After years of being an Alpha sprinter, Alessandro Petacchi came to the 2014 Tour de France as a lead-out man for Mark Cavendish(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
Taking a page out of K-Edge's book, SRAM now has its own chain catchers built into its Red 22 groups(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
The new Specialized S-Works Tarmac has a svelte seatpost clamp. Petacchi's number holder was empty when we shot the bike(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
To get as aero as possible for the high-speed finales, Petacchi has a long and low position, with a whopping 14cm of drop from saddle to handlebar(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
With Specialized sponsoring the team nearly head-to-toe, Petacchi has his pick of S-Works saddles. He prefers the Romin(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
Zipp's SL Sprint stem, in a 140mm length with CermaicSpeed bearings in the headset and a BG Fit top cap finishing it off(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
With its purchase of Quarq a few years ago, SRAM upped the ante among component giants, offering an integrated power meter as an option on its top-end Red 22 group(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
Look Keo pedals seldom drop down, due to a combination of light body weight and sticky bearing interface(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
Specialized has two types of tubulars at the Tour, these All Round for most stages and a version for the cobbled stage 5 with FMB cotton casings(Image credit: Ben Delaney / Future Publishing)
Petacchi rides low on stage 3 of the 2014 Tour de France(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Italian Alessandro Petacchi was once an Alpha sprinter in his own right, winning no less than 48 Grand Tour stages from 2000 to 2010. After bowing out of this role at the end of 2012, he joined Omega Pharma-Quick Step for 2014 as a lead-out man for Mark Cavendish. Even among a field of flexible, aero-minded pros, Petacchi's bike stands out for its extreme set-up.
Standing 6ft / 1.84m, the lanky Italian has his bikes set up almost like track machines, with a huge amount of saddle-to-handlebar drop (14cm) and reach (62.5cm), plus very narrow 40cm handlebars and a 140mm stem.
As with the rest of his teammates, he can choose any Zipp wheels he likes, often preferring to go with the 303 tubulars.
Interestingly, despite having the Venge aero bike as an option, Petacchi prefers the Tarmac.
We weighed the bike pictured here at 7.25kg / 15.98lb, in no danger of violating the UCI minimum weight rule. As befits a former sprinter, Petacchi is more concerned with just getting over the mountains than winning atop them. His SRAM WiFli Mid Cage derailleur is ready to handle a cassette with as low a gear as 32t. The bike shown here has an 11-28 cassette.
