These wheels weigh 470 & 640 grams front to rear and Michelin has prepared some special tubular tires for these rims/wheels and gave special dispensation to the team to allow them to use the tubulars. Those wheels arrived in France after the start of the Tour.
Trek oclv carbon 120 review trial#
Vincent Lavenu, the Director, requested the wheels for Wednesday’s mountain time trial - Stage 11 from Grenoble to Chamrousse. Not known to him apparently is the fact that Ag2R has two Rolf 2002 Carbon wheel sets in their possession. This past Friday on VeloNews’s Tour de France coverage, Lennard Zinn had a wrap up piece about carbon wheels at the Tour de France and said in part that there seemed to be no Rolf carbon wheels at the Tour this year. His article on Friday triggered at least on letter from a well-informed writer. A big bolt on top runs down into a nut bonded into the seat tube and holds the whole stack together, although Hamilton’s saddle tipped when he smacked a big bump in the prologue.Įditor’s note: VeloNews’s Lennard Zinn recently reviewed the array of wheels being used by the teams contesting the 2001 Tour de France. The saddle sits on a stack of shims under the rail clamp that adjust the seat height. It eliminates the seat post, a drag member, instead extending the air-foil-shaped seat tube all of the way up under the saddle. The frame passes UCI rules, yet it has a smooth shape which welded frames do not lend themselves as well to. Most of the team’s frames are white while Armstrong’s latest is black. Savvy tech types will recognize this as a Klein design, and, indeed, Trek, which also owns Klein, has adopted some of Gary Klein’s ideas to make the bike lighter, yet at the same time adding stiffness with this oversized steering tube.įor the time trials, the Trek frames were built with input from aerodynamic guru John Cobb in the Texas A&M wind tunnel. The headset has a 1-1/8-inch top bearing and a 1-3/8-inch bottom bearing, so the steering tube is conical. The frame has a claimed frame weight of 2.27 pounds, and the fork, with an aluminum steering tube, has a claimed weight of 345 grams. Trek engineers claim that the Superlight is structurally just as strong as the 5500 frame, since it has the same amount of carbon in it, even though it is less dense. The Superlight frame is built with a pricier carbon fabric that weighs in at 110 grams per square meter. This year, Heras’s, being smaller (52cm), and coupled with parts like a Deda magnesium stem with a carbon fiber front plate, will be lighter and push right down to the UCI weight limitation. Last year, Armstrong, Hamilton and Kevin Livingston used this frame in the mountains, and Trek claims that Hamilton’s was the lightest bike in the peloton. This frame is sold as the Trek 5900 Superlight at a cool $2,200 (or $4,500 team issue built up with Dura-Ace). The frame that you will see Armstrong and his climbing lieutenants Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras and José Luis Rubiera using in the mountains is gray with a silver front end and fork, and the fork blades are straight. (OCLV is Trek’s acronym standing for Optional Compaction Low Void – indicating the material is tightly packed and has little air trapped into the structure.) The entire fork is molded under high pressure in the same way as each OCLV lug is done. It has a 1-1/8-inch headset and an OCLV carbon fork with an aluminum steering tube. The frame is built with carbon fiber fabric that weighs 120 grams per square meter, and the entire frame weighs 2.4 pounds. This is the same frame sold as the model 5500 when built up with Dura-Ace or the 5200 with Ultegra. Probably the frame you will see the team using the most is dark gray with a blue front end and fork. “I still can’t believe I ride a stock production bike.” But Trek has worked with Armstrong and other USPS riders and mechanics to develop frames lighter than what Trek initially had to offer them. “I’ve been riding custom bikes throughout my career and Trek is the best,” the Texan said. Trek is able to offer Armstrong the lightness, stiffness and strength he is looking for, and the stock sizes fit him and the team satisfactorily. There is little doubt that they are indeed stock.
The OCLV technology of bonding tubes into carbon lugs built in-house at Trek does not lend itself to making custom frames, because the expense of each lug mold is so high, and the lugs cannot be flexed vary the tube angles. The look of a Trek OCLV is not something that can be mimicked by a custom builder without prohibitive expense, so anyone can see that those OCLV Treks are exactly what they say they are.
For a couple of years, his time trial bikes were still made by Litespeed, but now they are carbon frames built by Trek as well. Postal, Armstrong has been riding road races on stock Trek OCLV carbon frames. The only equipment difference on his bike from the other Postal …Photo: L. Victor Hugo Peña’s Superlight climbing bike.
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