Pro bike sponsors

Nor does it I. Or anyone on here I would doubt.

But I still find it interesting from a fan perspective of the sport to see how the names move around and what that may mean.

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Only one that’s decent is Gomez to Orbea

Advisory :+1:t3:
As well as athlete.

As opposed to running shoes

  1. Made by Nike?

Done.

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Alex Yee is NB, he is fastest runner in tri, so I wear NB :rofl:

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I know the pros might chase every marginal gain, but I’d be amazed if there’s a clear sustained tangible difference between the top bike from each brand, and far less between the bikes themselves compared to how each rider fits on them?

That each athlete is probably most valuable to the sponsor on the announcement day (unless they win or do have a big public presence for promotion opportunities).
Then it’s meaningless for two years until they all go on the merry-go-round again and we talk about them.

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Or short course athletes in Olympic/Commonwealth year, Trek got a good selection of that market at the minute though!

Nope, Ruth Astle joins Skipper at Argon 18

Wonder if they are deliberately targeting the UK market :thinking:

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Could be. I’ve always liked Argon 18, both road and TT.

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Title edited!

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Yup! They’re similar looking to BMC - all angular and square and ā€œbeefyā€

Good looking bikes :+1:t3:

As a total misogynist, I am never going to buy a bit of kit for me because some female is using it, even if she is winning. Suspect 95%+ of competitive males are the same. Suppose it might be a factor if I was choosing something for daughter or wife.

I think Trek were the marketing big winners in most of the bike events at the last Olympics because they placed bikes with stunning colour schemes between the legs of some of the big names. The tech was much less of a selling point than the paint jobs.

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I’ll agree with that bit

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A few years ago, one of the marketing guys at Specialized told me that they were moving away from sponsoring lots of individual athletes. They were still going to sponsor the cycling teams and some of the big stars whose results did the talking, but they reckoned that no one cared about an athlete posting on Twitter about how great their bike was. They preferred organic content where the bike just happened to be in a photo and wasn’t being deliberately highlighted.

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The move for AB to BMC also means that he’s not tied to helmet or shoes as he was with Scott.
Pics are out there with him on the BMC already testing helmets which will be important with the sub 7 thing coming up. Also BMC have been partnered with Red Bull Advanced Technologies for a few years now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something new in time for St George/Kona

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On that, was interesting to hear AB talk a bit about the sub 7 thing in a podcast I listened to earlier on the turbo

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I saw these on insta. Interesting bottle chomping position!

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Seems odd having a spares aero box and spares bottle under the saddle?

Might just be the spares bottle is setup and used on his road bike and couldn’t be bothered swapping it into the box?

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Yeah that was my guess from when he’s out training.