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Pro bike: March 24, 2005
Floyd Landis's Phonak BMC SLT01
Swiss precisionBy John Stevenson
When the Phonak team regained its place in the ProTour after cleaning house over the winter, there must also have been sighs of relief in Grenchen, Switzerland, home of the team's long-time bike sponsor BMC. The two Swiss entities have been one of the most distinctive partnerships in professional cycling for the last few years, and Phonak's distinctive livery has been as much a part of the peloton's bike fleet as its riders. The SLT01 is the top model in Phonak's range and with only a few tweaks the bike Floyd Landis rides is identical to the carbon fiber-framed machine you can buy - if you happen to have 8,199.00 Swiss Francs burning a hole in your pocket. High modulus carbon fiber tubes bridge BMC's distinctive joints - there's no way you can mistake a BMC seat cluster for anything else in the peloton, and the shaped tubes are another of the company's hallmarks. BMC claims a weight of 7.2kg for the production version of this bike, and we'd expect Landis' machine to weigh a little less than that, as the bike in the shops uses DT Swiss rims and clincher tyres, while Landis rolls on Zipp 404 rims with Continental tubulars. Interestingly, this bike - shot at Paris-Nice as the season got off to a chilly start - has Zipp's 'pave-cross' version of the 404 rim. This hoop is 40g heavier than the usual road racing model, and is intended for bad roads and cyclo-cross, as the name suggests. With snow and ice still a hazard in the first days of Paris-Nice, a bit of extra wheel toughness must have been reassuring. Landis' Zipp rims are laced to a CycleOps PowerTap SL hub at the back and a DT Swiss 240s up front. The 240s is designed to be used with radial spoking, which you have to admit looks good, even if the performance benefits are marginal. There was a time when power-measuring devices such as the CycleOps hub were only seen on pro's bikes in the early season training phase, but we suspect we'll see a lot more of them all year in 2005. Bike technology is now at the point where it's fairly easy for teams to hit the UCI's 6.8kg weight limit and there's even some wiggle room to add a few extra grams for a power meter. CycleOps and its competitors have helped by trimming weight from their components too - the PowerTap SL is 160g lighter than the previous model. Campagnolo provides Landis's gears and brakes and as you'd expect at this level, it's all Record, dripping carbon fiber and titanium. There's not much you can say about this equipment that hasn't been said a thousand times before - it's light, it's reliable and it continues to be one of the workhorses of the world's best riders. There's more carbon fiber at the front of Landis' bike, this time from a US company. Easton provides the EC90 Equipe carbon handlebar and EC90 SLX all-carbon fork, plus the EA70 stem with 31.8mm clamp to match the bar. Serious workshop-heads will notice that there's an extra spacer on top of the stem to allow for the steerer to be as long as possible. This provides the maximum contact between the stem clamp and the carbon steerer and moves the clamped section of the steerer away from the end. The fork turns in a Cane creek 1 1/8in headset. Landis' other two points of contact with the bike are taken care of by Speedplay's Zero pedals and a Selle Italia Flite saddle, and the Flite sits on another Easton component, an EC 70 seatpost with carbon fiber shaft. PhotosFor a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here Images by Hedwig Kroner/Cyclingnews
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