New team Cervelo TestTeam will see all its riders competing with Rotor’s Q-Rings, Agilis Evo Cranks and Self Aligning Bottom Bracket for the 2009 season,
Rotor Bike Components has been out with the riders at their team launch in Portugal earlier this month ensuring the 25 men and 12 women riders on the team have been correctly setup with their new chainsets.
According to Rotor R&D mastermind, Pablo Carrasco, “The adaptation of the riders to the Q-Rings has been very swift and all of them have noticed some small benefits including the ability to accelerate, maintaining a higher cadence and a feeling of easier and more natural pedaling”.
Members of Rotor’s R&D team had been with the riders from January 12 to 19 conducting efficiency tests and pedal analysis and finding the right OCP (Optimum Chainring Positioning) setting for each rider with the Q-Rings. This OCP setting option is instrumental in order to configure the Q-Rings specifically to each rider’s capacity and pedaling style. A lot of time was spent setting up Carlos Sastre over a year ago and the knowledge gained has been applied to the rest of the team for the 2009 season.
Phil White, co-founder of Cervélo, summed up the partners’ reasoning behind the development of the team at Sunday’s presentation: “We did it because we feel that professional cycling is of extreme importance to the bike industry. Rather than just criticise on the sidelines as a sponsor, we decided we should put our money where our mouth is and be proactive. We think it is time the industry doesn’t just fund teams they have no control over, but that it also takes an active role and responsibility for how these teams are run, and how they promote bikes & cycling in general.”
Gerard Vroomen, co-founder of Cervélo, expanded on that, stating, “While race exposure is great, we need more than that. Our company is based on creating the best products and, to continue to offer that to our customers, we need assistance and feedback from pro riders during product development. The best way to ensure the team is focused on providing this feedback is to own the team.”
The men’s team is composed of 25 riders from many different countries consisting of six Spanish: Carlos Sastre, Iñigo Cuesta, Jose Angel Gómez Marchante, Xavi Florencio, Oscar Pujol and Joaquin Novoa; four British: Daniel Fleeman, Roger Hammond, Jeremy Hunt and Daniel Lloyd; three Germans: Heinrich Haussler, Andreas Klier and Martin Reimer; two Australians: Simon Gerrans and Brett Lancaster; two Norwegians: Thor Hushovd and Gabriel Rasch; one Suisse: Marcel Wyss; One American: Ted King; one New Zealander: Hayden Roulston; one Canadian: Dominique Rollin; one Belgian: Serge Pauwels, one Lithuanian: Ignatas Konovalovas, one Ukrainian: Volodymir Gustov and one Irishman: Philip Deignan.
The women’s TestTeam is equally strong, headed by Olympic Gold Medal winner Kristin Armstrong, Carla Ryan and Christiane Soeder as well as newcomers like Sandra Dietel, Regina Bruins and Liselot LaCroix.
