November 8, 2005 – Spanish cycling champion Alejandro Valverde of the Opera sponsored Illes Balears-Caisse d’Epargne cycling team, silver medalist in the recent World Elite Road Championships in Madrid, and stage winner in the ’05 Tour de France, recently visited Cicli Pinarello in Treviso, Italy, along with teammates Pereiro, Gutierrez and Karpets for some innovative new biomechanical tests to improve their position on their bicycles and enhance their aerodynamics.

Along with sports director Eusebio Unzue and assisted by the mechanics of Cicli Pinarello under the supervision of Fausto Pinarello, the four athletes spent two full days undergoing innovative new biomechanical tests by Alessandro Mariano to improve to the maximum the athletes position on their Opera by Pinarello bicycles.

Alejandro Valverde especially went through special testing with the objective to improve his aerodynamics, with particular attention to the Tour with a prologue and two long time trial stages totalling 115 kilometers. For Cicli Pinarello, time trial bicycles have been a special expertise since the historic days of Miguel Indurain, who won many time trial stages in his five Tour De France wins on Pinarello time trial bicycles, as well as setting a World Hour Record and winning an Olympic Gold Medal on the special Pinarello “Espada” bicycle created especially for him.

Alessandro Mariano, a biomechanical expert who has worked closely with Cicli Pinarello for many years, used an innovative new system of dynamic electronic sensors that analyze the specific power output of the riders while riding and enable real-time adjustments to be made to each riders position and to achive maximum efficiency and power. This data will thus enable Cicli Pinarello to precisely develop custom frames for each rider according to the proper biomechanical characteristics required for maximum efficiency and power output. These biomechanical tests managed by Alessandro Mariano and Fausto Pinarello also allowed Gutierrez, Karpets, Pereiro and Valverde to Cicli Pinarello and meet with Fausto and the team to ready their material for the 2006 season.