New year, new name, new equipment: January in Mallorca likely feels like a second holiday season for the HTC-Columbia team riders. No matter how professional an athlete’s focus is their job, the distribution of new bikes, the tools of their trade, must always feel good.
Mark Cavendish and the rest of the team took delivery of their sharp looking Scott Addict team bikes last week in Mallorca. Aside from the graphics and specific Shimano Di2 frame modified with internal wire routing and without shift cable bosses, the design and construction is identical to the bikes the team rode last season.
The team has two configurations available in 2010 from its component sponsor, Shimano. The Addict RC HTC-Columbia Di2 bike, as mentioned above and the Addict R1 HTC-Columbia, which sports Shimano’s Dura-Ace 7900 group and a frame that accommodates standard, externally routed cables and housing.
Both bikes are finished with PRO handlebars and stems, while the Plasma TT time trial bike utilizes the PRO Missile Carbon integrated time trial bar. Fi’zi:k saddles, Shimano or PRO wheels and Continental tires complete the packages.
While the riders and directors have the choice of what component group to ride —or assign to a rider, in the latter case — the whole of the men’s and women’s teams will use the electric Di2 group in time trials due to the significant advantage of the system’s multiple shift positions.
The team colour also represents the graphic package that will be available for sale in 2010 as the Addict RC.
HTC Columbia's Scott Addict Race Concept Di2 equipped bike
“The Addict RC is as close as you can get to buying a bike directly from HTC-Columbia,” said Adrian Montgomery, Scott’s marketing director. “We’ve drilled the frame for electronic Dura-Ace and removed the shift cable bosses so that they mirror the team frames. Plus, the team is riding the stock RC colour way.”
Montgomery stressed that the standard bike is race worthy and that the bulk team on stock Addict frames, but he did acknowledge that Cavendish’s frames have a modified carbon lay-up to make it even stiffer.
“You know it’s a stiff bike and you know we’ve stiffened it up for him,” he said. “Still he can wind it up with the watts he generates. He’s the only person that has a different layup.”
HTC-Columbia on board their new machines (Photo ©: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)