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Pro Bike Check: Grand Tour stage winning S-Works Venge Disc of Marcel Kittel

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German racer Marcel Kittel sprinted to the stage win yesterday in the Tour de France’s first road stage aboard his customized Specialized S-Works Venge Disc. Besides making him a ten-time Tour stage winner, Kittel put his name down once more in the record trivia books as the first road cyclist to win a Grand Tour stage on disc brakes. Kittel has been a strong proponent of road racing on discs and after his win said, “I sincerely believe the disc brakes are a major improvement and give you better control, especially on rainy days as today.” Prepping for the Tour Specialized painted up a particle accelerator themed bike for Kittel to showcase his explosive speed, and we got an up close look at the bike before the start of the stage…

Disc brakes give us a chance to take a good look at the non-driveside of a bike. As a sprinter Kittel prefers to race o the aero S-Works Venge over the just introduced Tarmac update. In fact his bike is very similar to the disc brake Venge that we saw Tom Boonen ride in his farewell classics campaign earlier in the year.

Kittel does get the update for the tour to the full Shimano R9100 series Dura-Ace Di2 Disc group that we test rode back at the start of the year. But here Kittel is racing on 140mm rotors, which means he does not get the benefit of the neutral support from Mavic that only has 160s. It seems that Kittel did have a puncture during the stage, but his Quick-Step team had a full spare bike (with the same custom paint) on the roof of one of the team cars, as well as plenty of spare wheels, and were able to get him back racing without any problems.

Kittel’s cockpit is fairly straight forward for a sprinter, with a stiff integrated Metron bar+stem combo from Vision, plus Di2 sprint shifters peeking through his bartape.

A paint theme of a particle accelerator seems rather appropriate for the explosive accelerations of the German sprinter. And surely Kittel himself, plus his team, and bike sponsor all seemed thrilled to have him ride the new bike to a Grand Tour win in its first outing.

At 1.88m/6’2″ tall Kittel is a tall rider and even with the tall headtube of his large frame, gets an extra spacer to put his bars up where he wants them. Di2 makes his cable routing a bit more tidy in the wind care of a heat shrink tube, but minus a grommet in the downtube. His bike still keeps the Di2 junction box external as the Metron bar doesn’t have the proper holes for a fully internal new Di2 setup.

There isn’t a lot of overly new tech on Kittel’s race winning bike other than it’s eye-catching colorful paint job. Custom detailing runs from the dropped Venge seatstays…

to the top of the downtube and S-Works logo…

even underneath to the front wheel cutout.

A customized S-Works saddle rounds out the colorful particle theme.

courtesy Quick-Step, finish photo by Tim De Waele

Specialized.com

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Champs
Champs
6 years ago

Slicing through the pack, gutting the field. Too bad those rims still have a brake track.

ChrisC
ChrisC
6 years ago

I’m guessing that with the release of Campy discs, the number of complaints about discs in the pro peloton will “mysteriously” vanish…

Dinger
Dinger
6 years ago
Reply to  ChrisC

The desirability/mystique of Campy is all but gone. I don’t think pros care about it one way or the other.

lop
lop
6 years ago
Reply to  Dinger

Indeed. I suspect that most pros have never even ridden Campagnolo, except maybe a friend’s bike around the block.

Marc Smith
Marc Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  ChrisC

I don’t know how old you are but 20 years ago, maybe that was a worthy statement, now I run a team and seen about 40 elite athlete pass my way and NONE of them even know what Campagnolo means. Sorry bud. Also, riders don’t give a crap what they are given as long as it is light and stiff.

Maciek
Maciek
6 years ago

You are wrong about Vision Metron 5D and Di2. It integrates Juction A in the stem cleanly with Garmin mount as seen here: http://www.wielerkoopjes.nl/files/16566/products/12108598/onderkant-vision-metron-5d.jpg. Quick-Step mechanics must have ignored this for some convoluted reason.

Eds. The point was that there is not a routing hole in the drop of the Metron handlebar or at the shifters to run the wires inside the bar, which you need to use the newer bar end plug location for the updated Di2 Junction box. Pro mechanics tend to keep this older style Junction A box out of the internal setup so it is easier to access for charging which they do very regularly on tens of bikes at a time. In fact it looks like they have zip tied the old style junction box to the outside of the bar’s lower cover to keep it more accessible.

Bas
Bas
6 years ago

R9170 not R9100
Eds. The series is indeed correctly titled R9100. Some specific parts on this bike are R9100, some R9150 & some R9170 whether you are talking cranks/BB/cassette, both derailleurs, or brakes.

blah blah blah
blah blah blah
6 years ago

no way. discs cut so deep your ancestors will bleed.

jon
jon
6 years ago

Wow. Would love to hear a disc brake detractor argue against them now, with actual results and professional endorsement. The arguments against discs always did stink anyway, this is how cyclists get labelled Luddites.

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