Tadej Pogacar seems set on winning just about every stage and jersey at the 2022 Tour de France. But to do so, he needs a pretty special bike. We took a look at the team’s Colnago V3Rs prior to the race and we’ll also give you what we know about Pogacar’s fancy new prototype road racer.
The Prototype
Pogacar was spotted training in the Alps ahead of the Tour de France on a mystery bike. Colnago then told us a little bit about the machine that they’re currently calling the Prototipo.
The bike is designed to give Pogacar a lightweight and aero setup and while we’re yet to get any performance claims, the Slovenian’s multiple stage wins and current stranglehold on the yellow jersey mean that it can’t be a bad bike.
> Check out Tadej Pogacar’s rim brake Colnago V3Rs
The Prototipo comes with some easy-to-spot aero tube shapes, fully internal cable routing, A slightly sunken bottle cage mount area on the down tube and a slimmed-down head tube.
CermicSpeed's SLT bearings sit in the headset while the seatpost looks to be a D-shaped design that will likely be specific to the frame. While we've looked hard, we can't see whether Colnago has moved to a threaded bottom bracket or stuck with a press-fit system.
Colnago says that from a design point of view, the key points in the development of the Colnago Prototipo are the thin and hollowed head tube with “deep and marked veins”, in addition to the “larger and more robust bottom-bracket area.”
Colnago also says that a different approach has been taken with the Prototipo, with different carbon layups being tested on parts of the C68. Colnago explains that this was possible as the C68 uses a lugged construction, making it easier to customise the layup on an individual tube.
The V3Rs
Colnago’s current road race bike is a very Italian affair for the team sponsored by the UAE state with a Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupset takes care of the shifting and braking.
The rear derailleur handles the shifting through the 12 cogs of the cassette. It is quite a compact design with plenty of carbon on display.
A Super Record cassette goes down to an 11T cog and offers the team a choice of 29, 32 or 34T largest cogs.
Just to make the bike a bit more expensive, UAE uses SRM power meter chainsets to provide training and race data. There are no markings on these chainrings, but given that the Shimano-sponsored pros are now using 54T outer chainrings, we’d suspect that Pogacar has something similar from Campagnolo.
The wheels are another interesting piece. On a few of the bikes that were mounted to the top of the team cars, we saw some minimally-branded wheels from Campagnolo. We believe this is a lighter model of the Bora Ultra WTO 45 that the team is saving for the bigger mountain days to come. Mounted to these tubeless wheels are Pirelli tyres.
What we do know is that the hubs on these wheels are beautiful. Campagnolo certainly still knows a thing or two about making top-end wheels.
> Review: Campagnolo Record 12-speed Disc groupset
Being a full Campagnolo bike, the riders use Campagnolo’s callipers and rotors with 140mm rear and 160mm front. Look provides its Keo Blade Carbon pedals.
The front of the bike completes the pricey build with a Deda Alanera integrated cockpit. The team gets special sizes made so that they can be long and narrow.
Just came back here to post the same. Gut wrenching and heartbreaking and utterly wrong.
British Cycling seem to be completely blind to the sport of cycling and what it means.
Hard to know who is up for the TDU and who is putting some miles in their legs... other than sprinters.
Visited Oxford late last year, better half had a week off, I took a day off and suggested a day in Oxford, she was very happy and excited. (Rode...
Try kill someone in a car and you get virtually 0 punishment .
'Useless"? You're not one of those "outdoor cycling" purists by any chance?
Every time we have a storm in the UK, many trees are blown down, so a few trees removed for a family cycle lane will not make much difference to...
Every mechanic I know hates Muc-Off Wet Lube with a fiery passion because it accumulates gunk like no other....
I wouldn't worry about it. Secret_squirrel is only the sole arbiter of what is acceptable for discussion in road.cc comments in his own head,...
Beautiful wheels, I wouldn't say no. But have a look for the 2000-era Gipiemme Grecal Parade wheels to see an early example of a similar look.