Elia Viviani is back on the road after a busy winter which saw the Italian claim double gold at the European Track Championships – and this is the bike the Cannondale Pro Cycling rider used at the Tour Down Under.
The 24-year-old won the points race and madison on the boards in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, during the ‘off-season’ and returned to action with his Cannondale team in Australia.
Viviani finished third on stage four Down Under aboard his team issue Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod, behind Andre Greipel and his Lotto-Belisol leadout man Jurgen Roelandts.
Viviani has been with the team since 2010, his neo-pro year, and has established himself as one of the world’s top young sprinters, having secured individual victories at the Criterium du Dauphine and Tour of Britain in 2013, as well as a trio of second place finishes behind Mark Cavendish at the Giro d’Italia.
The SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod is Cannondale’s flagship frame, introduced in 2011. The SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod has a claimed weight of just 695g, making it one of the lightest frames in the world – but not the lightest in Cannondale range. That honour is reserved for the featherweight SuperSix Evo Nano Black Edition, which uses a nano-resin to trim a further 40g from the frame.
The frame’s conventional tube profiles give the SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod an understated appearance compared to many of the bikes in the WorldTour peloton but Cannondale claim the frame’s skinny downtube, headtube and fork help reduce the frontal area exposed to the wind and thus improve its aerodynamic performance without sacrificing weight and ride quality.
Cannondale are, with Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Saxo-Tinkoff, one of three teams sponsored by SRAM and Viviani’s frame is dressed in the American groupset manufacturer’s new, 11-speed Red 22 setup.
The Red 22 cranks are missing, however, with Cannondale speccing team bikes with their own Hollowgram SISL2 cranks. Each hollow, aluminium crank arm is made in two halves using a CNC machining process which ensures as much metal is removed as possible, in order to create a crankset which is as light and stiff as possible.
The cranks, combined with the frameset’s low weight and the fact SRAM Red 22 is the lightest groupset on the market, ensure Viviani and his Cannondale team-mates, including Slovak sensation Peter Sagan, have an extremely light bike at their disposal, though they are, of course, restricted by the UCI’s 6.8kg weight limit.
Otherwise, Vision provide the team’s wheels, with Viviani’s bike pictured above with the 55mm-deep, 1,400g (claimed weight) Metron 55 tubular hoops, wrapped in Kenda Super Domestique tyres.
The finishing kit comes from FSA, with Viviani choosing to use the integrated Plasma carbon fibre handlebar/stem. A Fizik Arione and SRM power meter complete the build.
