When the cobbled Classics are on, few teams have as much on the line as Etixx-Quickstep. Over the years, the Belgian squad has a wealth of titles to its credit thanks to the likes of Tom Boonen, Tom Boonen, Tom Boonen, Tom Boonen, Tom Boonen, ‘Tomeke’… oh yeah, and Niki Terpstra and Stijn Devolder (albeit with various iterations of the team name).
Even when it doesn’t win, it is generally omnipresent in the peloton for the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
In part six of our team bike feature, we have a look at the Specialised Tarmac of Guillaume van Keirsbulck. He is the son of Kurt, who won the junior edition of Paris-Roubaix in 1984.
The Tarmac was the Specialized bike of choice for most the Etixx-Quickstep team in the 2016 edition of the Tour of Flanders… but, curiously, it was Boonen who was the odd one out. ‘Tomeke’ opted for the Specialized Roubaix.
Van Keirsbulck didn’t ride Flanders in 2016, but four of his team-mates made the top 15: Zdenek Stybar (8th), Niki Terpstra (10th), Stijn Vandenbergh (13th) and Boonen (15th).
Click the photo below to begin a slideshow of 25 close-up photos of van Keirsbulck’s Specialized
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Last year the team bikes for Etixx-Quickstep were a mishmash of parts with groupsets bought from Shimano, cranks from FSA, wheels from Roval… and rumours that they’d be riding a new shifting system from FSA by mid-season.
The FSA ensemble has been seen at races but not in races. We can assume that the testing continues…
In the meantime, Shimano is back supplying most parts for Etixx-Quickstep.
• FSA’s electronic shifting system lands on Planet Tour
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2015 Etixx-Quickstep team bike (below)
2014 Omega-Phama Quickstep team bike (below)
2013 Omega-Phama Quickstep team bike (below)
