Retro pro bike: David Millar's 2010 Felt F1

One of the first Di2-equipped bikes in the WorldTour also comes with Oval chainrings and a hand-drawn saddle from Mark Cavendish

09:58, Monday 11th December 2023

Alex Hunt

Junior Tech Writer

David Millar was an early adopter of electronic shifting on his Felt F1

Felt
Felt is a bicycle manufacturer based in California, USA, with an emphasis on performance bikes stemming from its roots in triathlon.
Shimano
Shimano is a bike component manufacturer based in Osaka, Japan. The company is one of the industry’s most popular manufacturers and it makes up around three-quarters of the bicycle component market by value.
Mavic
Mavic is a bike components manufacturer based in Annecy, France. The company has a long history in cycling dating back to 1934.
3T
3T is a component and frame manufacturer, known for making innovative aero gravel bikes.

In 2010, Team Garmin Transitions had the choice of two bikes for road races: the Felt AR1, which was an aero bike, and the lightweight F1. Here at GCN, we recently came across David Millar's Felt F1, and we couldn't resist taking a closer look.

The bikes used by the team for the 2010 season were some of the first, alongside Euskaltel-Euskadi, to use Shimano’s first-generation electronic Di2 shifting. Although riders were able to pick and choose between traditional mechanical Dura-Ace and the new Di2 electronic offering, Millar was an early convert to the crisp shifting Di2 offered.

The first generation of the now hugely successful groupset platform has a very different look to what it has evolved into now.

Unlike the fully integrated versions of Di2 that we have grown accustomed to the first generation had an externally mounted battery

The most visible difference is the large externally mounted battery that sits nestled between both bottle cages. As there is no additional mounting point for the battery, it sits on a bracket that attaches to the bottle cage mounting point of the downtube. From here the cables disappear, heading off to the junction box and the derailleurs.

Read more: David Millar: Never write off Mark Cavendish’s Tour de France dreams

Something that did remain unchanged for quite some time is the stem-mounted junction box. This is where the shifters are plugged into the system. On Millar's bike, he also has an additional satellite shifter fitted, sitting next to the bar tap on the right-hand side of the handlebar.

Millar had a climbing satellite shifter fitted to his bars next to the Di2 junction box

This ‘climber's shifter’ allows for control of the rear derailleur whilst allowing the rider to stay in a more comfortable climbing position. This was a revolutionary addition at the time and something that quickly became widely adopted by Di2 users.

Read more: What is fusion fibre and is it the future of bike component manufacture?

To aid in the speed of wheel changes at crucial moments, the dropouts are CNC machined from aluminium with the retaining tabs removed. This feature means that as soon as the quick release is opened the wheel can drop out and be replaced with a new one. It isn’t particularly useful to your everyday rider but in WorldTour racing every second saved in the process of sorting a mechanical is a worthy investment.

Osymetric chainrings might not be as popular as they once were but Millar was an advocate of their advantage

Millar was also an advocate of non-round chainrings. On this bike, he has a set of blue anodised Osymetric chainrings. The rationale behind the design is that they aid the rider in getting through the dead band of the pedal stroke more efficiently.

Due to the shape, you effectively have a larger chaining size through the power stroke and a smaller chainring size as your pedal through the top and bottom of the stroke. Other notable riders to use these rings are Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, who both used them on the way to their Tour de France victories. In recent years the adoption of non-round rings seems to have dwindled, with most pro riders now sticking with standard round rings.

Wheels, tyres, and a note from Cavendish

The wheels and tyres have a very different look to them than the current batch of wind tunnel tested and aero-optimised offerings

Something else that dates this bike is the wheel and tyre configuration. The team, sponsored by Mavic, used the then range-topping Special Service Course (SSC) Cosmic wheelset. These wheels used integrated carbon spokes that were part of the hub's carbon layup.

The wheels used a very narrow blade-like profile, a distant aerodynamic concept that has all-but been fully replaced with wider blunt aerofoil profiles.

The tyres are an equally narrow affair, with Millar using what looks to be 23mm wide Mavic SSC tyres. In comparison to the more typical 28mm tyres used in today's peloton, you can’t help but notice just how skinny 23mm tyres appear.

Read more: The huge problem with modern tyres and wheels

Scrawled across the top of the Fizik Antares saddle is a note written by Mark Cavendish that reads ‘Mark Cavendish is the greatest, even better than Tyler thank you'. Millar and Cavendish have a close relationship, with the note being written at a time when Cavendish’s sprint rival Tyler Farrar was racing with Millar at Garmin.