Last year our friends at Cyclingnews spotted FDJ testing the final prototype of Shimano’s crank based power meter and now we have just spotted the production version on the new Dura-Ace 9150 crank in the pits at the Tour Down Under.
- Gold wheels, custom SRMs, homemade shoes and more spotted at Tour Down Under 2017
- Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 and R9150 Di2 groupsets: all you need to know
The new meter from the Japanese component brand, that can be found aboard Johan Le Bon's, Lorenzo Manzin's and Jérémy Maison’s FDJ race bikes, features strain gauges on both sides in an effort to provide accurate Left/Right measurement. Unlike other dual-side meters, Shimano uses only a single battery because the two sides are connected with a wire.
Mounted with 53-39T chainrings, the new powermeter blends in pretty well with the new crankset. There's a distinctive hump/lump however sitting inside the four-arm spider on the driveside crank, which houses the brain of the unit, while strain gauges are placed on both crank arms.
While the FDJ Lapierre Xelius SL 600 frames did have the new crank, the team's bikes were sporting the older 9070 Di2 derailleurs, shifters and brakes, as well as the old Dura-Ace C50 wheels.
More interesting however is that so far no team has a full DA 9150 group. While Team Sky’s new Pinarello Dogma F10s are close, with the new Di2 shifters derailleurs and brakes, the crank was noticeably missing.
Pat Warner, SVP of Stages Cycling, told BikeRadar: "There certainly is a shortage of 9100 cranksets especially with 39/53 chainrings. We have built and shipped Sky limited 9100 power meters. We built every crankset that we could get our hands on that they could use. With that said, I don't know if they took any of the 9100 cranksets to Australia or not."
Other teams, including the majority of the Shimano sponsored teams, have either not received a full 9100 group or have not seen any components at all.
Glen Leven, one of Trek-Segafredo’s mechanics, told BikeRadar: “The parts should have arrived at the Service Course in Europe, but I have not heard anything since we have been here [in Australia], Shimano told us January."
The mechanics at Orica-Scott told a similar story, saying the new groups had arrived at its facility in Europe.
Rune Kristensen, one of Quick-Step Floors' mechanics, told BikeRadar: “Because we are not sponsored by Shimano we have to buy all the groups. Obviously, we have preference over retailers, but we still haven’t received anything yet.”
Henk van Lijsdonk, mechanic from Dimension Data, said: “We haven’t received any of the parts, but we are not sponsored by Shimano and we knew already that it was going to come in late. So we started with the old groups, but we heard that the rear derailleur should be stiffer and different, so we are going to test that first anyway. We’re a bit different because we are running the KMC chains and Rotor chainrings, we want to make sure it all works perfectly before we start racing on it."
We asked Shimano if it had any details on why the new groups had not been delivered yet and Toby Shingleton, brand manager at Shimano Australia, explained that with the time of year, many of the riders are still on their old bikes and the service course being in Europe are all factors that have lead to the team bikes sporting the old groups at the Tour Down Under.
From speaking to mechanics in the pit, it’s not likely we’ll see many teams running the new group. “After we test everything I think the first time we’ll use the bikes will be at the Classics,“ said van Lijsdonk.