2023 Pro thread

[MrCurrieinahurry]

Basso Diamante rim Campagnolo EPS 12 Bora WTO 60's

[Karvalo]

As oposed to the 90's:
Johan Musseuw's Paris-Roubaix full suspension bike, Miguel Indurain's Pinarello Espada, Bjarne Riis' throw-away Pinarello tt bike, Jan Ulrich's Pinarello Ttt bikes, Walser tt bikes, Trek Y-Foil road bike, Cervélo P3 (early '00 years), Colango C42 tt-bike, double downtubed Colnago bititan, Spinergy wheels, Giant MCR, Look KG196, C4 Joker, ....

Meanwhile every frame raced on every normal road stage looked exactly the same, unlike now.

And comparing the niche stuff, today we have the Cervelo PX, Cadex Tri bike, Hope TT bike, Factor One, Cervelo S5, Trek Madone.

[BdaGhisallo]

Meanwhile every frame raced on every normal road stage looked exactly the same, unlike now.

Are you forgetting the Kirk Precision frame when TVM rode it?

[C36]

As oposed to the 90's:
Johan Musseuw's Paris-Roubaix full suspension bike, Miguel Indurain's Pinarello Espada, Bjarne Riis' throw-away Pinarello tt bike, Jan Ulrich's Pinarello Ttt bikes, Walser tt bikes, Trek Y-Foil road bike, Cervélo P3 (early '00 years), Colango C42 tt-bike, double downtubed Colnago bititan, Spinergy wheels, Giant MCR, Look KG196, C4 Joker, ....

You compare special-day TT bikes and each area had many bikes that look alike with few special cases.
In the 90s, the majority of "day to day" bikes made were made out of straight Columbus, Dedacciai, Vitus, Oria or Excell tubing, you picked lugs, tig, or silver brazing and then everything was down to geometry or construction details (colnago non round tubes, Pinarello by Dario with big chain stays, Coppi using chainsstays for the seatstays). The day to day outlyers bikes, were Trek OCLV 5500 with their carbon lugs, Cannondale Cadd3-4-5-6 with the Power Pyramid DT, some C4, Corima or some other monocoque carbon attempts but we have the same today.

Replace the round tube bikes by the dropped ST, and today's bike are still 10X more different. Today the "different" ones are the Madone, the Cipollini, the Xelius, the Foil, the S5, the Aeroad and the list could continue without going into the TT or triathlon categories.

Did I love the bizarre experimentations? massively (btw there is a nice FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1798978930380412 covering all banned bikes), but I found more diffrences among comon bikes than 10, 20 and 30 years ago.

edit: What we don't have is the experimentation with different materials, that reduces vastly the way the bikes are engineered but has limited impact on the looks

[rowdyyy]

ENVE seems to be the new bike sponsors for Total Energies per their newsletter.

[guyc]

They are indeed:

https://road.cc/content/tech-news/enve- ... ies-305481

[spokenwords]

some amazing growth for Enve. Wouldnt have predicted they would be a bike sponsor for a top team, or any team. Dont know who the financial backer is but I hope this isnt the beginning of the end for them.

[maquisard]

Didn't work out well for Cervelo...

[Karvalo]

Didn't work out well for Cervelo...

You're misremembering. Cervelo did just fine as a team sponsor (with a decently long and successful run at CSC), as have smaller companies than either them or Enve. Cervelo's problems began when they decide to own a team.

[spokenwords]

...so it didnt work out well then.

[TobinHatesYou]

...so it didnt work out well then.

ENVE isn't going to own TE or even be a title sponsor, so why would this work out really badly for them?

[Stendhal]

ENVE seems to be the new bike sponsors for Total Energies per their newsletter.

Specialized ends its support for the team, Daniel Oss announced his retirement from road racing on November 15, and today Maciej Bodnar announced his retirement. All this shows the legacy of Peter Sagan, who assembled and inspired a support team that served everyone well.

[Stendhal]

some amazing growth for Enve. Wouldnt have predicted they would be a bike sponsor for a top team, or any team. Dont know who the financial backer is but I hope this isnt the beginning of the end for them.

Good implicit question spokenwords! Enve is owned by Amer Sports, whose investors include ANTA Sports (publicly traded on HKSE, Klay Thompson's shoe sponsor) and Tencent. Amer also owns other strong brands, such as Wilson, Arc'teryx, and Salomon. As you all may recall it also bought Mavic, but sold it off after three years.

[micky]

Tencent, the chinese company?

[Karvalo]

...so it didnt work out well then.

Yes, sponsoring a team did work out well for them. Deciding not to be a team sponsor anymore worked out badly.