Pro Bike Pron: Pozzato's Ridley Damocles Pi

As the 2009 Eurotrash road season is now closed, I think it's a good time to look back at the 'pro bikes' of the year from cyclingnews. It's been a good year for road innovations in the pro peleton, with Campagnolo switching to 11, ShimaNO going electric, and the Cervelo / Garmin guys cranking it up a notch on the aero side. But there's one bike that does it for me most of all looking back at 2009: Pozzato's Ridley Damocles Pi. Here's why:

• You can actually see it's been built for Pozzato in the slacker seat angle and the aggresive 'stretched' position. Hair aside, Pozzato just looks 'right' on a bike. As a consequence, his bikes just look 'right', even if the position is beyond the aspirations of us mere mortals.
• White's all right. It'll no doubt be out of fashion next year but hey ho, all good if you live in Italy and you have a resident mechanic to wash it. Goes with the hair.
• I like the integration of cable routing, headset, and headtube into fork. The Damocles pioneered this back in '05. It still looks good.
• It's Campagnolo Record. That might sound obvious, but in these days of Super Record, the fact Pozzato didn't choose SR says something.
• The carbon rims survived Paris Roubaix. Testimony to the quality of Campag wheels.
• The traditional amber wall tubs add a touch of classic class. Again, something that'll look good for 5 minutes for us mere mortals as our brake pads disintegrate and make them look all dirty but all good if you're Pipo and you get new tubs each race.
• The bars are also a nice 'classic' bend. Aluminium too.

So, in summary, a nice clean bike with a few classic touches that oozes class. Also makes me feel better about my '06 Damocles with Campagnolo 10 speed record... things have moved on, but compared to other bikes from that year, I still think it looks quite 'current'.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/tech/2009/probikes/?id=filippo_pozzato_katusha_ridley09