Pro bike: John Degenkolb’s Argos-Shimano Felt F1

This Felt F1 belongs to John Degenkolb, the 24-year-old German cyclist on the Argos-Shimano team. The young cyclist was in the global racing spotlight when, at the Vuelta a España last year, he won five sprint stages.

These five stage wins are commemorated on his Felt F1 team bike, with the individual stages marked along the top tube of his Felt F1 - well, four of them are. He won the final stage, stage 21, too. This is the US company’s flagship model, has been for a while now, and has been tweaked and updated over the years. Visually, it has lost some of the tube profiling and lower seat stays that made earlier versions stand out.

The current frame uses Felt's latest carbon-fibre manufacturing methods, Dynamic Monocoque Construction and InsideOut, where different sections of the frame are moulded separately with an internal bladder pushing the carbon fibre firmly into the mould and inserts place inside the tubes and junctions to remove excess material during the moulding process. And it’s packed with modern details: a BB30 carbon bottom bracket, ControlTaper tapered headtube (1 1/8in upper bearing and 1 1/2in lower), internal cable routing and carbon dropouts. There’s a 7075 CNC machined aluminum replaceable derailleur hanger.

Degenkolb is 1.80m tall and to get the reach he wants, there’s a 15cm PRO PLT stem, aluminium not carbon, and it is slammed onto the top of the headset with a slim spacer above the stem.

The PRO bars are aluminium too, and rotated forwards with the Shimano hoods pointing for the air in a ‘six shooter’ style. It's certainly an unusual set up and not necessarily one you should try to copy.

Everything else about the bike is standard. Shimano sponsor the team and so it's a Dura-Ace Di2 groupset with all the wires routed internally. The team will be switching to Shimano’s 11-speed Di2 when it’s shipped out to them, which should be in time for the semi Classics. Cranks are 53/39 with 172.5mm arms. PRO supply the seatpost too and there’s a Selle Italia saddle planted on top. Looks reasonably worn, as you’d expect, given how many miles he does.

Wheels are Dura-Ace C50 tubulars.

The top-of-the-line F1 incorporates Felt’s cutting-edge InsideOut moulding process and UHC+Nano carbon fibre to minimize weight, while a BB30 bottom bracket and a ControlTaper head tube deliver efficient power transmission and stiffness. Every strand of carbon fibre is engineered to deliver optimal performance and a refined ride. 

The words along the top tube are the team's “1t4i” guidelines: team spirit, inspiration, integrity, improvement and innovation.

See the entire list of WorldTour team bikes here.