It’s a winner: Cancellara's winning ride
The Cervélo’s P3 Carbon just keeps on winning races, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is indeed a fast bike… especially when you put a motor like Fabian Cancellara on top of it.
Cancellara also powered the same P3 Carbon to a victory in the world time-trial championship. Indeed, the rest of the team was riding an even newer version of the P3 Carbon emblazoned with the world champion’s rainbow. Funny thing, Cancellera’s was an older bike without the famed arc en ciel, prompting teammate Jens Voigt to ask one obvious question.
“Why is it actually that Fabian is the only one without this sticker?” he said. “I mean he is the bloody world champion and the only one that should have it, but he’s the only one that doesn’t have it. So you mean, my bike is newer than the world champion’s bike? I mean he’s the only world champion we have, so how is that?”
As we reported Friday, CSC was one of the teams with several riders tilting their aero‘ extensions creating an illegal position. Cancellara was one of the advocates of the embargoed style.
“I think the [upright] position is better,” he said.
Cancellara also prefers his new Full-Speed Ahead handlebars, which afforded him the upright position. Even though he has been forced to change back to his old, flat, time-trial position, he says he will keep his new two-piece cockpit comprised of FSA’s carbon base bar and clip-on extensions.
“It’s [new bar] not stiffer, but you can change it,” he said. “So you have more possibilities; it’s lighter also because it’s [all] carbon.”
Besides his new bars, Cancellara and the rest of the CSC team have a brand new time-trial specific crank from FSA called the Neo Pro MegaExo Time-Trial. The crank arms are made using the same technology developed for FSA’s K-Force Light cranks. The crank arms are molded out of carbon without an aluminum spine and they are hollow. In addition to the new carbon molding method, FSA used Finite Element Analysis to analyze the stress riders put on their cranks, which then prompted an asymmetrical design of the arms.
FSA claims the weight of the new cranks to be 880-grams. It has a stance width (Q-Factor) of 147mm and it will be available for sale this summer. FSA will offer five sizes from 170 to 180. The crank comes standard with FSA’s ceramic MegaExo bottom bracket and will cost $700. CSC riders use a crank that is 2.5 centimeters longer than their standard cranks for time-trialing.
“I think with FSA we have something very good,” the world champion said. “With the new cranks it’s very, very good.”
For time-trialing, Cancellara chooses a custom Selle Italia time-trial saddle that’s only available to the brand’s sponsored teams. This model has been very visible leading up to the prologue and it seems that just about every rider on every team sponsored by Selle Italia is using it. Jens Voigt had just gotten his on Friday and it wasn’t broken in yet, so one of the team mechanics took some sandpaper to it so it wouldn’t be so slippery.
As for wheels, CSC broke out the big guns for its world champion Zipp’s Zed99 time trial duo, a move that proved to pay off. The set has all the bells and whistles: Dimpled rims, hubs and ceramic bearings.
To round out the winner’s package, add FSA ceramic pulleys and Speedplay’s Zero pedal in Red with a titanium axle.
Did it work? You can't argue with success.
