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TECH NEWS

Tour Tech 2017: Mavic’s neutral service bikes fitted with dropper seatposts

Quick saddle height adjustment for riders with mechanical issues

Mavic’s Tour de France neutral service bikes are fitted with dropper seatposts for the first time in this year’s race to allow riders to adjust their position more quickly and easily.

mavic bikes - 3.jpg

A neutral service bike is available to a rider when he suffers a mechanical problem and one of his own team’s support vehicles can’t get to him quickly with a replacement for some reason. It’s quite an unusual occurrence but it does happen. Usually, a team car will be on the scene in seconds with a spare. If not, a GC rider might borrow a bike from a teammate if there’s one about, but just occasionally a rider will jump on a neutral service bike as a temporary fix to stay in the race and swap back to a team bike later on.

Dropper seatposts are a common feature of mountain biking where they allow you to adjust your saddle height for technical sections using a control that you can operate on the fly. You don’t have to stop and faff about with a hex key or a quick release seatpost clamp.

Tour de France 2017 Mavic neutral service dropper posts - 1.jpg

The usefulness of a dropper seatpost on a neutral service bike is obvious. A rider can jump on board and quickly get a saddle height that works for them whatever their height. They might not get a perfect riding position, but one that’s good enough to be going on with. 

Mavic, which introduced neutral support to professional bike racing over 40 years ago, has specced its Tour de France neutral service bikes with custom dropper seatposts from KS Suspension of the USA. 

The seatposts, based on the Lev Integra 272, offer 65mm of saddle height adjustment. To lower the post, you pull on that loop you can see in the photo with your weight on the saddle. Pull on the loop while the saddle is unweighted (while you’re standing up on the pedals) and the post will extend. You can stop it at any point within the travel. 

Tour de France 2017 Mavic neutral service dropper posts - 2.jpg

Ah, but what about pedals? Remember when Chris Froome started legging it up Mont Ventoux last year? Of course you do. That was because the neutral service bike he was given was fitted with Look Kéo pedals whereas Froome uses Shimano SPD-SL. Froome couldn’t clip in to the pedals – the two systems are incompatible – hence the Forrest Gump impression.

mavic bikes - 5.jpg

The three bikes that Mavic has on its neutral service cars are each fitted with a different pedal system: Shimano, Look Kéo and Speedplay. Riders using other pedal systems – Time for example – are aware of that. 

Click here for more Tour de France tech stories.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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6 comments

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CygnusX1 | 6 years ago
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Did wonder what they did about pedal systems on the neutral service bikes ... one less mystery  ...

Now what about the neutral wheel service on motorbikes - I assume they cater for both disc and rim brakes, but what about differing disc rotor sizes and what about gearing ratios on the rear? 

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matthewn5 replied to CygnusX1 | 6 years ago
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CygnusX1 wrote:

Did wonder what they did about pedal systems on the neutral service bikes ... one less mystery  ...

Now what about the neutral wheel service on motorbikes - I assume they cater for both disc and rim brakes, but what about differing disc rotor sizes and what about gearing ratios on the rear? 

That's maybe why pro riders still use rim brakes.  3

 

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Jimmy Ray Will | 6 years ago
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Dropper posts seem a bit excessive. 

Why not simply a quick release boly on the seatpost, with saddle height markers etched on the seatpost. 

Actually thinking about, the cost to get the post etched would be more than a dropper post... as you were. 

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Grahamd | 6 years ago
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The lack of disc brakes would be more of a worry...

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PaulBox replied to Grahamd | 6 years ago
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Grahamd wrote:

The lack of disc brakes would be more of a worry...

Not for proper riders...

 

 

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RobD | 6 years ago
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Ah that's me out if they're not fitted with Time pedals, and that was the only thing stopping me obviously...

Seems like a sensible idea, a little surprised it's not come about before, or that some of the teams don't have a couple of adjustable all rider bikes in addition to each rider's spare, although if you had riders the size of quintana and Froome on the same team you'd still need a range of sizes I guess

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