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91st Tour de France - July 3-25, 2004
Tour de France tech, July 14, 2004
Jan Ullrich's T-Mobile Giant TCR Composite
Giving nothing awayWhen you've never finished off the podium in the Tour de France and you've had enough of coming second, you want a bike that brings every possible advantage to the roads of the Grand Boucle. Jan Ullrich is campaigning this year's Tour aboard the latest Giant TCR Advanced. John Stevenson & Chris Henry take a look.
While Lance Armstrong rolls his new Trek Madone SL and Madone SSL around the roads of France, Jan Ullrich also has a new weapon in the form of a Giant TCR Advanced Composite tuned to exactly nail the UCI's 6.8kg weight limit. The TCR Advanced has a bare frame weight under 900g, a perfect platform to construct a lightweight special. This 2005 bike uses new types of carbon fiber and resin, compared to the previous incarnation, to shave even more off a frame that was already not exactly heavy. The frame is constructed with a monocoque front triangle and bonded seat and chain stays. Der Jan is not riding Giant's TCR Advanced with integrated seat tube, but his own TCR is nevertheless heavily tricked out with a custom seat post and saddle comprising carbon rails under a Selle Italia hull and cover. It's the sort of design you only use if you're someone who is totally fed up with coming second in the Tour de France and who is determined to look for every imaginable advantage! While it's obviously important to give nothing away in the weight department, Ullrich's Tour bikes also differ from his regular machines in one other small respect - he uses 177.5mm cranks for extra hill-climbing leverage rather than his usual 175mm. The long cranks suit his powerful dieseling pedalling style. The majority of the running gear on Ullrich's machine is Shimano Dura-Ace ten-speed with Osaka providing brakes, gears, chainset, chains and sprockets. It's startling to think how quickly this group has gone from dramatically new to accepted and some of its features will be trickling down to the mid-priced Ultegra and Deore LX groups in 2005. We frequently get asked whether pro riders are generally using tubulars or clinchers and as you can see, Jan Ullrich is a tubs man. Despite the advances that have been made in clinchers in the last ten years or so, tubulars still retain an undeniable weight advantage, especially when paired with carbon rims. Ullrich's tyre sponsor, Continental, makes both tubulars and very highly-regarded clinchers, so it's not as if he has sponsor obligations here - this is the choice of a man who can make a choice and who has a Tour de France to win. Ullrich also has his own choice when it coes to pedals - Time Impacts. He may just be playing safe given his history of knee problems, but maybe he's declined the Shimano SPD-SLs that usually come with a Dura-Ace set-up because, well, if you were him, would you want to use "Lance pedals"? PhotographyImages by Chris Henry/Cyclingnews
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Stem: Deda Newton 130mm Pedals: Time Impact Weight: 6.8kg | ||||||||||||||
