Whilst Remco Evenepoel is the bookies favourite for Tour de France stage 5 today on board a Specialized S-Works Shiv time trial rig, the really exciting bike for me is Tadej Pogačar’s ultra-exotic Colnago TT1.
Time trial bikes, nicknamed vomit comets after their singular and punishing purpose, are designed for one thing and one thing only – going flat out, as hard as you can. This is clear on the machine used by UAE Team Emirates-XRG for TT efforts.
To reduce the set back to a minimum pushing the rider forward on the seat, and above the BB, the frames feature very steep seat angles –often five degrees steeper than a conventional road bike at 77 degrees as in the case of this TT1 – with low stack height for minimal frontal area, putting the rider in a position that prioritises forward momentum only.
And in a TT, that’s all that matters. Riders might occasionally see traffic if they catch up to another rider, but generally speaking, all they have to think about is the clock.
Because handling and comfort are a distant second to all-out speed, TT bikes can look extraordinary – part fighter jet, part F1 car and Pogačar’s Colnago TT1 is no exception.
From the back of the bike, you can see an extreme dropped seatstay design that runs horizontally for almost half their length, and the remainder is shaped to channel and clean up air from the rider and frame as efficiently as possible.
The super steep seat angle, pushes into the front triangle, where an elongated top tube meets a short and narrowed head tube, with as little as possible frontal area, and an integrated fork crown. Even the bottles are specially shaped and housed in 3d printed cages which closely match the profile of the downtube.
The bottom bracket area uses a huge amount of material – plenty there of course for super stiff power transfer – but it’s primary job is to smooth airflow.
The fork is a bayonet blade set up, again, designed to smooth air coming of the tyre and flow it rearward as cleanly as possible.
The cockpit features a lower-bar section developed by Colnago for this bike, but here it’s teamed up with specially developed extensions. The bar set up was made by ENVE specifically for the pro team use. The shift buttons are integrated into it, so Pogačar can shift effortlessly with his fingertips, whilst retaining the most aero position possible.
His torso will be almost horizontal to the ground and his arms out in front of him, playing a key aerodynamic role in flowing air over his body.
The front wheel is made by ENVE also, and appears to slot in at the super-deep end of their Pro range. Although it's not available to the public at the time of going to press. 100mm deep, with silver spokes and silver hub. The rear wheel is carbon fibre disc wheel, again from ENVE. Neither wheel is available from ENVE at present, although I do know that ENVE have been working on a replacement for their previous disc wheel for sometime, so this could be that wheel, or something else rebadged - that seems less likely. The tyres are Continental Grand Prix 5000 TT tyres.
In matte black with white logos the bike looks more batmobile than road bike, and the massive 62 tooth Carbon-Ti chainring looks super intimidating, and will give Pogačar a much bigger gear through which to deliver the power he needs. The groupset is Shimano's Dura Ace Di2 set-up, and the hydraulic brakes are actuated through TT levers mounted on the bars. There's also a K-Edge chain guide for chain retention. The saddle is mounted on a aero profiled seat post, and is Fizik's Aeris TT saddle.
