The guys at Cervelo don’t seem to be as quick as the team at Ridley when getting frames sorted and shipped to race winners. Back when Tong Gallopin took the yellow jersey, Ridley had a bike sprayed, delivered and built in a night so he could start the next day on it. For Langeveld, he had to wait until stage 16 of Le Tour for his first outing on his national champs paint-schemed bike, nearly two and a half weeks after he took the win.
The wait looks like it’s been worth it. The deep glossy Cervelo S3 has had a classy and clean looking paint job. There’s no way you’ll forget Langeveld is the national champ looking at it — his name appears in multiple locations. Either that or the mechanics need reminding it’s his.
The bike is built up with the usual team sponsored kit: Shimano Dura Ace Di2 groupset, 3T AXR Pro stem and 3T bars to match. The saddle’s a Fizik Aliante, pushed really far forward on the Cervelo seat post. Wheels are Mavics Cosmic Carbon Special Service Corsa with Mavic Yksion matching tubulars.
Arundel’s very fine Mandibel carbon cages keep the Camelback bottles in place. Fizik also supplies the bar tape.
One tweak that is noticeable, and not too good for the main sponsor Garmin or the chainset sponsor Rotor, is the fact Langeveld is using an SRM power meter. Both Garmin and Rotor make their own power meters — Garmin has the Vector pedals and Rotor has the Power Crank. It seems very odd that neither product is being used.
Pedals are Garmin’s own that usually come supplied with the vector pods. These are basically Taiwanese company Exustar pedals rebranded.
I managed to get a quick chat with Langeveld at the start of stage 17. When asked about how he feels wearing the jersey at the Tour he explained it’s his first race as a national champ and being able to show the jersey off to the masses of fans at the Tour makes him feel happy and proud.
Even with a national champ’s jersey on your back it apparently doesn’t hep you get any extra respect from the guys in the peloton. Unlike wearing yellow, the only upside is other riders may recognise him a bit more.
And it’s not just the riders that recognise him that bit more — media attention around Langeveld has increased. He’s not the type of rider to shy away from this — in fact he said he actually enjoys it.
But back to that good looking S3 bike, all in all it’s a great looking machine, a solid race bike that would be a dream velo for any amateur. The big question though is, which bike brand will be making a special edition Dutch national champ version for Langeveld next year? If rumours are true it may be another large US manufacturer.
Until then Langeveld will just have to keep looking sharp on his Cervelo.