Dear Lennard,
After watching the prologue and the TTT in this year's Tour, I have noticed T-Mobile is not riding rear discs. Why is that? Everyone knows that a rear disc is faster than a non-disc. What gives?
John

Dear John,
First, all of the T-Mobile riders I saw in the prologue used a reardisc. Here is one on the start ramp, on the new Giant time trial frame.

As for the team time trial, Dirk Spiers of Giant Europe said that T-Mobile chose to not use rear discs out of concerns raised by that day's strong crosswinds on the course. He is not at all sure that it was the right choice in retrospect, but he is hoping that they lost a minute or so because of a lack of rear discs, because then that would mean that his team is a lot stronger than the results in the TTT indicate!
Lennard

T-Mobile at the TTT

As long as I am on the subject of the T-Mobile wheels, several peoplehave asked me what those unmarked four-spoke wheels are, so I will take this opportunity to address that question as well. The word from an industry insider who works with T-Mobile is that Walser makes them in Switzerland, and sometimes makes them available under the Spengler name. T-Mobile’s mechanics were tight-lipped about those wheels. I had a third party close to the team ask them, and he said that they reluctantly confirmed that they were Walsers, except the mechanics said they were made in Austria, so I still do not know.

Who is Walser?
Andreas Walser is a one-man operation in Switzerland who also makes racing sleds – skeleton and sled-dog racing pulks, to be exact. Jim Shea slid to the gold medal in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 on one of his skeleton sleds. However, no wheels are on his Web site. Check out www.walser-cycles.ch

Ignore the label

Walser has nothing bearing his name in the Tour, but he has a lot ofproducts here. In fact, Jan Ullrich rode a Walser frame and handlebar in the prologue.

Walser is a former architect who got bored designing buildings, and found bikes to be more interesting. Walser works closely with Michael Rich, the huge German time trialist who has made the podium in the world time trial championships in the past, as his test lab. Walser figures if his bikes and parts can stand up to Rich, they can stand up to anybody. When I last watched Rich in person, at the 2000 world championships in Plouay, France, both he and countryman Uwe Peschel (now here at the Tour with Gerolsteiner) were in the top five on solid black carbon time trial machines built by Walser. Both bikes had big, white FES decals on them, if I remember correctly.

How about those sleek frames and forks?
Last season, Jan Ullrich raced on a Walser carbon bike painted like a Bianchi in the Tour time trials, soundly beating Lance Armstrong in the first one, and he chose a Walser painted like a Giant for the prologue this year. Giant, of course, had hoped that he would choose to ride the new time trial machine the rest of the team is riding, which has an integrated aero’ seat mast cut once to length. It has a clamp on top for the saddle adjustable only in height by changing shims under the clamp for the rails.

However, Ullrich’s contract stipulates that he can ride whatever equipment he wants, and he chose the Walser. Triathlete Karin Thürig rode a Walser to fourth place in the world’s time trial last year and raced it in the Hawaii Ironman as well with a Wheeler logo on it.

In Kona, Lothar Leder raced one that said Cube on it. Since then, Walser has received lots of orders from triathletes.

Walser has many aero’ carbon frames, seatposts, handlebars, and even brake levers in the Tour, but almost always on German-speaking riders’ bikes. One exception is Brad McGee, who used one in the prologue. Another is Davide Rebellin, who rode one in the Giro prologue this year (labeled Wilier Triestina, of course) but had some extra drama when his Walser aero’ seatpost broke just before the start. Olaf Pollack, Rebellin’s Gerolsteiner teammate, made the podium in the Giro prologue on a Walser. In the Tour, Gerolsteiner’s Sven Montgomery, Danilo Hondo and Uwe Peschel are riding them.

The frames feature a smooth shape, especially notable around the bottom bracket area. The head tube area is often sculpted around the headset cups. Most unique about the new Walser forks are the little cantilever bosses with a little V-brake on them behind the blades.

Another feature Walsers are usually known for is a very narrow bottom bracket shell, but I am not sure how that works with the Dura-Ace cranks that all of the riders using them at the Tour have on them. It would require a shorted spindle on that integrated design of Shimano’s.

Bars
Besides the frame, the aero’ handlebar of Jan Ullrich, as well as of the above-mentioned Gerolsteiner riders, is clearly distinct from their teams’ aero’ bar sponsors, Giant and Ritchey, respectively. Those bars are rumored to be made by Walser. They clamp to the steering tube with two clamps, have an elegant, swooping shape to the base bar, and the aero extensions coming straight out of the center of them.

Ullrich’s extensions, of course, are straight and angled downward. The elbow pads stand on outward-angled posts emanating from knobs extending behind the trailing edge of the base bar.

It is almost impossible to get through the T-Mobile fencing to get close to Ullrich’s bike, but the bars on the Gerolsteiner Walsers have roughened grip areas for the hands at the ends of the extensions and base bar. The texture is extremely rough there; it feels and looks like porous black lava. Ullrich’s little carbon brake levers are clearly made by Walser and can be found on Walser’s Web site.

Sure the the coolest time trial bikes at the Tour still have to be the BMCs on the Phonak team – another example of Swiss precision - but the Walsers are a close second.
Until tomorrow.
Ciao.
Lennard