Tejay van Garderen is riding this BMC Teammachine SLR01 in second place at the Tour de France(Image credit: Ben Delaney/Immediate Media)
Van Garderen's cockpit set-up is longish but not super low(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
23mm tubulars are increasingly rare. Most riders like Van Garderen have 25mm as the go-to width(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Van Garderen has been racing with the trusty SRM for years now(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Van Garderen started the race in pancake-flat Holland with an 11-28. Sherburne says that the advent of 11-speed lets riders enjoy a wide range without sacrificing tight gear spacing(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
No custom geometry here(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Markings on the rail help ensure quick and corect setup(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Saddles with cutouts are becoming more common in the pro peloton. This is Fizik's Aliante VSX(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Like many teams at the Tour, BMC races on Continental tubulars. Van Garderen has 25mm Competition Pro LTDs(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Van Garderen runs his 9070 levers high on the bar(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Nokon's distinct segments allow for more flexiblilty than standard housing(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
The Di2 wire is taped to the Nokon housing for aero and visual cleanliness(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Sherburne used Nokon linked housing to avoid the housing affecting steering, however slightly(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
BMC mechanic Ian Sherburne has a creative solution for the internal routing(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
Not that van Garderen will need to use clip-ons on this bike…(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
As of stage 6, van Garderen was second overall at the 2015 Tour de France(Image credit: Ben Delaney)
At the Tour de France, American Tejay van Garderen looks to be the closest thing to a rival for Chris Froome, who stormed away from all the top riders on stage 10. Van Garderen is racing a 2016 BMC Teammachine SLR01, with a straightforward (if ultra high-end) build, save for one tiny brake routing detail.
At 7.59 kg / 16.73lb (with the C50 wheels shown here), van Garderen's SLR01 isn't hyper-light. And the gearing seems downright pedestrian, too, with an 11-28 we are increasingly seeing on pro bikes. BMC mechanic Ian Sherburne pointed out that with 11-speed cassettes, riders can now get a wide range of gears with tight spacing between them (formerly the sticking point of wide-range cassettes), so there is no reason not to go bigger.
One sharp detail Sherburne and other BMC mechanics put on van Garderen's and other team bikes is the Nokon brake housing that feeds into the head tube.
"If you make the [standard] housing the length that you want it to be, it pushes the handlebar kind of to one side," Sherburne said. "If you make it too long to prevent kinking, it pushes the handlebar a little bit to the other side."
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Critical measurements
Complete bike weight: 7.59 kg / 16.73lb Rider's height: 185cm / 6'1" Rider's weight: 69kg / 151lbs Saddle height from BB, c-t: 78cm Tip of saddle to handlebar: 59cm
