Campagnolo EPS electronic shifting may have taken years to get to market but already we're seeing the technology being applied to time trial shifters.
Case in point, stage 4 of the Giro d'Italia, a 33km team time trial starting and finishing in Verona. Although many teams were riding with Dura-Ace Di2 electronic shifting, a couple - namely Lotto-Belisol and Movistar - were sporting Campagnolo EPS shifting on a few of their bikes, with fully functional return-to-centre shifters on the extensions and satellite shifters on the cowhorns.
As you can see from our photos, team mechanics have had to get a bit creative with cabling through the handlebars, but it's clear that we're not far away from seeing full production versions of these shifters.
The second piece of new kit we came across was the Vision Metron time trial groupset on Gustav Erik Larsson's Vacansoleil Bianchi. That's shifters, levers, derailleurs and cranks all under the Vision Metron brand (brake calipers were FSA K-Force by the same company). It looked interesting but alas, it wasn't ridden during the stage as there just wasn't the time to set it up properly. Hopefully we'll see it working in future races.
Gustav erik larsson's vacansoleil bianchi, complete with vision metron tt groupset: gustav erik larsson's vacansoleil bianchi, complete with vision metron tt groupset - Jeff Jones/BikeRadar.com
Gustav Erik Larsson's Vision Metron equipped Bianchi
There was plenty to see from the team time trial in Verona. Just click on the image gallery to see it all.
Jeff Jones is the former editor of BikeRadar. Jones was the chief online editor at Cycling News from 2000 to 2007 before helping launch BikeRadar. He has a doctorate in physical and theoretical chemistry.
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