TOUR BIKE: ERIK ZABEL'S COLNAGO EXTREME POWER SUPER

To stand out at the Tour de France takes a lot and Zabel?s classically liveried up Colnago Extreme Power Super (EPS) is one that was hard to miss against his team?s plainer Extreme Power?s.

With no information currently available about the new frame, it was down to a keen eye that we managed to spot the slight differences to the current design.

Click image to enlarge.

Colnago has been on a quest to gain even more stiffness over the current Extreme Power. To that end they?ve increased the diameter of the top tube at the head tube, which has also received serious treatment.

Bringing the Extreme C up to date with the latest frame from the Italian firm, the EPS integrated headset system from the new CX-1 has been adopted. This uses a tapered steerer tube on a new fork design, with a 1 1/4in lower race and 1 1/8in upper bearing race that should increase the stiffness of this already impressive frame.

Tapered head tube with different race sizes

The lugs elsewhere on the frame look identical to the Extreme Power and the familiar leaf shaped chainstays are still incorporated into the design.

A new seatpost design was also present with a knurled saddle angle adjuster making for easy fine-tuning.

Beefy lugs for maximum stiffness

Zabel?s new bike wouldn?t be complete without the latest from Shimano, using its Dura-Ace 7900 groupset. With a sprintastic top gear of 53-11 with a crank length of 172.5mm, Zabel was hoping he?d be able to claim a couple more second places to add to his recent run and he certainly didn?t disappoint.

Shimano's latest brakes stop Lightweight wheels

Again differing from his team's standard equipment set-up, Zabel has a contract with Lightweight to use its wheels instead of the team?s sponsors, Shimano and used a pair of the latest Obermayers in this year?s race.