Perhaps Geraint Thomas summed up Mark Cavendish's record-breaking Tour de France stage win - number 35 at Saint-Vulbas - best. "To see what he did today, 16 years after his first Tour stage, is almost unbelievable," he wrote in an Instagram post. "But it's Cav. Nothing's unbelievable".
Certainly the 39-year-old has made a career of proving doubters wrong. His longevity is remarkable, his dedication to his art unwavering, especially when you think the man he surpassed yesterday as the greatest Tour winner, Eddy Merckx, retired at 32. Cav momentarily did the same but the desire to pass Mercxk, to attain immortality, saw him go again. The doubters joined him, only to be silenced once more.
Comfortably the greatest sprinter of his generation before the start in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, and now, the best of all time, each win, indeed his entire career, has been achieved by blending sublime speed and bike handling skills, with tactical nous, bravery and old fashioned determination. But of course he needed a reliable steed to carry him across the line, and the bikes he’s ridden to victory have become part of his lore.
Here’s a look at six of the best, each chosen to signify a milestone in the Manx Missile’s wonderful career that's still going strong.
2008 Giant TCR Advanced - First Grand Tour stage win
2008 Giro d’Italia, Stage 4 - First Grand Tour stage win
Team: Team High Road
Bike: Giant TCR Advanced
Only two years into his professional career Cavendish was already a sprinter to be reckoned with. He'd equalled Alessandro Petacchi's record for most victories in a debut season and notched a couple of successes at the Belgian semi-classic Scheldeprijs. By May of 2008 he'd taken his win tally to 16. What he hadn’t yet achieved however was to cross the line first at a Grand Tour stage.
He took care of business at the 2008 Giro d'Italia, a win that began his love affair, and sprinting dominance, of three-week stage races. Stage 4 was a 183km jaunt from Pizzo Calabro to Catanzaro-Lungomare. In the colours of Team High Road, he won in a bunch sprint, as he would do time and again, but the lumpy stage was also an early insight into his willingness to suffer in order to put himself in position to win.
The bike he achieved this first Grand Tour stage win on was a brand new machine, with Giant overhauling the TCR Advanced ahead of the '08 season. Alongside the updated carbon frameset, Cavendish’s bike was dripping in Shimano Dura-Ace from the deep-section wheels to the pedals to the groupset itself, which featured rim brakes of course.
2009 Scott Addict SL - Milan - San Remo
2009 Milan - San Remo - First and only Monument
Team: Colombia - High Road
Bike: Scott Addict SL
Ranking Cavendish’s wins is no easy task but his victory at the 2009 Milan-San Remo might just be his greatest. Winning any one of cycling’s five Monuments is a career defining moment for any cyclist but Cav’s triumph in La Classicissima was particularly special.
He’s since likened the race to an opera and the comparison makes sense. Well over a hundred years old and the longest of the Monuments at over 300km, it’s a slow, brooding drama, punctuated by dozens of seemingly inconsequential moments whose importance is only understood upon reflection, ultimately building to a crescendo on the Via Roma. In 2009 it was no different.
While stills of the finish will show Cav piping Henrich Haussler to the line by a nanosecond you need to replay the last few hundred metres to capture the win in all its glory, with Cav remarkably managing to close a significant gap after the German had jumped clear with about 250 metres to go. Like many of his wins it was a measure of both his speed and his will.
And the winning bike? A Scott Addict SL that apparently included a few additional layers of carbon to the bottom bracket for greater stiffness. It was equipped with Shimano Dura-Ace 7900, which had been released that year, but the use of SRM power meters required team Columbia-High Road to use the older 7800 crankset for compatibility reasons.
2011 Specialized McLaren Venge - Worlds
2011 World Championships road race - First Brit to win since '65
Great Britain
Specialized S-Works McLaren Venge with Shimano
Cavendish’s career will not only be measured by the sheer volume of his wins but also by the breadth of quality. The rainbow stripes have alluded many greats but not Cav, with his victory in the men’s road race in Copenhagen added another layer of gloss to both his palmares and his legend.
Unsurprisingly he captured the title in a sprint, holding off the bunch that featured the likes of Matt Goss, André Greipel and Fabian Cancellara. Helping to put him in position that day was a dream team that included Bradley Wiggins, Chris Frome, Geriant Thomas, Steve Cummings and David Millar. In winning the road race he became the first Brit to do so since Tom Simpson in 1965.
The win was also significant for the bike used - a Specialized S-Works McLaren Venge that Cav had debuted at that year's Milan-San Remo. Designed in conjunction with the motor racing experts it put him on a dedicated aero bike, one of the first sprinters to make the switch. Much of McLaren’s focus went into the carbon layup used, with the result a frameset that weighed 20% less that the regular Venge but was significantly stiffer, particularly in the bottom bracket area.
2013 Specialized McLaren Venge - 100th win
2013 Giro d’Italia, Stage 12 - 100th career win
Team: Omega Pharma - Quick Step
Bike: Specialized McLaren Venge with SRAM
After a year riding for Team Sky Cav joined the Omega Pharma - Quick Step team. Having won six Grand Tour stages with Sky - three at the Giro and three more at the le tour, including his fourth straight win on the final stage on the Champs-Élysées - he was closing in on 100 career wins.
A quick start to the year, where he won four stages of the Tour Qatar on way to wrapping up the general classification, had him heading into the 96th edition of the Giro just four wins short of the century mark. He sealed the deal on Stage 12th, winning a bunch sprint at Treviso. He won another stage - his fifth of the race - helping him wrap up the ciclamino points jersey for the first time in his career. It also meant he’d completed the set, having already won the equivalent classification at the Tour de France and the Vuelta, making him only the fifth rider in history to achieve this feat.
Riding for Quick Step also meant reuniting with Specialized - and notably the McLaren Venge. However, aside from the frameset, it was a vastly different bike than the one he’d used to such effect in 2011. Whereas HTC had ridden Shimano components, and its subsidiary PRO, the Belgian team were sponsored by SRAM. This saw Cav using its flagship groupset Red, which in those days was still mechanical unlike the Dura-Ace 7970 he used in 2011. It also meant a pair of Zipp 808 Firecrest wheels, a Zipp cockpit and Look Keo Blade pedals. Apparently this blend of components saw his Venge shed some weight from the 2011 iteration, dropping below the 7kg mark.
2021 Specialized Tarmac SL7 - Equals Merckx
2021 Tour de France, Stage 13 - equals Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins
Team: Deceuninck - Quick Step
Bike: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL7
A cursory glance at cycling’s record books sees one name appear with greater frequency than any other - Eddy Merckx. To challenge any of the Belgians long-standing achievements requires not only otherworldly skills on the bike but longevity too. Fortunately Cavendish has both.
Merckx’s record of 34 Tour de France stage wins seemed safe for many years. But Cav’s proficiency at the world’s biggest bike race saw him chip away at the number year by year. But, after 2016, where he won another four stages to take his total to 30, the well ran dry. He crashed out in 2017, missed the time cut on Stage 11 in 2018 and wasn’t selected to race in either 2019 or 2020, his progress slowed by a combination of poor health, strained relationships and a global pandemic.
However, reuniting with Quick Step in 2021 led to a sporting comeback for the ages. Largely written off as past his prime, he replaced injured teammate Sam Bennett just ten days before the Grand Depart and proceeded to roll back the years. He won stages 4, 6 and 10 before equalling Merckx’s record with a win on stage 13 at Carcassonne.
The winning bike was another Specialized, this time the S-Works Tarmac SL7. While away riding for other teams Cav’s beloved Venge had been retired by the US brand. In its place came the revamped Tarmac, which adopted some of the Venge’s watt-saving properties to create an aero all-rounder that the Specialized sponsored teams could ride day in, day out, no matter the parcours.
The Tarmac was freshly updated for 2021 - the SL6 became the SL7 - and saw the bike incorporate completely internal cable routing for the first time as well as becoming disc brake only. Cav’s winning bike featured a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset as well as Roval Rapide CLX wheels, fitted with S-Works cotton clinchers - the Wolfpack had made a team-wide move from tubs at the start of the season.
2024 Wilier Filante SLR - passes Merckx with 35th stage win
2024 Tour de France, Stage 5 - record 35th stage win
Team: Astana Qazaqstan Team
Bike: Wilier Filante SLR
When Cavendish crashed out of the 2023 Tour it seemed likely - to the masses at least - that his pursuit of stage win number 35 was over. But a year later, there he was again at the Grand Depart. Supported by an Astana team built around him and his goal, and buoyed by an intensive block of training in Greece with Vasilis Anastopoulos, Cavendish appeared quietly confident.
His first chance of victory, Stage 3 to Turin, was dashed as he got held up by a crash in the final stretch. He wasted no time however, winning the next sprint opportunity in remarkable fashion. It was vintage Cav in many ways. Without his normal lead out man Michael Mørkøv he was forced to improvise; the overhead shots show him expertly moving from one wheel to the next before launching a sprint that no one could follow. It was a sublime performance, fitting of the moment.
The bike is fitting too. For this year's Tour, Cav's Wilier SLR is decked out in a paint job that celebrates his incredible career. The front end features a striking blend of colours, each a signifier; green to represent the points jersey he's won twice, yellow to represent the maillot jaune and blue and red to symbolise his 2011 World Champs title.
The colours continue with additions of yellow and light blue on the decals of hisVision Metron wheelset, as well as the full quote referenced above on the Wilier integrated cockpit. His bike is completed with a 12-Speed Dura-Ace groupset (and yes, his chain did come off again during his record-breaking sprint for the line), Vittoria Corsa Pro tires and a couple of non-team sponsor additions - Elite Chrono CX bidons and a classic Fizik Arione saddle.
