear wheel either, and the seatstays aren't dropped to reduce the frontal area. Rather, the designers have incorporated a few aero features into a light bike, the V2-r coming with a claimed frame weight of just 835g.

That said, the frame does use NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) airfoil profiles and has an internal seat clamp, which gives it a clean appearance as well as reducing drag. It takes a slim (27.2mm diameter) D-shaped seatpost with a truncated profile to mirror to match that of the seat tube. 

UAE Team Emirates use stickers on the seatpost to mark the correct saddle height for each individual rider.

The cables (apart from the front brake cable) enter the frame via the head tube and run internally. 

Whereas the V1-r had its rear brake mounted on the chainstay, it's fixed to the seatstay with the V2-R. The direct mount brakes offer tyre clearance up to 28mm tyres, although Dan Martin has 25mm Vittoria Corsas fitted.

The bike features the ThreadFit82.5 bottom bracket standard that Colnago first developed for the C60. It uses replaceable sleeves that screw into the bottom bracket shell and accept any current bottom bracket. It's a solution to the problem of creaking press-fit bottom brackets. 

"The V2-r is a fun, exciting and snappy handling bike that would make it an ideal race bike or high-performance bike for the cyclist that still wants all-round capability," we said in our First Ride review.

Read our Colnago V2-r First Ride here 

Although he's 1.79m (5ft 9.5in) tall, Dan Martin uses a size 50s frame with a 500mm seat tube (540mm effective seat tube), 539mm effective top tube and 145mm head tube. Like a lot of pros, Martin uses a smaller frame than you might expect in order to get a low and aero riding position (and to save a few grams), hence the use of just the slimmest of headset spacers underneath the stem. 

This also means he has a lot of seatpost extending out of the frame in order to achieve his 75cm saddle height. That seatpost has an inline clamp (meaning that there's no setback from the centre of the post, which is much more common).

That saddle is a Prologo Zero Nack with carbon rails and a pressure relieving channel down the centre. 

UAE Team Emirates use Campagnolo's flagship Super Record EPS (electronic shifting) 12-speed groupset. Dan Martin uses 172.5mm crank arms and this bike is fitted with a 54-tooth outer chainring and a 39-tooth inner chainring. A 53/39-tooth setup is standard, the slightly larger outer ring having been added to give Martin some bigger ratios for top-end speed.

The cassette is an off-the-shelf 11-29 tooth option.

Get details on Campagnolo's Super Record EPS 12-speed groupset here

The wheels are from Campagnolo too. The Bora Ultra 50s have full-carbon rims (50mm deep front and rear) and the hubs are carbon too. They feature Campag's CULT ceramic ball bearings spinning in steel races. These wheels, in the tubular version used here, have a combined claimed weight of 1,215g. 

Martin uses a Deda Trentacinque Superleggera carbon-fibre handlebar with a 75mm reach and a 130mm drop. This is a 42cm width model (measured outer to outer) with a claimed weight of just 180g. The gummy tape is Colnago's own.

The 130mm stem is Deda Trentacinque too, although it's made from aluminium alloy.

Dan Martin is using Look's Keo Blade Carbon Ceramic pedals in a limited edition Tour de France finish.

As well as ceramic bearings, these feature a titanium axle and have a claimed weight of just 190g per pair. The release tension is 16 N m (newton metres).

Continuing the lightweight theme, the Elite Vico Carbon bottle cages come in at just 23g each.

Read our review of the Elite Vico Carbon bottle cage 

Keep checking road.cc for loads more Tour de France tech over the next three weeks.