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Despite battling through the opening stages of the Tour de France Femmes with a stomach bug, pre-race favourite Annemiek van Vleuten has somehow limited her losses to just 1:18 on GC. Victor at the recent Giro Donne, Van Vleuten is targeting the mythical Giro-Tour double at the very first opportunity.
Van Vleuten is racing a Canyon Aeroad in her pursuit of those lofty goals, and CyclingTips got a few seconds with the bike, within minutes of the start of stage one. Van Vleuten will be hoping to come good before the race hits the high mountains over the weekend, but in the meantime, here’s what our camera caught of the former world champion’s bike.
Van Vleuten is racing a Canyon Aeroad CFR with SRAM Red eTap AXS groupset, Zipp wheels, Fizik saddle, and Look pedals. Perhaps most immediately noticeable is the gold chain and cassette on Van Vleuten’s bike. SRAM has started giving its former World Champions the bling components to celebrate their rainbow reign.The chain may be blinged up, but the frame is dulled down in a bid to save some weight. A Movistar staff member told CyclingTips Canyon stripped back the paint, opting instead for a “plain carbon setup with just stickers”. While the frame does appear to have some paint on it, it does look pretty light. SRAM also provides the Quarq power meter crankset, with Van Vleuten opting for a 39:52 chainring combination. Although both Zipp and Continental are developing tubeless options at pace, Movistar and Van Vluten still prefer the Zipp 303 Firecrest tubular with Conti’s Competition 25mm tubs – and not even the PRO LTD tubs. We never touch a rider’s bike pre-race so measuring components is out of the question, but Van Vleuten looks to be running one of the smallest CP0018 Aeroad bar stem combinations available. That likely means either the 80 or 90mm stem with the bar width set to 37/39cm complete with Lizard Skin bar tape. A Garmin 830 keeps track of Van Vleuten’s performance metrics and the day’s parcours.Elite provides its lightweight 17 gram Leggerocarbon bottle cages and Team Movistar edition bidons. Natural foods are sometimes the best. With the new Canyon Ultimate at Team Movistar’s disposal, it will be interesting to see if Van Vleuten sticks with the Aeroad for the higher mountain stages or switches to the dedicated climbing rig. Given the extra small frame, lighter paint work, tubular setup, and lightweight saddle, Van Vleuten’s Aeroad is likely getting close to the UCI weight limit, and so she might stick with the aero gains even for the uphill battle to “the Super Planche”.Van Vluten had a similarly minimal Aeroad with pink decals to celebrate her Giro Donne win earlier this month, but it’s back to Movistar blue for the Tour de France. Van Vleuten will be hoping there is a yellow one needed soon. The Vento Argo 00 is Fizik’s lightest short nosed saddle weighing just 134/139 grams depending on width.
