Not just some of the CSC riders are on Speedplay, they all are. It was kinda funny when the riders showed up the first day of training camp, they were all supposed to come into the equipment room to pick up their bikes for their first training ride. So they walk in, and see a Cervelo bike and fork, Easton bars, Speedplay pedals, Zipp wheels, FSA cranks, all stuff they have barely heard of or not at all.
I wish I could have read their minds at that point, but the riders really have a lot of confidence in Riis' choices, so they all got their cleats fit and tried out the bikes. Most came back for a few adjustments on the cleats, but they were all impressed with how logically the adjustment of the float works.
The funniest was Carlos Sastre, who is known for never making any fuss. He came in, handed over his shoes to get the new cleats installed, put on the shoes, took a bike (not his own), rode around the room slaloming around some chairs, got off, said "thanks, that's perfect" and was done.
And after the training ride, not a single complaint. Which especially for the pedals is very surprising, since they are a very personal choice and most of them were very convinced before trying the Speedplays that their old pedals were the way to go for them.
Anyway, to get back to the Speedplay pedals, they are red just to match the bike. So they are normal Speedplay pedals, but they normally aren't red. I think the type of pedal that CSC rides is normally yellow, but then they switched the colored bits. And I think the yellow pedals are track pedals, but the only difference with the road pedal is the higher tension needed to disengage. The pros seem to like that. I hope that makes sense.
Finally, regarding taking the Ultegra stuff off the Soloist, you can also just get the frameset and build it up from there, but I guess you know that.
Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike OPEN cycle