Italian brand De Rosa heads into the WorldTour for 2020 supplying bikes for Cofidis
Words: Joe Robinson Photography: Laura Fletcher
Cofidis joined the WorldTour over the winter and brought in some heavy-duty names to make the jump easier. European Champion Elia Viviani, expert lead-out man Fabio Sabatini and exciting Frenchman Guillaume Martin all joined the ranks.
As did experienced Australian Nathan Haas, who signed on the dotted line from the now-defunct Katusha-Alpecin.
Cofidis also teamed up with Italian bike manufacturer De Rosa, bringing the brand back into cycling’s top flight after a prolonged absence.
With Haas racing the Australian National Championships held in Ballarat this weekend, we were treated to a closer look to the newest brand to enter WorldTour cycling.
Haas opted to the punchy course on the De Rosa Merak, the brand’s do-all halfway house bike between lightweight climber and aero road racer.
With its wide downtube and integrated front end, the bike nods towards aerodynamics without fully committing like the SK Pininfarina.
With the Ballarat course featuring some testing climbs, Haas also opted for some all-rounder wheels using Fulcrum’s mid-section Speed40T tubular wheelset complete with Michelin Power Competition 25mm tyres.
Campagnolo has seen its share of WorldTour teams on its groupsets drop for 2020 with only UAE-Team Emirates, Lotto Soudal and Cofidis using the Italian brand.
Haas’s bike has been fitted with full Campagnolo Super-Record EPS 12-speed with an SRM power meter crank. In terms of gear ratios, the 30-year-old opted for a 53-39, 11-29.
Yet the most important thing about Haas’s bike is its beautiful colour. Cofidis have been synonymous with the colour red since day dot and De Rosa has honoured this with one of the cleanest paint jobs in the pro peloton.
Besides the small Cofidis logos on the fork and top tube and the classy De Rosa logo on the downtube, the frame is block red in a shade that Dulux describes as ‘Candy Apple’. Delicious!