Text: Carlo Cesar Photography: Roel Thewessen
photographer : Roel Thewessen (Instagram: @roelthewessen)
The Dutch National Championships concluded yesterday. For the first time I raced with the chainrings by Digirit, and what a chainrings! The chainrings have already been seen internationally on the trackbikes of the Canadian team and some other individual riders. The Dutch Team @TeamNLinsta @TeamKNWU recently decided to acquire these lightweight carbon chainrings. I quickly decided to do the same and bought a 58t and a 60t chainring by Digirit. In my experience these chainrings are perfectly round, stiff and as mentioned very light. Last but not least, they look just awesome! My pro-career and ambitions are behind me, but I still love to race. I competed in a wide array of events from the Omnium to the Sprint. With the Digirit chainrings my results varied between a bronze medal on the kilometre time trial to a 15th place in the Omnium. Every single race I used either my 58t or 60t chainring. In the Omnium I combined them with a 16 or 15 rear cog, whereas in the Sprint and Keirin I’d combine it with a 13 or 14 rear cog.
Big-big is the new thing, the chain has less friction and those big carbon chainrings are definitely good for morale! Personally I can’t wait to see the Dutch Bullet Train riders like Jeffrey Hoogland, Harrie Lavreysen or Matthijs Büchli use those chainrings, or what about Jan Willem van Schip or Kirsten Wild in the Omnium races? I did my best to give the guys a hard time in the National Championships, but it’s needless to say Jan Willem beat me in the Omnium and the sprinters kicked my ass on the sprint events. With Dutch pride I’ll watch them use the Digirit chainrings on those brand new @kogabikes in the coming international events and the Tokyo2020 Olympics! #teamnl #nlwint #knwu
Carlo Cesar (27) was a member of the Dutch National sprint team until January 2018. Carlo represented his country once at the European Games and was National Champion on the 1km individual time trial in 2016. He retired pro-cycling in January 2018 and started working for his National Federation helping his former team mates and the athletes within the other cycling disciplines reach their goals.