Guillaume Martin has lashed out at bike sponsor Look after a disappointing Tour de France for himself and his Cofidis staff.
Speaking to French newspaper, Le Monde, the 31-year-old criticised the bike’s weight, which he cites as the rationale for selecting to not run an influence meter. Cofidis has since refuted his claims in a press release.
The French rider, who joined Cofidis in 2020 after 4 years with Wanty-Gobert, completed thirteenth on the 2024 Tour, some 43 minutes down on race winner Tadej Pogaćar.
After the race, he laid the blame on the toes of his staff and their bike, the Look 795 Blade RS. When requested about analysing his energy information, he responded: “That’s inconceivable as a result of I don’t have an influence meter. Our bikes weigh 7.7 kilograms, one kilogram greater than the allowed restrict. I don’t need to make my bike even heavier with a 200-gram bike pc.
“We watch our weight all 12 months by means of our weight loss plan, so 200 grams won’t appear to be a lot. But while you calculate with a motorbike that weighed a kilo an excessive amount of, I wouldn’t have been 45 seconds behind the Pogacar group on the high of the Bonette [on stage 19]. I’d have stayed with them and had time to eat higher. Overall, I’d have been calmer.”
Le Monde‘s article seems to have been edited since its authentic publication to take away a few of these feedback, although the feedback have been repeated in different media shops shortly afterwards.
The allowed restrict he refers to is the 6.8kg minimal weight restrict set by the UCI for all bikes in highway racing disciplines. At 7.7kg, Martin’s bike can be 900 grams heavier than in any other case doable inside the guidelines.
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The determination to eschew an influence meter was not pressured upon him, so far as Cyclingnews understands. While Martin opted to run a regular Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 chainset, lots of his teammates used the SRM Origin Road PM9 energy meter, full with Look-branded carbon fibre cranks and Shimano Dura-Ace chainrings. The precise weight distinction between the 2 options is unknown, however SRM claims a weight of between 542g and 608g, relying on spindle materials, for the PM9 on 165mm carbon arms with out chainrings. A comparable Dura-Ace crankset (additionally with out chainrings) is 538g in line with this blog.
In the times since Martin’s feedback, Cofidis has rebutted his criticisms and stood by its sponsor Look, in addition to Look’s in-house wheel model Corima, in a publish to its web site entitled “The Cofidis staff affirms its complete confidence in Look and Corima.”
“The bikes utilized by all of the riders have been designed collectively with our efficiency division and the design and analysis workplaces of our companions,” the staff’s assertion started. “Some of our riders actively participated on this design by offering their experience and sharing their emotions, to supply the staff high-tech gear.
“The weight of the bikes is a vital topic of consideration, however it isn’t the one efficiency issue. The bike utilized by Guillaume Martin is the topic of particular gear selections in order to not exceed 7.4 kg, a measurement barely beneath the common of the bikes of the most effective riders within the peloton.”
At the beginning of the Tour, Cyclingnews hung out with numerous groups getting hands-on with their bikes, and in doing so, weighed those who we have been allowed to weigh.
Among the GC favourites, Jonas Vingegaard’s Cervélo R5 bike was the lightest, tipping our scale at 6.7kg (and would wish so as to add weight to race legally). Primož Roglič’s Specialized Tarmac SL8 was bang on the 6.8kg restrict, and though we did not weigh the bike of Remco Evenepoel, we might predict that it could be comparable given they’re each sponsored by the identical model. The eventual race winner, Tadej Pogaćar, was aboard a Colnago V4RS which weighed 7.2kg, 400 grams over the restrict, regardless of a mess of weight-saving hacks.
The Look bikes at Cofidis have been among the many few we did not weigh, however at different groups, the quantity on our scale was generally a lot nearer to the 7.7kg that Martin mentions. Sprinter Mark Cavendish’s bike was 7.62kg, for instance. World Champion Mathieu van der Poel’s Canyon Aeroad was 7.67kg, and EF Education EasyPost’s Nielson Powless rode a Cannondale SuperSix Evo that tipped the scales at 7.82kg. Among the heaviest was the bike of Uno-X’s Jonas Abrhamsen, who spent a number of days within the Polka Dot jersey. He rode aboard the brand new Dare Velocity Ace, an all-out aero bike which tipped our scales at 7.9kg.
These stats actually put Guillaume Martin’s 7.7kg declare in the direction of the heavier finish of the spectrum, particularly when in comparison with these on the high of the race’s basic classification, however he wasn’t the one rider on a motorbike within the high-seven-kilo vary.
“Our riders profit, with the LOOK 795 Blade RS frames, from cutting-edge gear developed by our companions’ engineers, providing a stiffness/aerodynamics/weight ratio authorized by our riders for over a 12 months,” the staff’s assertion continued. “We are satisfied that these performances have allowed us and can enable us to compete with our rivals.
“We have additionally gained a number of victories within the 2023 Tour de France, the 2023 Vuelta and the 2024 Giro with this similar bike and have simply completed as soon as once more with the highest-ranked French rider total on this 2024 version of the Tour de France. We want to take this chance to thank all of our companions and particularly the LOOK Cycle and CORIMA manufacturers for his or her belief and the involvement of their groups who work alongside us to develop the most effective gear for our riders.”
Rider’s complaints about their bikes are a rarity, given the sponsorship mannequin on which this sport operates. However, they do often boil to the floor, and this instance is the second event we have seen it this 12 months. Fellow Frenchman, Florian Senechal sparked an identical response from his Arkea B&B Hotels staff when he complained about their Bianchi bikes on the end line of Paris-Roubaix. In the 2022 Giro d’Italia, Wilco Kelderman blamed his disc brakes for overheating and breaking his spokes, a declare that his then-sponsor Specialized rapidly put to mattress.
Look additionally suffered a pre-Tour de France headache again in 2018, when the Arkea B&B Hotels staff (then Fortuneo-Samsic) ended its partnership with fast impact, and subsequently switched to Spanish model BH.
It’s additionally not the primary time Martin has spoken out on delicate topics. In 2022, he questioned whether or not the Tour de France ought to change dates because of the rising results of world warming, one thing groups have been battling as soon as once more at this 12 months’s Grand Départ in Florence. He has additionally referred to as for a ban on Ketones, and on a number of events tackled the contentious topic of doping, saying in 2020 that he “would not put my hand within the hearth to say the entire peloton is clear.”
Martin, whose greatest Tour outcome stays his eighth place in 2021, is strongly rumoured to be leaving Cofidis on the finish of 2024. His vacation spot is fellow French staff, Groupama FDJ, the place he seems to be set to exchange rising French star Lenny Martinez who’s linked with a transfer to Bahrain Victorious.