The Tour Down Under was the first chance for riders to test and race on the latest kit, bikes and equipment. With all but the one wildcard team entry, the Tour Down Under peloton was racing in new team colours for the first time, with Trek-Segafredo only unveiling their new kit in the days leading up to the race. The new kits saw new colours, see-through shorts and some riders wearing Sportful's Fiandre winter range in the heat of the Australian summer.
The trend of the Tour Down Under in past years has been a chance for the WorldTour teams to showcase their full bikes for the upcoming season. However, with Shimano Dura-Ace 9100 series groupsets deliveries delayed, we only saw a scattering of the latest and greatest from Shimano on Team Sky, FDJ and Bahrain-Merida's bikes. Even so, not a single team had the full groupset and full delivery of the groupset to the teams is not expected until the spring Classics.
As well as the new groupset from Shimano, we had to wait until the final day of racing to get a glimpse of the new Dura-Ace 9100 wheels. Danny van Poppel was the only rider to use the wheels in the race and sprinted to fourth place in the final stage.
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The strangest tech on show was without doubt Scott's new Revo Via chain lubricator. The device lubricates the chain continually whilst riding and although this may be useful during some of the wet and muddy spring Classics, the forty degree Celsius heat in Adelaide made the device a slight novelty and was not raced on. Luke Durbridge (Orica-Scott) joked before the race began by saying “the first thing Mat Hayman said when he crossed the line first in the Roubaix Velodrome was that his chain was too dry”.
Continuing the trend of novelty, Team Dimension Data were spotted racing on KMC's X11SL DLC chain in the team's green and black colours.
More tech from the 2017 Tour Down Under:
- Gold wheels, custom SRMs, home made shoes and more - Tour Down Under tech
- Sagan testing a Specialized Venge ViAS Disc bike before Tour Down Under
- Tour Down Under: New bikes and tech for WorldTour teams - Gallery
- Geraint Thomas' Pinarello Dogma F10 – Gallery
- Trickle down tech benefits from Shimano S-Phyre WorldTour kit
LottoNL-Jumbo debuted the new Shimano S-Phyre clothing line, and although the S-Phyre shoes were first spotted at last year's Criterium du Dauphine, the whole team were equipped with the shoes paired with the 'integrated sock system' for added comfort. The team were also wearing Shimano eyewear as well as Lazer helmets, which were bought by Shimano Europe last year.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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