Giro d'Italia pro bike: Mark Cavendish's Wilier Filante SLR

Giro d'Italia pro bike: Mark Cavendish's Wilier Filante SLR

A closer look at Cavendish's latest ride, which he's currently using on the hunt for stage wins at the Giro d'Italia

Photos: James Startt Words: Richard Windsor

Any rider with a professional career spanning more than 15 years is going to have ridden a lot of different bikes. In the case of Mark Cavendish, cycling’s most successful sprinter ever, he’s helped make icons of certain models thanks to his victories on the biggest stages. Think the first Specialized McLaren Venge from the HTC glory days, or the Pinarello Dogma 60.5 that he rode to victory on the Champs Élysées as world champion.

Now in the autumn of his career, Cavendish made the switch to Astana Qazaqstan for the 2023 season after finding opportunities hard to come by at his former Quick-Step squad. That meant switching from Specialized, the brand that has perhaps accompanied Cavendish to most of his success, to Wilier Triestina.

Read more: Giro d’Italia pro bike: Remco Evenepoel’s Specialized S-Works Shiv Disc time trial bike

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLR

The Italian brand’s flagship race bike, the Filante SLR, is the only road offering to the Astana team riders currently. Like many brands, Wilier’s top-end bike is aimed at being both aerodynamic enough for the flat races and light enough for the high mountain stages of Grand Tours. It’s a familiar shape, the dropped seatstays and aero tubing a style fairly ubiquitous amongst the WorldTour peloton’s road bikes right now.

The most striking feature of Astana’s Filante SLR is definitely the colourway, which reflects the turquoise of the team’s jerseys. The glossy marbled effect with a blue fade into silver is certainly one of most standout designs in the peloton.

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRCavendish is known to have a particular attention to detail when it comes to his bike setup, but the whole setup is pretty much as standard for the team’s riders.

The whole groupset is Shimano’s 12-speed Dura-Ace R9270, and in this particular setup the Manxman is running 54/40 chainrings on a power meter crank, while the cassette looks like it’s potentially the 11-30 offering from Shimano.Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRThe only change to the groupset is the oversized jockey wheels, which are provided by American company SLF Motion, who also provide bottom brackets to the squad. The ‘Speed System’ jockey wheels and cage are in fact the only nod on the bike to Cavendish as British national road champion, with red and blue jockey wheels paired with a Union Flag design on the carbon cage.

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRUp front, Cavendish has opted to use the Wilier proprietary integrated carbon bars, also in turquoise. The drop is a beautiful classic curve, which is becoming rarer to see in the peloton as riders opt for integrated and aero setups. Cavendish has often opted for classic curve bars when they’ve been available to him, and this set seemed to be created when Niki Terpstra began riding with Wilier at Total Energies back in 2020.

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRThe bars are topped with Prologo bar tape and there’s an integrated K-Edge out-front computer mount too. There’s also a set of sprint shifters on the outer, rear side of the drops. It’s quite common to see these set further on the inside of the drops to be operated by the rider’s thumbs, but clearly Cavendish is more comfortable with these positioned here.

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRThe wheels are by French brand Corima, and look like a tubeless version of their 47mm WS Black wheels. Conversely, Cavendish has actually been using deeper Hed wheels throughout the Giro d'Italia so far; the team has been using Hed wheels with certain riders all spring, despite not yet having an official partnership with the American brand. The Corima carbon wheels are shod with Vittoria’s new Corsa Pro tyres in 28mm, set up tubeless, and a 60mm front discs rotor with a 40mm rear.

Mark Cavendish Wilier Filante SLRCavendish’s seat of choice is a Prologo Nago C3, while the bottles and cages are provided by Tacx.

Photos: James Startt Words: Richard Windsor


READ MORE

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot only knows how to win – and the Tour de France Femmes is her latest target: ‘I want to be the best’

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot only knows how to win – and the Tour de France Femmes is her latest target: ‘I want to be the best’

The Frenchwoman returns to road racing with Visma-Lease a Bike in 2025, and her home race is at the top of her wish list

Leggi di più
‘Volunteers are the backbone of the sport’ - Carole Leigh on a lifetime of service to bike racing

‘Volunteers are the backbone of the sport’ - Carole Leigh on a lifetime of service to bike racing

The British woman has organised and officiated bike races since she was a teenager and hopes more people will follow in her footsteps

Leggi di più
Olav Kooij and the quest to be the fastest man in the world

Olav Kooij and the quest to be the fastest man in the world

The Dutchman is confident in the fact that he’s on the cusp of being the sport’s best current sprinter

Leggi di più
Josh Tarling and the pursuit of perfection: ‘I hope my peak will start next year’

Josh Tarling and the pursuit of perfection: ‘I hope my peak will start next year’

The 20-year-old Ineos Grenadiers rider on learnings from the racing season, managing adult life, and setting achievable goals

Leggi di più
Laurence Pithie: I want to challenge Van der Poel for Monument wins next year

Laurence Pithie: I want to challenge Van der Poel for Monument wins next year

The New Zealand rider talks about his journey to the top of the sport, moving to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and his ambitions to start to win...

Leggi di più

MEMBERSHIP

JOIN ROULEUR TODAY

Independent journalism, award winning content, exclusive perks.

Banner Image