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Gallery: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig’s Tour de France Femmes Lapierre Xelius SL
Gallery: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig's Tour de France Femmes Lapierre Xelius SL
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig of team FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope started the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift as one of the favourites for the overall GC victory. The recently crowned Danish champion suffered a setback, crashing on stage two, and now sits almost two minutes Marianne Vos. Still, though, as we spotted before the start of stage one, Cecilie and the entire FDJ squad are racing on specially painted Lapierre Xelius SLs designed to represent the team sponsors and celebrate the return of the Tour de France Femmes and sure to put a smile back on Cecilie’s face.
Lapierre charged its designers with developing a colourway that celebrates the first Tour de France Femmes and “also reflects the state of mind, and the smiling, dynamic side the FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope squad exudes during each race.”
At first looks glance, the very colourful design looks quite random, but every piece of the artful puzzle represents some aspect of the team’s sponsors or one of the eight stages of the Tour de France Femmes. We got a closer look at the bike before stage one to bring you all the little details that go into this unique paint job.
Lapierre first unveiled the new bike just over a year ago, before officially announcing the new lighter, more aero, and stiffer, Xelius SL3 in December. The Xelius’ unique seat post by-passing seat stay design makes the Lapierre highly recognisable. Lapierre claims it also helps provide a more comfortable ride, disperses vibrations between the saddle and handlebars, and lightens the bike using carbon in an area with low mechanical constraints. But it’s the new paint job, specifically for the Tour de France Femmes, that is most eye-catching on the team’s bikes for the eight stages from Paris to La Super Planche. Cloverleaf represents long term team sponsor FDJ while the patchwork and colour gradients represent the brand colours of both Suez and Futuroscope.While lotto ball style numbers dotted around the frame both celebrate FDJ’s sponsorship and numbered one to eight represent a stage of this year’s Tour de France Femmes.
The “POP” styled handwriting represents both the fun of the Futuroscope themepark and abbreviates the start and finish place names of each stage. Stage eight, Lure to La Super Planche des Belles FillesStage one – Champs ÉlyséesNo mistaking who owns this bike.Uttrup Ludwig raced stage one on Shimano’s tubeless C60 wheelset with Continental Grand Prix 5000 S TR tyres. Lapierre do now offer a two-piece bar and stem for further adjustability, but Uttrup Ludwig races with the one-piece bar stem practically slammed. That bar stem also includes these Di2 shifter buttons as standard. although, we were told Uttrup Ludwig opts not to run any satelitte shifters. 12 laps of the Champs, sounds tough. The 27.2mm round seat post also helps with adding some compliance and comfort into the ride quality and presumably shaves a few grams in the process. All in, we are told Uttrup Ludwig’s Xelius weighs in at 7.1kg with the C60 wheelset, and should be right on the 6.8kg UCI weight limit with Shimano’s C36 wheelset for the mountainous stages.Uttrup Ludwig races with a Prologo Nago Dimension saddle. Read More
