Wilier Triestina Unveils Mark Cavendish’s Custom Tour de France Bike: The Filante SLR
Legendary Italian bike maker Wilier Triestina has unveiled photos of its new bike, which many people hope could become part of cycling history. All that needs to happen is something that has, for many years, been thought impossible: British sprinter Mark Cavendish needs to win his thirty-fifth Tour de France stage.
Cav’s Tour bike—Wilier Triestina’s aero Filante SLR—deviates from the standard light-blue-and-gold livery of Cav’s Astana Qazaqstan team, giving the Manx Missile his own special paint job that will hopefully help deliver him to history.
Thanks to splashes of color at the front of the bike that fade into a black rear half, the Filante SLR looks fast while it’s standing still. It’ll be even more thrilling to see in a bunch sprint.
Those colors at the bike’s fore represent some of Cavendish’s career highlights. The green, of course, is a nod to the points jersey, which Cav’s has won twice in his career. The yellow celebrates the time he spent in the yellow jersey as the Tour de France leader. And the blues and reds round out the rainbow bands of the World Championship that Cavendish won in 2011. Running down the side of each fork is the name of Cav’s personal brand, CVNDSH.
The CVNDSH Filante SLR is hardly a one-off, however. Wilier has announced that the model will be available to the public through the end of this year. Pricing has yet to be revealed.
“Filante SLR is the perfect bike for me, but I wanted something more,” Cavendish said of his Tour bike. “Everyone has their own taste, and that’s why I love to add my own touch to the bikes I use. They have been an inseparable part of my professional life for twenty years now. They’ve done a great job, which has just given me extra motivation for my next Tour de France.”
Like his teammates’, Cav’s Filante SLR will be outfitted with a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset and sit on Vision wheels wrapped in Vittoria Corsa Pro tires.
Currently, Cavendish owns thirty-four Tour de France stage wins, which puts him in a tie with Eddy Merckx. The two are six stages clear of the next closest racer, Bernard Hinault, who won twenty-eight Tour stages over his career. The closest contemporary racer is Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates, whose eleven stage wins put him in a five-way tie for twenty-second most all-time.
After crashing out of last year’s Tour on the eighth stage, which was touted as his last ever, Cavendish decided to return for this year’s race, hoping for one final chance at the record. The day before his Tour-ending crash, Cav nearly broke the deadlock after a skipped gear cost him a sprint victory, which he was in perfect position to take.
Early last fall, Astana Qazaqstan bolstered Cav’s chances when they signed Danish racer Michael Mørkøv, widely regarded as the best leadout man on Earth. The team also signed coach Vasilis Anastopoulos, who played a massive role in Cav’s return to form in 2021, when he won four Tour stages en route to his second points classification victory.
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