This is the custom-painted Wilier Filante SLR that Mark Cavendish rode to a historic 35th stage win at the 2024 Tour de France.
With a special-edition paint job celebrating some of the Manx Missile’s many career highlights, the bike features an updated, speed-focussed build compared to his 2023 bike.
Having crashed out of last year’s Tour, Cavendish is back with a vengeance at this year’s race and seems to have made every effort to optimise his bike and equipment setup.
Ahead of the race start in Florence, Italy, we got our hands on Cavendish’s bike – weighing his machine and recording the key measurements – so let’s take a deep dive into the tech that helped Cavendish cement his place as the Tour’s greatest-ever stage hunter.
Too many career highlights to list
Designing a custom paint job for Mark Cavendish must be some task – with a list of career achievements stretching back almost two decades, deciding what to celebrate is no easy task in itself.
This year’s paint was apparently inspired by something Cavendish saw during a visit to Wilier’s headquarters, in Italy.
According to the Italian brand, the bold splashes of colour represent Cav’s many victories in the Tour over the years, and at the World Road Race Championships in 2011.
The yellow represents the day Cavendish spent in the race leader’s yellow jersey during the 2016 Tour de France, while the green signifies his two green jersey wins in 2011 and 2021.
The rest of the colours relate to the rainbow colours awarded to world champions by the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale – the sport’s governing body).
The colours cover the front of the frame, the upper half of the fork and the bike’s integrated handlebar (more this later), with the rest left black allowing the colours to take centre stage.
Should you wish to own a replica version of Cavendish’s bike, Wilier says the paint job (which it calls ‘F21 CVNDSH’) will be available as an upgrade for the Filante SLR until the end of the year.
Unsurprisingly, though, with a surcharge of €2,000, it doesn’t come cheap.
A streamlined bike
As at last year’s Tour, Cavendish’s bike of choice is the Wilier Filante SLR.
Filante translates to ‘streamlined’ and it is, as its name suggests, Wilier’s all-rounder aero road bike.
It carries a claimed frame weight of 870g in a size medium. That’s around 222g heavier than the Italian brand’s new Verticale SLR climbing bike – but, for a sprinter, aerodynamics are typically far more important.
Wilier says the Filante SLR balances its aerodynamic performance with low weight and high responsiveness, thanks to its use of truncated aerofoil tube shapes.
It’s a formula similar to many of the current crop of all-rounder racing bikes, including models such as the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8, the latest Trek Madone SLR and the Giant Propel Advanced SL.
As with many Tour de France bikes, the front end of the Filante SLR features a fully integrated cockpit, though Cavendish has opted for a Vision Metron integrated handlebar rather than the stock Wilier option.
Willier also says the Filante SLR’s fork is 13.6 per cent wider than on its predecessor, the Cento10PRO. This is claimed to move the fork legs away from the front wheel and reduce turbulence.
At the rear of the bike, the subtly dropped seatstays also run similarly wide to reduce turbulence and help increase tyre clearance to 30mm.
HED out, Vision in
Cavendish’s build is mostly team-issue, though it has seen some significant changes compared to last year.
Most notably, at the 2023 race, Cavendish used HED Vanquish RC6 Pro wheels. This year, though, he and the rest of his team have switched to Vision Metron wheels.
For the sprint stages of this year’s Tour, Cavendish opts for the Metron 60 SL. These feature 60mm-deep rims front and rear, with 21mm internal widths, and have a claimed weight of 1,590g.
Wide rubber
These are wrapped with Vittoria Corsa Pro TLR tyres, in a size 700x28c, set up tubeless. On the Vision rims, we measured these at 28.4mm at the rear and 29.3mm at the front.
Given the rims and tyres share the same nominal dimensions front and rear, the most likely reason for the slight size discrepancy is that the rear tyre may have simply needed a top up of air.
Tweaked position
The Vision theme continues up-front, with Cavendish choosing the brand’s Metron 5D ACR Integrated 3K handlebar.
Vision says this is its stiffest and most aerodynamic integrated bar, with the forward sweep of the tops allowing for better wrist clearance, and the subtly flared drops offering a stable platform for sprinting and descending.
In terms of dimensions, Cavendish’s Vision cockpit consists of a bar that measures 385mm wide centre-to-centre at the brake hoods, paired with a 120mm stem.
This is a little narrower and shorter than last year (when Cav had a 400mm-wide traditional bend bar paired with a 130mm stem), suggesting his bike fit has changed slightly for this season.
Unusually, Cav’s shifters are also tilted out very slightly – bucking the trend for inwards-angled shifters.
The return of 11-speed Dura-Ace
In terms of the drivetrain, Cav’s Astana Qazaqstan is still using Shimano’s flagship Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 groupset.
As we saw it, Cavendish’s bike was set up with big, 55/40t chainrings up front and a wide, 11-34t cassette out back.
Big chainrings have been a persistent trend in the pro peloton in recent years, as speeds get higher and riders search for marginal efficiency gains.
Notably, though, Cavendish’s bike had an old, 11-speed Dura-Ace R9100 outer chainring installed on his 12-speed Dura-Ace power meter crankset.
This is unusual as, strictly, Shimano says its 11-speed chainrings are not compatible with its new 12-speed groupsets.
This is because the chainring spacing on the new 12-speed cranksets is slightly narrower than on the 11-speed versions, so the throw of the 12-speed front derailleur is slightly different than before.
According to the team mechanics, Cavendish (and some of his teammates, who are also using these older chainrings) believes they offer better shifting.
However, given they’re technically incompatible with the other R9200 components, could this be a risky choice?
Around the 2022 Tour de France (as availability of the latest 12-speed equipment lagged behind demand), such mixing and matching of 11- and 12-speed components was blamed for a rash of chain drops in the pro peloton.
As a result, we saw a number of pro bikes – including Geraint Thomas's Pinarello Dogma F and Chris Juul-Jensen’s Giant Propel Advanced SL – with chain catchers added as insurance against dropped chains.
Images of Cavendish’s victory yesterday showed his chain coming off the outer chainring as he sat up to celebrate – could this be related to this incompatibility?
Potentially, although it’s also fair to say this is something that has happened fairly frequently over Cavendish’s career. His tendency to stop pedalling as he celebrates could be causing the sudden drop in chain tension that occasionally leads to a dropped chain, regardless of what equipment he’s using.
Finishing kit
Finishing the build, Cavendish has the latest Shimano RT-CL900 brake rotors, with a 160mm rotor up front paired with a 140mm at the rear.
He’s also switched to Shimano Dura-Ace PD-R9100 SPD-SL pedals this year, away from the Look Keo 2 Max Carbon pedals he used at last year’s Tour.
Whether this is a matter of preference or a simple sponsor switch, we’re not sure, but it’s fair to say Dura-Ace pedals remain a perennially popular choice within the professional peloton.
Consistent with 2023, Cav’s bike was equipped with Tacx Ciro Carbon bottle cages when we saw it in Florence.
For stage five, though, Cavendish used Tacx's aero water bottles and cages.
These are typically only seen in time trials or triathlons, as the cages can't accept standard round bottles (making them somewhat impractical for road racing, where hand-ups from roadside team helpers and neutral service vehicles is common).
Thankfully, Cavendish has some dedicated teammates who are presumably willing to ferry aero bottles to and from the team car to keep him fuelled and hydrated.
Last, but certainly not least, Cav’s record-breaking bike was equipped with a Prologo Zero II Nack saddle – or was it?
While we were given his second bike to film and photograph, we spotted that his primary race bike was actually equipped with what appears to be a Fizik Arione saddle (with the Fizik logo carefully covered with a Prologo sticker, naturally).
With its long, flat shape, the Arione used to be extremely popular in the pro peloton. In recent years, though, it has fallen out of favour as short-nose saddles have become increasingly popular.
Clearly, it still works for a veteran rider like Cavendish, though.
Weighed in
In terms of weight, Cavendish’s 2024 Wilier Filante SLR weighed 7.645kg on our scales – 131g lighter than his bike from last year.
That’s not a significant difference, of course, but every little helps.
Body optimisations
Beyond his bike, Cavendish has left almost no stone unturned when it comes to optimising the rest of his kit.
He's opted for Limar’s Air Atlas aero road helmet, for example, as well as a pair of aero socks.
Curiously, Cavendish had been wearing NoPinz’s £999.99 P35 aero socks (yes, you read that price correctly) in previous stages, but switched to a different – perhaps even more aero – pair from an unidentified brand for stage 5.
Cavendish also wore a speedsuit, instead of a separate jersey and shorts, for additional aero gains.
From the look of it, the sleeves of this speedsuit also appear to incorporate dual-layer technology – with aero trip strips running underneath smooth fabric, in a similar manner to how Rule 28’s aero base layer pairs with its Neo Suit 1.1 time trial skinsuit.
Like the dimples on a golf ball (or the cavities on an aero front tyre), these strips are typically designed to ‘trip’ the airflow from laminar to turbulent.
In turn, this generates a turbulent boundary layer around the object (the upper arm, in this case), around which laminar airflow can flow more smoothly. This reduces the size of the trailing low pressure wake behind the object, and reduces drag.
Cavendish also opted for Oakley’s Kato sunglasses. Though not the newest model available, might the lens's integrated nose bridge make them subtly more aerodynamic than other options?
Sadly, we’re not aware of any aero data comparing the Katos to other cycling sunglasses, so we can’t say for sure, but they pass the aero-eye test.
The only obvious aero upgrade Cav left on the table was a set of time trial overshoes, though in the end he clearly had enough in the tank to convincingly take the win regardless.
Now then, how about stage win number 36?
Specs | Mark Cavendish's 2024 Wilier Filante SLR
- Frameset: Wilier Filante SLR with F21 CVNDSH paint job (size small)
- Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 with R9100 outer chainring (55/40t chainrings with an 11-34t cassette)
- Wheelset: Vision Metron 60 SL
- Power meter: Shimano Dura-Ace FC-R9200-P
- Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro TLR, tubeless, 28c (measured width 29.1mm front and 28.4mm rear)
- Handlebar: Metron 5D ACR Integrated 3K (custom painted, 385mm handlebar width, 120mm stem length)
- Seatpost: Wilier Filante SLR
- Saddle: Prologo Zero II Nack
- Bottle cages: Tacx Ciro
- Pedals: Shimano Dura-Ace PD-R9100
- Weight: 7.645kg
