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TECH NEWS

Cadel Evans gets custom painted BMC for his last ever pro race

Cadel Evans races his last ever professional road race aboard a custom painted BMC TeamMachine SLR01

For the Tour Down Under, Cadel Evans was gifted a custom painted BMC TeamMachine SLR01, with some very special design features to commemorate his long and successful career. For the race that will mark the final time he’ll pin a number to his jersey, the Great Ocean Road Race that bears his name, BMC have again been busy in the paint shop, having prepared another custom race bike.

For this race, BMC have painted the frame in a blue colour scheme, a colour borrowed from the Great Ocean Road Race, a new event on the calendar. It's a one day race, the men’s elite race is on Sunday 1 February, with the women’s elite road race the following day.

Aside from the blue paint, the frame and fork feature the same iconography as featured on the specially prepared bike that Cadel raced in the Tour Down Under recently. There’s the rainbow stripes and Tour de France yellow jersey commemorated on the seat tube, plus aboriginal tribal designs, the comic character Tintin, and various symbols that represent his professional cycling career and his personality elsewhere on the frame.

The bike is identical to the one Cadel raced in the Tour Down Under, and throughout last year as well - BMC introduced this latest TeamMachine SLR01 in 2013 so the team have had two seasons on it already now. At a claimed 790g the frame is certainly right up there with the lightest frames in the peloton, and as we found when we reviewed it, offers a very high level of stiffness with a surprising amount of smoothness too, thanks to a number of changes from the previous TeamMachine. 

The custom painted bike marks Cadel Evans’ official transition to the role of BMC Switzerland Ambassador.

“I’ve had my time in professional sport; I gave absolutely everything I could to the sport on the competitive side,” says Cadel. “I’ve gotten everything out of myself and that’s the way I wanted to finish my career; without any regrets. I’ve wrung my competitive spirit pretty dry! Now I’m looking forward to continuing to work with BMC Switzerland - it’s all coming together really nicely.”

"We know that the Great Ocean Race is something that Cadel has worked hard on" says BMC Racing Team sponsor Andy Rihs “So we thought that a gift in the form of a bike, in the colours of his race, would lift his spirits as he transitions from professional cyclist to the next phase of his life.”

David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes

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7 comments

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Flying Scot | 9 years ago
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My 62 year old race frame was painted a very similar colour to that by Mercian in Derby, still in great nick 5 years later.

If you look at the re-enamel work loads in the frame shops, very few are black!

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matthewn5 | 9 years ago
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+1, that is a beautiful colour. Come on bike makers, give us some colour!

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oldmixte | 9 years ago
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My old French Mixte is powder blue and looks lovely.

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jollygoodvelo | 9 years ago
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Lovely colour and the Aboriginal details are a nice touch (what, no Crazy Frog?)

Trek also do a lovely blue in their Project One range, and Cannondale do a CAAD10 Disc in blue that's reet purty.

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macrophotofly | 9 years ago
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Recent joinee to my club, turned up with a new (basic model) metallic indigo-blue bike. Had most of the club pouring over it, completely ignoring the premium D-A-equipped TotR velo of a club regular that was also making its debut that day.

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Some Fella | 9 years ago
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You dont see many blue bikes do you?
Dont know why - that is lovely.
 105

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Shamblesuk | 9 years ago
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That blue colour scheme looks gorgeous

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