I couldn’t find the answer to the question. I thought it was a custom Litespeed Blade. Am I right or wrong?
You are correct
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What is interesting is he said that there was some controversy among the team regarding that choice of bike. I guess some people, maybe including him, didn’t like the bike. I think the next year Trek made the Team Time Trial model then everything evolved from there. I remember the North American bike manufacturers who were heavily invested in the triathlon world being the ones who pushed time trial bike developments forward. I was at the 2004 Tour de Georgia and I joked with Ivan Dominguez, whose Colavita Olive Oil team was sponsored by Felt, about his Cervelo P3 painted up like a Felt. He just looked at me, smiled, and said, “That’s a special Felt.”
RP
I believe this is it.
I know nothing about bike’s or bike design history, but I did not expect to see such a deep/wide front fork on a bike from '99. Did they get smaller after that and then bigger again today?
Damn, that bike is smaller on him than Jens Voigt on the Mavic neutral car bike.
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All of the “controversy” was c/o the team’s bike sponsor, who weren’t very pleased to have some of the race’s most decisive moments happen on an (obviously) rebadged bike. It was super common back then, but it was rarely so obvious.
I know nothing about bike’s or bike design history, but I did not expect to see such a deep/wide front fork on a bike from '99. Did they get smaller after that and then bigger again today?
At the time there were several 3rd party fork manufacturers who made bladed aero forks. The frame manufacturers typically sourced the forks from them vs. having something specifically made for the frame (see below). As bike manufacturers started to make forks specifically for the frames there was a phase where they had more taper (ex. the original Shiv/Shiv Tri).
Kinesis fork made for Trek
Profile BDC fork
Tru Temper Wolf fork
3TTT Funda
I know nothing about bike’s or bike design history, but I did not expect to see such a deep/wide front fork on a bike from '99. Did they get smaller after that and then bigger again today?
'90s forward thinking at its best:
But we weren’t done. We were greedy for more “empty space,” so, we contracted with Kinesis to build us a fork that we hoped would achieve two things: yet more spacing between the blade and the wheel; and better navigation thru side winds by placing most of the fork’s blade depth behind the steering axis.
The fork was introduced in 1996 or thereabouts, was aluminum, was called the Illuminaero, and was a true boat anchor. Heavy, yes, but it worked, and a year later we came out with the Carbonaero. The fork was so good at what it did that both Trek and Cannondale used the fork under license on their tri bikes.\
glad you pointed that out. titanflex didn’t have it quite right. kinesis didn’t make that fork for trek. we designed that fork, had them make it for us, and we let them sell it to both trek and cannondale - with a vig to us on every unit sold.
I’ve found the “World Cycling Productions” 4 hours of tour recap videos on youtube and have been working my way through them, more for the storylines than the exhibitions of …er “athletic performance”. Knowing that USPS was doing “marginal gains” before sky, anyone know what wheels he rode in the climbing stages back in the day? Lightweights? Fairly common that he used a downtube shifter for his front derailleur for weight savings/reliability/chain rub. Were the lighter frames with different carbon layups for climbing stages only, or were they used throughout? Any other interesting tech insights from back then?
Yes, he rode Lightweight tubulars (like Jan, Jalabert, etc).
I think he had the frame (5500 normally and 5900 for moountains?) with the higher grade carbon but it also had a special “vapor” type paint scheme that was a bit lighter than the other paint. Or maybe that was later on… Something like that.
I know nothing about bike’s or bike design history, but I did not expect to see such a deep/wide front fork on a bike from '99. Did they get smaller after that and then bigger again today?
Fork blades got smaller after the UCI imposed a limit
I know nothing about bike’s or bike design history, but I did not expect to see such a deep/wide front fork on a bike from '99. Did they get smaller after that and then bigger again today?
Fork blades got smaller after the UCI imposed a limit
I’d have to measure the fork on my Lucero to be sure, but I think the Carbonaero was still UCI legal. Besides their tri bikes, Cannondale used that fork on the aero version of the R1000 for a few years into the early 2000s…
