Chris Froome ignited the Tour de France in the Pyrenees, attacking on the descent of the Col du Peyresourde to win stage eight and take the yellow jersey.

However, while Froome, who is bidding for a third Tour de France title, put time into his rivals on the descent, the Kenyan-born Brit is riding a new bike from Pinarello designed to help him when the road tilts uphill.

Pinarello have introduced the Dogma F8Xlight for the Tour – based on the existing Dogma F8 ridden by Froome to his 2015 Tour title, but with 80g stripped from the frame weight to take it down to a claimed 780g.

With Froome’s bike likely weighing at – or at least very close to – the UCI’s 6.8kg weight limit, why have Pinarello put the Dogma F8 on a diet? To be honest, we don’t know, and both they and Team Sky are remaining very tight-lipped.

They are a few reasons we can speculate at though: it may put Froome’s bike right on the weight limit, it may allow Team Sky to focus the weight elsewhere (by choosing a more aerodynamic wheelset, for example), it may be that that the bike is finely-tuned for a climber of Froome’s build without sacrificing its aero features, with Pinarello slapping a 154lbs (69.8kg) rider weight limit on the frame, or it may be an opportunity for Pinarello to test and showcase a new carbon manufacturing technique to feature on later bikes. Or it may be none of those.

Froome’s team-mate and domestique deluxe Geraint Thomas is also riding the Dogma F8Xlight – but that rider weight limit rules out rouleurs like Ian Stannard.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Let’s take a closer look at Froome’s Pinarello Dogma F8Xlight, which we snapped just after it was lifted onto the team car at the end of stage nine. Check out the photo gallery below.