For the seventh year in a row, I had a great time watching and photographing the USA Pro Championship races here in Greenville, SC.  After a great run here, the road and time trial national move to Chattanooga, TN next year, but this last US Pro in Greenville (for a while at least) was definitely an exciting weekend of racing.  You can read about the road race and time trial at Velonews, but as I have done in past years, I want to share my photos of the winner’s bikes.

Before the time trial on Saturday, the first bike I sought out was Dave Zabriskie’s Cervelo P5. In a past post about the P5, I mentioned that it looks fast even sitting still, and that was definitely the case as the Garmin-Barracuda mechanic made the final preparation to get the bike race ready. The 6:1 airfoil gussets (don’t let the UCI hear you calling them fairings) definitely make the bike look fast, and differentiate it from other TT bikes, including the P4 that Zabriskie rode to a national time trial championship victory last year.

Many Dura-Ace Di2 equipped bikes have a clean look with internal wiring and a hidden battery, but the P5 takes it a step further.  Only the hydraulic fluid line running into the front Magura’s RT8 hydraulic caliper is visible, but even it is unobtrusive running close to the headtube into the back side of the caliper. The Di2 battery is located in the area above the bottom bracket with access from the back, so the compartment door is not visible when the rear wheel is in place. It is definitely a nice bike, and it is obvious that a lot of thought went into the details, so I was pretty excited to get a chance to see it up close. See a few more pictures of DZ’s P4, as well as shots of the BMC Time Machines ridden by second and third place finishers Tejay Van Garderen and Brent Bookwalter, in my photo album from the time trial.

I was riding the course before the road race yesterday morning, so I didn’t get a chance to photograph any of the pro road bikes before the start. Even if I had though, I probably wouldn’t have guessed that Timmy Duggan’s SRAM Red equipped Liquigas-Cannodale SuperSix EVO would be the one to be ridden to victory. Luckily, I was able to get a quick shot of Timmy’s bike as one of the team mechanics was wheeling it away after the podium ceremony. After a very exciting race, Duggan’s solo breakaway victory on that bike was quite impressive. Following Peter Sagan’s string of ATOC stage victories just over a week ago, I am sure that Cannondale is quite happy to see another great win on their top tier road bike.

Update 5/31: In addition to the time trial photos that I mentioned in the post, you can see an album of my road race shots here.