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The bikes of the Tour: Garzelli's Bianchi, July 5, 2006

Cyclingnews European Editor Tim Maloney gets the low-down on another bike that's in development at the Tour.

Stefano Garzelli's Team Liquigas-Bianchi's FG Lite prototype

Bella Bici

Garzelli's cockpit

The unique shape

Stefano Garzelli's Bianchi FG Lite prototype

Stefano Garzelli starts the 2006 Tour de France as a dark horse candidate for a podium spot and the Liquigas-Bianchi man will have a new steed in his quest for Tour de France glory, a 2007 FG Lite that he is testing in prototype form.

FG stands for Felice Gimondi, who rode Bianchi's distinctive celeste bicycles to many notable wins during his long career and he was standing close by at the Liquigas-Bianchi team truck as Cyclingnews spoke to Bianchi's marketing manager Stefano Vigano in Strasbourg about Garzelli's new rig.

"The new 2007 FG Lite you see here is a prototype that some riders, including Garzelli are testing here at the Tour de France," Vigano told Cyclingnews. "Some riders have an all aluminium version and some riders have our FG Lite Carbon model with carbon fibre chainstays, depending which model works for them. After a lot of testing, our Bianchi Reparto Corse engineers decided to increase the diameter of the seat tube of 2007 to increase the rigidity of the frame, but not increase the weight."

Garzelli choses the all aluminium version, while his teammate Patrick "Beautiful" Calcagni prefers the carbon stay version.

After our look at Garzelli's FG Lite proto, Cyclingnews managed to sneak a peak in the Liquigas-Bianchi truck, where we spied a special new lightweight Bianchi 928 carbon fibre frame hanging up in the back. A friendly mechanic told us (under promise of anonymity) that "we'll build this up for Danilo [Di Luca] later on in the Tour; it weighs in at under 900 grams and is also very stiff."

However, with Di Luca unfortunately out of the Tour, some other lucky Liquigas rider will have the chore of testing Bianchi's latest featherweight frame!

Photography

For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here

Images by Tim Maloney/Cyclingnews

• Stefano Garzelli's Bianchi FG Lite prototype - as issued to favoured Liquigas riders
• Bella Bici - only a Bianchi has that distinctive celeste look. If you want to start an argument among fans of Italian cycling, ask them whether it's green or blue...
• Garzelli's cockpit with reliable ITM bars and stem
• The unique shape of the Bianchi FG Lite's top tube and down tube, made in triple butted custom Dedaccai 7000 series aluminium. The frame sports an FSA integrated headset, with distinctive Bianchi eagle badge front and center.

Full specification