Tour de France pro bikes: Vincenzo Nibali's Merida Reacto KOM

This is the Merida Reacto KOM that Bahrain–Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali is riding in this year’s Tour de France. 

Bahrain–Merida riders choose between the Merida Scultura lightweight bike and the Reacto aero bike for road stages (as opposed to time trials). 

There are advantages in choosing an aero bike over a lightweight bike in the majority of circumstances, the exception being on steeper climbs, but in an ideal world you’d have a bike that’s both aerodynamically efficient and lightweight.

The team’s standard Reacto weighs 7.2kg (15lb 14oz) when built up with sponsors’ components – 400g over the UCI’s 6.8kg minimum weight limit for racing, so Merida has been busy shaving the grams off Nibali’s bike and come up with the 6.8kg Reacto KOM – KOM as in King of the Mountains, of course.

How has it done this? Merida says that it has used a standard lay-up for the frame, but with the lightest possible carbon strains chosen and integrated into the various segments.

Merida has saved weight on the finish. Most Bahrain–Merida bikes have a rich blue, red and gold paint job, but Nibali's bike is mostly bare. The down tube features a decal in the colours of the leader’s jerseys of the three Grand Tours – France, Italy and Spain – all of which Nibali has won.

The silver ‘fins’ in the design are a reference to Nibali’s nickname: ‘The Shark’.

Nibali goes for a separate handlebar and stem from FSA rather than a single-piece Vision Metron 5D system that some other team-members are using.

It’s an OS 99 3D forged 7050 aluminium stem (120mm) with a compact K-Force carbon handlebar (42cm centre to centre).

The wheels are Fulcrum Speeds with a 40mm-deep rim at the front and a 55mm deep rim at the rear. They're fitted with Continental ProLtd tubular tyres in a 25mm width. 

The Bahrain–Merida team uses Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupsets ...

...although the powermeter isn’t from Shimano, it’s a chainset-based SRM unit. The cranks are 172.5mm, the chainrings are 53/39-tooth and the cassette is 11-30-tooth.

Nibali uses satellite shifters in the drops – often called sprinter's shifters – to make changing gear easier when riding out of the saddle.

Speaking of the saddle, Nibali’s isn’t from team sponsor Prologo, hence the lack of logos. This is an Antares 00 from Fizik, a brand he has been using for years, with carbon braided rails. It has a claimed weight of just 140g. We measured the saddle height at 75.5cm.

The bottle cages are Elite Leggero. You can't see it here but a little grip tape has been added to help keep the bottles in place.

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