My Bike
Annemiek van Vleuten’s world champ Scott Addict.
FRAME
SCOTT ADDICT RC (SIZE XXS)
GROUPSET
SHIMANO DURA-ACE R9170
CRANKSET
SHIMANO DURA-ACE FC-R9100P
HANDLEBAR TAPE
SYNCROS SUPER LIGHT
WHEELS
SHIMANO DURA-ACE WH-R9100-C40
TYRES
PIRELLI P-ZERO
SADDLE
SYNCROS BELCARRA
SEAT POST
SYNCROS DUNCAN AERO SL
PEDALS
SHIMANO PD-R9100
COCKPIT
SYNCROS CRESTON IC SL (380MM BAR WIDTH/80MM STEM)
WEIGHT
ABOUT 6.9KG
IIn September last year, during the UCI World Championship road race in the UK, Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten did something seldom seen in modern pro racing.
After breaking clear of the peloton up an early hill called Lofthouse, she rode solo for more than 100km across the Yorkshire moors to take the title. De-saturate the TV, squint your eyes a bit, and she could have been Eddy Merckx in another era entirely.
Van Vleuten (37) is no stranger to first place on the podium, having won the time trial world champs in 2017 and 2018, as well as La Course by Le Tour de France in both those years and the Giro Rosa in 2018 and 2019. But this victory was special – just because of the sheer audacity of that breakaway.
To celebrate Van Vleuten’s achievement, and as motivation (and a reminder of her capabilities), Scott designed a custom Addict RC for her to race in the 2020 season.
The new Addict is stiffer, with improved aerodynamics, and it’s one of the most integrated bikes you’ll find in the pro paddock; you have to look hard to find an exposed wire or hose.
You can thank the flagship Shimano Dura-ace Di2 groupset for that, but it’s also because of the Syncros Creston ic SL cockpit – a one-piece carbon marvel, in which all cables and hoses are routed through the bar, the stem, the head tube and finally into the frame and fork leg, via an offset top bearing and headset spacers with a moulded channel. If you’re a bike nerd, it’s pretty spectacular.
The weight of the bike has not been revealed, but the top-line, commercially available RC Ultimate clocks in at a barely legal 6.9kg.
The new Addict is also discbrake only, something Van Vleuten is pretty chuffed about. “My descending on it has been going like crazy,” she says.
The sparkly bits
Okay, so the bike’s a lightweight, hill-slaying engineering marvel; but that’s not what makes it unique. It’s all about the paint job, which Scott created especially for Van Vleuten.
The colour is difficult to define: black, but with a subtle rainbowglitter undertone that comes alive when viewed from different angles, like the Milky Way glimpsed behind fast-moving clouds.
Obligatory rainbow bands decorate the lower fork legs and the down tube. The bands depict a road; a motif that’s carried over to the top tube, where you’ll also find Van Vleuten’s nickname – ‘Vleuty’ – beneath an illustration of three quintessentially Dutch objects: a windmill, a tulip and a clog.
But the coolest detail is low on the down tube, near the bottom bracket – a little graphic that reads ‘105km solo’.
“That makes the bike really personal to me,” Van Vleuten says.
So, when can she ride it?
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit cycling hard; but it’s been particularly cruel to women’s cycling. More than half of the Women’s Worldtour races have been cancelled or postponed, as the UCI scrambles to accommodate major men’s events like the Tour de France later in the season.
A new race calendar for women is still being finalised, and riders like Van Vleuten are hoping that the one-day classics, usually raced in the European spring, can still be held in autumn. One encouraging prospect is that the 2020 UCI Road World Championships in Switzerland has kept its original dates (20-27 September), and the mountainous course of the road race should suit Van Vleuten well.
And it’s not as if she hasn’t raced in her rainbow jersey. The only major women’s race to have taken place this year, in February – where her sparkly bike debuted – was Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium, which Van Vleuten won comfortably with another solo attack.
As she told Cyclingnews: “It would be sad if I couldn’t show it again, but at least I have a good record – one out of one. A hundred per cent score!”