Equipment and advantages

[Armchair cyclist]

This weekend has seen the beginning of the F1 season (a sport in which I have virtually zero interest), in which much of the competitive interest is between manufacturers, reflected in the large proportion of budgets met by manufacturers.

In cycling, even apart from the teams where manufacturers are the main name sponsors, the bike suppliers are large contributors of funds/free equipment. Such sponsorship is presumably intended to prove the high quality of their product, but how much are any of them proving? Is any manufacturer showing themselves to actually have a competitive advantage, rather than merely being competitive?

Might Demare and Bouhanni be rated above Degenkolb and Kittel if FdJ also had Giant bikes? Could the difference between Contador and Quintana on the climb to Biot yesterday have been a time gap if either of them had been on a Focus/Pinarello/Ridley bike, rather than Specialized and Canyon respectively?

In short, are there marginal gains, and are they any more than minutely marginal? And if not, do all of the millions of euros put into sponsorship by the manufacturers amount to anything more than, "Look, we are not demonstrably worse than the others"?

(Yes, I acknowledge the marketing value of keeping a name in the public attention.)

 

[BigMac]

I do not think there are any high marginal gains.

Bike manufacturers sponsoring a WT team, for instance, rely imensively on the team's overal reputation and the fame of riders. For instance, Specialized can be (arguably) considered the number one bike manufactorer in the world (at least when it comes to road bikes), not necesarly because they are better (which they're not), but rather because they sponsor high value trade marks such as Contador and Cavendish, and everyone wants to have the bike Contador rides. People who like and support Nacer Bouhanni are more likely to own a Lapierre, those who think Kittel is the best sprinter, a Giant. So those bike manufactores are more interested in the visibility they get from riders and teams, since there are not any major differences between, say, a Ridley and a Pinarello (other than the Pinarello being ugly).

The only thing that is proven to vary highly between high end frames is aerodynamics, but nothing too serious I'd say. I believe the Cervélo s5 is the most aerodynamic of them all, followed by Merida's Reacto Evo, but nothing that would make neither Garmin nor Lampre have any significant marginal gains on the other teams.

 

[murali]

maybe in TT and maybe in sprints. but i dont think it will matter much between manufacturers in the rest of the race.

in road racing, man is more important than machine, unlike F1.

 

[Afrank]

Froome on a pinarello trashes the competition and dominates races, stick him on a Specialized, or BMC, or Look, and guess what? I'm betting he's still going to be trashing the competition. With all the pros having access to the top level bikes and other equipment, the differences between are going to be negligible.

If some pros were forced to ride steel bikes while others were lucky enough to get carbon, then I could see them making a difference. But as it stands right now, there isn't a vast difference the equipment is going to make when each pro has access to the same level of equipment. And if the equipment does make a difference, then that difference is very very small. Like an inch between a bike throw for the win or .05 seconds between winning and losing in a TT. These kinds of occurrences can be very common of course, but when they do occur it's probably impossible to determine if the winner won such a close occurrence due to their equipment.

 

[JayKosta]

...
(Yes, I acknowledge the marketing value of keeping a name in the public attention.)

------------------------------------
I think that's the main reason - so that fans / customers know that the products are being used at the pro level. Aside from possible reliabilty issues, I doubt there is any performance difference between the top-level products.

Big downside is went a mechanical problem with a component gets negative attention....

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

 

[CanSprint]

I do not think there are any high marginal gains.

Bike manufacturers sponsoring a WT team, for instance, rely imensively on the team's overal reputation and the fame of riders. For instance, Specialized can be (arguably) considered the number one bike manufactorer in the world (at least when it comes to road bikes), not necesarly because they are better (which they're not), but rather because they sponsor high value trade marks such as Contador and Cavendish, and everyone wants to have the bike Contador rides. People who like and support Nacer Bouhanni are more likely to own a Lapierre, those who think Kittel is the best sprinter, a Giant. So those bike manufactores are more interested in the visibility they get from riders and teams, since there are not any major differences between, say, a Ridley and a Pinarello (other than the Pinarello being ugly).

The only thing that is proven to vary highly between high end frames is aerodynamics, but nothing too serious I'd say. I believe the Cervélo s5 is the most aerodynamic of them all, followed by Merida's Reacto Evo, but nothing that would make neither Garmin nor Lampre have any significant marginal gains on the other teams.

So if pro riders had their choice what would they ride?
I always thought the tarmac was the best all around bike?
what do i know?

 

[42x16ss]

So if pro riders had their choice what would they ride?
I always thought the tarmac was the best all around bike?
what do i know?

I'll stick my neck out and say that if the pro's had 100% choice of the gear they rode, an overwhelming majority would be on a custom geometry carbon frame (eg: Parlee, Cyfac etc) with a Campagnolo or Shimano (for some) groupset. The occasional pro may also go for a Colnago C60, Super Six Evo, Time VXRS, Canyon or boutique Italian/French/US brand. There would be very few who would choose a Pinarello, Bianchi, Specialized, Focus or Cervelo.

Wheels I'm not quite so sure about but I certainly doubt Zipp, Mavic or Vision would be supplying anyone. Easton hubs wouldn't get a go either. More likely to be Enve, Lightweight, DT Swiss, Shimano, Reynolds and Campag.

When gear is provided by the team, it's probably considered "good enough" and riders get on with the job but a lot of pros would go for something else if given total freedom.

If you ever get to see a WT level pro on the road, chances are there will be little changes made to their training bike that the sponsors would not approve of

 

[Kazistuta]

Might Demare and Bouhanni be rated above Degenkolb and Kittel if FdJ also had Giant bikes?

Like this one?

Sorry, just couldn't resist....

 

[Michele]

So if pro riders had their choice what would they ride?
I always thought the tarmac was the best all around bike?
what do i know?

Some years ago a danish friend who works for a danish cycling magazine tested the bikes that were used by HTC-Columbia (Cav & co.); they were on Scott Addict, marked as one of the lightests around at around 800-900gramms for frame but they weighted the one given by the team and frames were around 1200 gramms.

 

[CanSprint]

I'll stick my neck out and say that if the pro's had 100% choice of the gear they rode, an overwhelming majority would be on a custom geometry carbon frame (eg: Parlee, Cyfac etc) with a Campagnolo or Shimano (for some) groupset. The occasional pro may also go for a Colnago C60, Super Six Evo, Time VXRS, Canyon or boutique Italian/French/US brand. There would be very few who would choose a Pinarello, Bianchi, Specialized, Focus or Cervelo.

Wheels I'm not quite so sure about but I certainly doubt Zipp, Mavic or Vision would be supplying anyone. Easton hubs wouldn't get a go either. More likely to be Enve, Lightweight, DT Swiss, Shimano, Reynolds and Campag.

When gear is provided by the team, it's probably considered "good enough" and riders get on with the job but a lot of pros would go for something else if given total freedom.

If you ever get to see a WT level pro on the road, chances are there will be little changes made to their training bike that the sponsors would not approve of

Thanks for that...anyone else lol!