Tour Tech: who's on Di2?

We've just had a press release in from Shimano outlining who's got the electronic Shimano Dura Ace Di2 gear on their bike and it makes for interesting reading.

Where time trialling is involved there seems to be little dispute: of the five teams running the electronic gear, four have Di2 on the TT bikes of all nine riders.

This is no great surprise as the one definite advantage of the electronic switchgear is that you can position the shifters wherever you need them, and have more than one: perfect for a TT bike. It's for this reason that many riders continued with some of the previous electronic systems for time trialling long after they'd died out elsewhere.

For the road stages it's a different story. Four of the five teams have three riders on Di2, with the fifth (Skil Shimano) having four. The riders are completely free to choose between Di2 and the Dura Ace 7900 mechanical system, so it seems that despite the wired system being extensively tested and race proven, it's not unversally accepted as being superior at the moment. The adventurous Brits are among the early adopters though, with Bradley Wiggins and David Millar both opting for electronic shifting with Cav opting to stay with cables.

Team Columbia‐High Road:

Road race: Michael Rogers, George Hincapie, Maxime Monfort
Time trial: Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Bert Grabsch, George Hincapie, Kim Kirchen, Tony Martin, Maxime Monfort, Mark Renshaw, Michael Rogers

Team Garmin Slipsteam

Road race: Bradley Wiggins, David Millar, David Zabriskie
Time trial: Christian Vandevelde, Julian Dean, Tyler Farrar, Ryder Hesjedal, Martijn Maaskant, David Millar, Danny Pate, Bradley Wiggins, David Zabriskie

Team Francaise des Jeux

Road race: Sebastien Joly, Benoit Vaugrenard, Jeremy Roy
Time trial: Jerome Coppel, Sebastien Joly, Sandy Casar

Team Rabobank

Road race: Joost Posthuma, Grisha Niermann, Oscar Freire
Time trial: Denis Menchov, Stef Clement, Juan Antonio Flecha, Oscar Freire, Juan Manuel Garate, Robert Gesink, Grisha Niermann, Joost Posthuma, Laurens ten Dam

Team Skil‐Shimano

Road race: Koen de Kort, Jonathan Hivert, Kenny van Hummel, Cyril Lemoine
Time trial: Cyril Lemoine, Fumiyuki Beppu, Koen de Kort, Simon Geschke, Jonathan Hivert, Thierry Hupond, Piet Rooijakkers, Albert Timmer, Kenny van Hummel