Tour Pro Bike: AleJet’s Wilier Triestina Cento 1

AleJet’s Wilier Triestina Cento 1 — long, low stem and short cranks

Published Jul 4, 2011

Nick Legan

REDON, France (VN) — Last year’s Tour de France green jersey winner, Alessandro Petacchi, is back this year to defend his title. Monday’s stage three was the first opportunity for a true bunch sprint in this year’s Grand Boucle.

AleJet’s bike doesn’t get any over-the-top custom paint jobs. But it’s still plenty loud with its neon green theme. Both Petacchi and teammate Damiano Cunego have their names painted on their top tubes, but otherwise it’s just a green version of the Wilier paint.

Petacchi is a tall guy. Interestingly he rides 172.5mm cranks. Maybe the sprinter likes the shorter cranks for the high cadence of WorldTour sprinting.

Fairly — Petacchi runs his saddle fairly far forward on the rails of his San Marco carbon-railed saddle. I hope the UCI doesn’t see it though, that’s nose down folks!

Lampre-ISD riders get Super Record on their race bikes and Record on the spare bikes. Like many pro mechanics, the Lampre wrenches like a nice long loop of rear derailleur housing.

Round bars are still extremely polular in the pro ranks. Petacchi runs his levers in a very traditional position on his shallow drop 44cm FSA aluminum bars (run a straight edge along the bottom of the drop and place the tip of the brake lever on the straight edge).

Another — Pros really do run some extreme positions. Petacchi has a 14cm FSA SL-K stem slammed all the way down on top of the headset cap.

Functional — Petacchi uses the dual-pivot version of Campagnolo’s Skeleton brakes. It’s better to have a slightly stronger brake than it is to add balast.

Matching — The high-visibility green Fulcrum stickers really make the bike look complete. Even the hub gets a green “F.”

Distanza — Petacchi logs his top sprint speed with a Sigma Rox computer.

11x23 — Petacchi uses 11×23 titanium/steel Super Record cassette for the flatter stages.

Low — Unlike the themed bikes of Omega Pharma-Lotto or Leopard-Trek, AleJet and Cunego simply had their names painted on the top tubes of their bikes. The green paint is loud enough.

Classic — Vittoria’s Corsa CX tire has been around a long time because it’s such a good race tubular. Petacchi rolls on the 23mm version with tan sidewalls. (which are making a big comeback! I love the classic look of them)