Team GB to ride regular team bikes in Rio Olympics

For London 2012 Team GB raced specially developed carbon superbikes on the road and velodrome, but for the Rio Olympics the road racers will compete aboard their regular team sponsor bikes, and Cervelo is supplying the track team with its new T5GB Olympic bike.

That means Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard will be riding their Team Sky Pinarello Dogma F8 bikes, Steve Cummings a Cervelo S5, and Adam Yates is on a Scott Addict. 

- Chris Froome's Pinarello Dogma F8

Lizzie Armitstead and Nikki Harris will both be on the Specialized Amira with its temperature adapting paint job, and Emma Pooley will be on a Cervelo. 

Pro Bike: Lizzie Armitstead's Specialized Amira SL4 with SRAM eTap

For the track team, including Sir Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish, Laura Trott and Rebecca James, Cervelo’s newly developed T5GB track bike, provided it has been approved in final testing, will be used instead of the UK Sports Institute bikes we’re more used to see for the past few years.

That UK Sports Institute track bike was originally developed because the team couldn’t apparently find a production bike that met their requirements. Presumably, Team GB and Cervelo have worked very closely together to develop a bike that is capable of helping to take the racers to a gold medal.

- Cervélo launches T5GB Olympic track bike + video

According to Cervelo, the “new T5GB is the result of hundreds of hours of computer simulation and wind tunnel testing. Its design and development draws on the vast pool of Formula 1 expertise in the UK with support from the Research and Innovation (R&I) team at the English Institute of Sport (EIS).”

Back in 2012, a road bike version of this UKSI frame was developed for the road race team, and it was a bit strange seeing the likes of Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins not racing their usual team sponsor bikes. Those bikes were built by carbon and aero specialist Dimitris Katsanis and Chris Boardman was also involved in the development with hours spent in the wind-tunnel testing them.

For some reason, they won’t be racing those bikes this year, and instead riding their regular team bikes. Steve Cummings will be on a Cervelo S5 like the one pictured above, and Chris Froome will ride the same Pinarello Dogma F8 with a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and Dura-Ace C50 wheels that helped him to win the recent Tour de France, and is pictured right at the top of this article.

Yates will be racing the same Scott Addict he rode so well at the Tour, albeit with a dazzling paint job that Scott unveiled last week.