June 27, 2006 — When the 93rd Tour de France starts in Strasbourg on July 1, 2006, it will mark the fourth appearance in the world’s biggest annual sporting event for Cervélo Cycles.

Once again, the world’s #1 cycling team, Team CSC, will rely on its stable of Cervélo bikes for success. Team leader Ivan Basso is recognized as one of the top favourites based on his resounding win last month at the Giro d’ Italia and his past performances at the Tour de France, finishing third in 2004 and second in 2005. Basso was the only rider able to keep up with Lance Armstrong in the mountains last year.

“We are bringing a fantastic team to Tour de France this year,” said Bjarne Riis, Team CSC Manager and the 1996 Tour winner. “This is a team to be reckoned with — a team which has the foundation to be one of the dominating ones in the 2006 edition of the Tour. We go to France this year with one ambition: To win with Ivan Basso. After his victory in the Giro, and with the training he has done in the period since then, I have no doubt he is ready for this next big challenge. He has the class, the willpower and also the team behind him to be one of the favorites.”

Team CSC will have three American riders in its starting line-up, making it the most American team in the Tour. One of them is Dave Zabriskie, the only man to beat Lance Armstrong in a time trial in last year’s Tour, and one of the favorites to win the opening 2006 Prologue in Strasbourg.

Cervelo’s in the Tour

Team CSC will be riding Cervélo bikes for the fourth year in a row throughout the grueling twenty-three day race that runs from July 1 to July 23. Between the varied flat stages, time trials and the mettle testing mountain stages, the CSC team is relying on five different Cervelo models to get the job done and win!

“Our strength has always been to develop specific bikes for specific race courses,” said Gerard Vroomen, Co-founder Cervélo Cycles. “While most teams use one and the same model for all regular stages and only switch to a different model for the time trials, Team CSC will use five different models depending on the course profile and rider preference.”

Soloist Carbon
Its low weight and unbeatable aerodynamics make the Soloist Carbon the fastest possible set-up for almost any course: uphill, downhill or flat. So it was no surprise when Basso won the first real mountain stage with uphill finish at the Giro on his Soloist Carbon.

Soloist Team
The workhorse bike for CSC, the Soloist Team is not only the most affordable bike in the ProTour, it is also one with an enviable list of victories including Paris-Nice and Critérium International. For any other team, a bike of this pedigree would be their mainstay but with all the new developments from Cervelo, Team CSC will use the Soloist Team mostly as a back-up bike at the Tour de France.

R3
The R3, which Basso also won a mountain stage on at the Giro, is by far the lightest frame on the ProTour. In fact, it is so light that it falls well below the UCI weight limit, so the team needs to add weights to make it legal. Surprisingly enough it is also the strongest frame on the ProTour, as Fabian Cancellara nicely demonstrated with his victory at Paris-Roubaix, which covers 260km of the worst roads of northern France.

P3 Carbon
Of course, there is no doubt as to what bike Basso and the rest of the team will be riding for the Tour de France Prologue, Stage 7 and Stage 19 time trials. The Cervelo P3 Carbon is the ProTour time trial bike with the most wins under its belt; in fact half of the ProTour time trials were won with a P3 Carbon this year, the other half was split among the 16 other manufacturers in the ProTour.

We did mention five models earlier in this release, more details on the fifth model to be used by Team CSC, later this week.