Tour de France: Chris Froome's yellow Pinarello Dogma F8
Froome's bike gets a new look
Chris Froome’s (Team Sky) Pinarello Dogma F8 got a new yellow paint scheme to match his yellow jersey. The leader of the Tour de France has had yellow stripes added to his seat tube, top tube, forks and seat stays. His nickname 'Froomey' has been emblazoned on the top tube also with a rhino appearing on the side of the headtube – a nod towards his childhood in Kenya.
It was rumoured that Froome would get to ride the bike during stage 12 but it was deemed too risky to change bikes before one of the most crucial stages of the entire race.
The F8 was launched ahead of last year’s Tour de France and is the favoured bike of the team. For the F8, Pinarello have developed a truncated aerofoil tube in Torayca T1100 1k carbon. The tube profiles are dubbed ‘FlatBack’ and are one of a number of aerodynamic enhancements around the frame, such as integrated seat post clamp, internal cable routing and even the position of the bottles on the bike (the seat-tube has three bottle holder fixings giving riders two mounting options, the lower one being more aero).
However, great care was taken to protect the ride characteristics of the bike – a specific request from the team apparently, and this 560mm frame matches the precise geometry of Froome’s previous 65.1.
The fork is a radically different from most road frames. It was lifted largely unchanged from the Bolide time trial bike and curves out in the legs to minimise air turbulence.
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