Bianchi's Aquila RC on show at Etoile de Bessèges
We hear from an Arkéa - B&B Hotels mechanic about the new TT bike
There was a buzz outside the Arkéa - B&B Hotels team bus ahead of stage 4 of the Etoile de Bessèges as the team showed off their new time trial bike, Bianchi’s Aquila RC.
The bike was officially announced a few days earlier in a press release, but this was the first sighting of the machine in the wild.
We caught up with one of the Arkéa - B&B Hotels’ mechanics, who talked us through the development of the bike and the gains that the French team are expecting to see, starting at the stage 5 time trial in Bessèges on Sunday.
The biggest talking point about the new RC, which replaced the 2014-launched Aquila CV, is that Bianchi has switched to disc brakes.
The Aquila CV was the last rim-brakeTT bike in the men’s WorldTour peloton, but the move to disc brakes aims to improve the aerodynamic gains and provide better all-around integration.
“We have already tried the new bike – with Kevin Vauquelin,” said team mechanic Nicolas Deshaies.
“It's a well-designed bike that works perfectly. It's a new product as the engineers have redesigned everything from scratch. Kevin won last year's time trial at this race on the previous version with rim brakes, and we hope he can replicate his victory on the new bike with disc brakes,” Deshaies added.