DAVID MILLAR'S NEW FELT BIKE
David Millar was riding his new Felt bike at the National championships last weekend, so while he was in the back of his car, wiping the North Yorkshire grime off of his face, we were taking a few sneaky shots of his bike.
It doesn't take a genius to see what's different about Millar's new AR road frame. The tubes are huge, and all of them have a dramatic aero profile. In fact, there was barely a non-aero component on Millar's bike with even the Oval carbon handlebars designed to slice through the wind.
As if the bike wasn't aero enough, Millar had Zipp's deep section 404 wheels on, so it was no wonder he was splitting the field on the faster sections of the course. Sadly the bike's aesthetics gave us no clue as to the look of the new Garmin-Chipotle team's kit set to be launched at a press conference in Brest this Thursday.
Team boss Jonathan Vaughters said the team will stick with the Argyle pattern, and by the look of Millar's AR they'll be keeping the blue and orange corporate colours.
David Millar rolls along in the bunch at the national road race championships last weekend. He had about 130 riders glued to his back wheel for most of the race.
Slipstream's new sponsor Garmin supplied all the riders with their Edge 705 computer, that not only gives heart rate readings, cadence and speed, it can be linked with a Powertap.
Is that not an illegal faring wrapping itself around the rear wheel? If it is, the UCI's bike testers at the British national championships had let it go.
Millar's bike was just about the fastest in the bunch last Sunday, it should give the Garmin-Chipotle riders a bit of an advantage at the Tour, too.
Internal cable routing helped with the bikes aero profile and smooth flowing lines.
For more on David Millar's bike, check out next week's Cycling Weekly.
