Maggie's bike

Paris-Roubaix went really well for us. While we were were a place short of the podium, Martijn Maaskant rode brilliantly and with the support of the whole Slip/Chip squad, put together one of the team's best rides of the year. There is no doubt this team is the real deal.

PR always seem to draw attention to equipment - and the juggling act between stuff that will take everything the cobbles and elements can dish out while not asking the guys to race Sherman Tanks makes it heaps of fun for the product and engineering deptartments.

We made some minor and specific tweaks to our F1 Sprint and away we went. Most of the effort was centered around getting Magnus Backstedt all set since he is the biggest and most powerful rider on the team, and knowing that if we got it dialed for Maggie it would work for everyone else. Suffice to say that while Magnus was not able to finish up with teammate Martijn, he was significant in making the final split happen and his day was not cut short by his Felt.

His words:

"During my career I have had the pleasure to ride some great bikes. As a rider with special requirements, I'm quite a big powerful lad you see, so to have a sponsor like Jim Felt and his team is really incredible. The fact that they love feedback, any feedback, good or bad is a novelty in this sport. By having this kind of working relationship gives me and my team a great advantage over most competitors.

Just to give you a little example of how committed Jim and his crew is, for Paris – Roubaix Jim asked me what I needed to be competitive and I gave him the outlines for what is the perfect cobblestone bike and unfortunately for Jim he didn’t have a frame with that kind of geometry in stock, but he gave me his word that he would find a solution to it. He did have his fair share of work to get it done but no job seems to be too difficult for these guys. The result: a bike built exactly the way I wanted and a few little extras thrown in.

The new F1 Sprint is the first full carbon bike that I have ever been able to ride. It is the lightest stiffest most responsive bike that I have been on.

Most people say that if it works for me then it should be fine for pretty much everyone..... well it works for me! I put out about 2000 watts when I'm sprinting, so unless your beating that then you should be fine, if you are? Then I'll give you Jonathan's phone number. I look forward to you leading me out."