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WorldTour 2017 bikes: Scott and Giant unveil new season race bikes

Orica-Scott and Team Sunweb whip the covers off their 2017 race bikes

It’s that time of year again when the WorldTour teams starting unveiling the bikes they’ll be competing aboard this seasons, and this week Orica-Scott and Team Sunweb (formerly Giant-Alpecin) have unveiled their 2017 race bikes. 

WorldTour 2017 Bikes: Peter Sagan’s Specialized Venge ViAS

Orica-Scott on Scott bikes

Scott has stepped up as title sponsor of the team known as Orica-GreenEdge last year. Other than that big change, it’s pretty much business as usual when it comes to the bikes they’ll be racing. The bikes have been given a fresh new lick of paint. Out goes the green over black and in is this much brighter design. Should help the bikes stand out a bit in the peloton.

oricascott-newbikeday-foilrc-3.jpg

The bike company hasn’t launched any significant updates to the Foil or Addict, the two main race bikes, for a while, so they carry over into 2017. For time trials they’ll have the Plasma. 

oricascott-newbikeday-addictrc-2.jpg

The team is still using the same equipment suppliers. That means the bikes will be equipped with the latest Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 9150 electronic groupset, which we fully expect most of the Shimano sponsored teams to be using in the 2017 season after it was launched last summer.

New Shimano Dura-Ace R9100: 5 key innovations

oricascott-newbikeday-addictrc-5.jpg

A few years ago Scott bought component manufacturer Syncros, so it’ll be a full spread of Syncros branded equipment when it comes to the saddle, seatpost, handlebar and stem. On the Foil, they’ll use the one-piece integrated handlebar and stem. 

They’ll also use Shimano wheels with Continental tyres. Although the pictured bike clearly has clincher wheels and tyres, the team will use tubulars for racing.

Team Sunweb on Giant Bicycles

Giant-Alpecin has become Team Sunweb in 2017, with shampoo brand Alpecin moving to the Katusha team. Sunweb, in case you’re wondering, is a European holiday company.

Apart from the change in title sponsor, there’s little change to the team kit. The same black and white colour theme with central stripes continues from last season. 

Team Sunweb race bike

The Giant bikes, including the TCR Advanced SL pictured above (five points if you can name the pro rider), get a slight tweak to the paint job. It’s not the most radical redesign. The colour panel theme remains but with the blue gone and replaced by white and red panels on the down tube, fork and rear stays. 

The team will also have the Propel Advanced SL aero race bike, the Trinity Advanced SL for time trials and the Giant Defy Advanced SL for cobbled classics. Whether the team switches to the disc-equipped Defy which has been the only commercially available model for several years or continues to use old Defy bikes, remains to be seen.

As in 2016, the 2017 team bikes will be built up with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupsets, though the team clearly hasn’t had its shipment of new Di2 yet, so it’s older 9070 equipment. It’s still using Pioneer power meters. 

- Your complete guide to Giant’s 2017 road bikes

team sunweb.jpg

The team bikes have been presented with Dura-Ace C50 wheels with Vittoria tyres. It appears the team will continue to use PRO finishing kit as well, including handlebars, stems and saddles. 

In a statement Giant says the development team will have a full selection of Giant WheelSystems and Gavia SLR Tubeless Ready tires to race on throughout the season, so could we see the WorldTour team move onto Giant’s own wheels in the future? That depends on the deal the team has in place with Shimano, and we’ve seen the company pushing for teams to use groupsets, wheels and finishing kit.

Team manager Iwan Spekenbrink said: We are proud to present our new kit for 2017 along with our new title sponsor, Sunweb. We're pleased to have retained our two stripe design as it represents our deeply embedded "Keep Challenging" approach.

Pro bikes are expensive, but here are six affordable pro race bikes from Cannondale, Giant, Pinarello, Canyon, Specialized and Trek

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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6 comments

Avatar
Yorky-M | 7 years ago
1 like

The Giant TCR is just a stunning bike. Isnt as iconic as some brands, but i hired it in Spain and blew me away. Home and traded in the Canyon.

Avatar
700c replied to Yorky-M | 7 years ago
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mylesrants wrote:

The Giant TCR is just a stunning bike. Isnt as iconic as some brands, but i hired it in Spain and blew me away. Home and traded in the Canyon.

Quite right too! Awesome bike  1

Avatar
MamilMan | 7 years ago
0 likes

Quite relevant re. the power meter. Hadn't thought of that...

 

I would not want to be the CEO of a power meter company that had failed to sort it out in 6 months. The Boeing 747 went from the back of a fag packet to its maiden flight in 2 1/2 years. I would suggest a power meter company already having a product would have something of a head start - even if the new cranks are made of carbon.

That rear mech on Tom's ride is definately 9070 DI2. If nothing is compatible then you'd think Shimano would be pulling out the stops for the top flight teams to be seen on their flagship groupset.

I still suspect something is amiss at Shimano. When the bikes are on the line at Tour Down Under and some lazy journo wants some print you can bet they'll be asking the team principles why teams are on old tech.

Avatar
1961BikiE | 7 years ago
0 likes

Are you basing your assessment of the groupset being used on the cranks on the bikes? Different teams use different powermeter suppliers which may mean compatibility issues with the 9100 crank. Tom's bike for instance appears to have what I think is a Panasonic powermeter. This may not work fit the new cranks. 9100 has been designed to take a Shimano P.M.

Avatar
Nick T | 7 years ago
0 likes

The Sunweb rider is Tom Dumoulin, as confirmed by the caption under the header image

Avatar
MamilMan | 7 years ago
0 likes

What exactly is going on at Shimano?

I ask as this is the 3rd 2017 team bike I have seen with the Shimano 9000 groupset instead of the 9100.

 

I 've seen pictures of Team Sky at their winter training camp and all of them are using Shimano 9000. When the 9100 was announced last year there was speculation that some of the teams might be using it on the TDF or Vuelta. This was soon slapped down by several industry types who rightly pointed out that no self respecting team would jump equipment mid season if all their preperation had been done on other kit.

It was this that made me look twice at all the pictures from Team Sky. Their season preperation is right there for all to see on Shimano 9000 suggesting that's what they'll be using for the whole year.

Peter Sagan's lovely irridescant Specialized Venge that we saw yesterday... that too had old Shimano 9000. Now we see Tom Dumulin with his 'old kit'.

Not the first time I have read about teams not receiving their shipment of 9100. Maybe they should get themselves down Ribble, Chain Reaction and Wiggle who have loads of it available with just one click of the mouse.

Odd that Orica-Scott have got theirs... that said some of my Christmas presents got lost in the post so perhaps there's loads of groupsets sat on a dusty shelf at the sorting office.

Or maybe... there's something going on at Shimano... or maybe... the teams recon this new groupset isn't quite the best thing since sliced bread after all.

 

 

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