When confronted with a protracted stint within the odd, liminal area of the exit foyer of Britain’s second-largest airport, one can do a number of issues. People-watching is my favorite, and as I look forward to my meandering coach from Gatwick to Bristol there’s a consistently revolving carousel of weary travellers, a good few Taylor Swift followers returning dwelling from Lyon, and chauffeurs awaiting their fees nursing ever-stagnating cups of Pret A Manger espresso.
I can not, nevertheless, watch folks for 2 hours; I’d go mad. I additionally can not convey myself to learn one of many magazines or newspapers from the paltry choice on provide in one of many innumerate WHSmith retailers that appear to proliferate in airports, seemingly in defiance of the plight of their excessive avenue counterparts.
What I can do as a substitute is try to coalesce what I discovered wandering the pits on the Critérium du Dauphiné the previous few days. I noticed 4 new bikes, double the brand new bike cohort from final yr, and so a simple first prediction is ‘we’re going to see new bikes on the Tour de France’. This is a bit like saying ‘we’re going to see a yellow jersey on the Tour de France’, although, given advertising and marketing executives’ collective goal to launch their new mannequin on the greatest race of the yr, inevitably resulting in all of them getting misplaced in a noise of headlines. If you need to get actually nerdy with all of the tech from the Dauphiné, my bumper Dauphiné tech gallery is now dwell.
The new bikes – a brand new Pinarello Dogma, a brand new Trek Madone or Emonda, a brand new Canyon Aeroad, and a brand new Willier all-rounder, took the headlines and make up the majority of my tech gallery snaps, however behind all this, there are some tendencies that ought to carry into the Tour. I’m on the finish of a protracted day, so if any of those appear a bit huge of the mark then be at liberty to argue amongst yourselves on X to your coronary heart’s content material.
1. ‘One bike to rule all of them’ is again
With every new bike that involves market, it appears the trade is reverting again to its outdated ‘one bike to rule all of them’ methods. While this adage was principally used when referring to gravel bikes, it looks as if it’s getting used as soon as once more however for top-tier race bikes. It needs to be famous that I don’t suppose any advertising and marketing exec has signed off on a marketing campaign slogan as hackneyed as this for some time, however slogans apart the bikes being delivered to market within the final 18 months or so almost all search to be good over all racing terrains.
If you’ll forgive me an inventory, we now have the Specialized Tarmac SL8, the Cannondale SuperSix Evo, the unreleased new Trek, the unreleased new Wilier, the brand new Pinarello Dogma F, the Colnago V4Rs and the BMC TeamMachine R. I strongly suspect that we are going to see the brand new Canyon Aeroad getting used fairly completely too, although the german model does appear to be bucking this pattern.
While it could irk these within the feedback part who usually (fairly rightly typically) complain that manufacturers maintain altering the goalposts by way of telling customers what they need, having a single race bike per rider (plus the spares), is a minimum of a extra sustainable method than bringing two completely different fashions per rider, particularly while you take note of the time trial bikes too.
The newest race content material, interviews, options, critiques and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
2. Wide tyres aren’t only for the Classics
Paris-Roubaix this yr was a brand new high-water mark for fats tyres within the professional peloton. We noticed groups utilizing tyres of 34c widths at occasions, and whereas final yr 28c was the norm, wandering the pits on stage one and two of the Dauphiné it was clear that 30c is the brand new commonplace. A notable exception was on the Wilier bikes of FDJ, which nonetheless rolled on 25mm tubular Continental Competition Pro Ltd tyres. Plus ça change.
As inner rim width will increase, primarily it have to be mentioned because of shopper demand and the calls for of ‘all-road’ machines, and gravel bikes too, wider tyres are sometimes extra aerodynamic than narrower ones, as there’s a smoother interface between tyre and rim. More grippy, extra comfortable, and quicker, plus one other additional advantage that I’ll go into subsequent.
3. Time trial tyres for the street
TT tyres are nothing new. They’re often a simple wattage improve, however the associated fee at all times got here by way of puncture resistance. Some of them are so puncture-prone they could as nicely be constructed from saliva and crossed fingers.
The introduction of tubeless know-how has gone a way to assist this, however the pressures inside a race-ready 28c tyre are sometimes too excessive for the goo to do its job correctly. Wider tyres imply decrease pressures, which in flip signifies that tubeless sealant has a greater probability of working correctly. This, in flip, means groups are actually risking utilizing TT tyres on street levels to get a bonus.
In the pits I noticed a number of groups utilizing Continental GP5000 TT tyres, most notably Ineos and UAE Team Emirates. I didn’t spot any Vittoria groups utilizing the equal Corsa Pro Speed, however I’ve executed at different races, so count on to see each choices out in drive on the Tour. This ought to imply the inevitable tacks thrown within the street by protesters ought to have an excellent larger probability of disrupting issues.
4. More 1x, extra usually
The single entrance ring is now a staple for many SRAM sponsored groups. Mads Pedersen gained stage one of many Dauphiné on a 1x setup, however that in itself is way from novel; he makes use of a giant ring nearly completely.
The launch of the brand new SRAM Red a couple of weeks in the past did embrace 1x choices, however what we didn’t count on was to see a brand new 13-speed SRAM Red come just a few days later at Unbound. This larger variety of sprockets, promising smaller steps between every, will doubtless rally extra riders across the 1x flag, with the promise of higher aerodynamics and a safer chain.
5. Dull paint jobs stay, even on fancy new bikes
New bikes are thrilling, and the brand new Trek particularly has a pleasant paint scheme. The new Pinarello Dogma, on the face of it, very a lot resembles the outdated one by way of paint, and the brand new Wilier is presently black. The Canyon Aeroad is navy blue, which is sensible, however in the end it’s like selecting to have dinner with an accountant relatively than an insurance coverage salesman.
As climbing bikes develop into extra aero and placed on some grams, and aero bikes look to get lighter, paint is a simple factor to chop. We’ve seen it time and time once more – on key levels, key riders get a ‘particular’ all-black bike. They’re not particular, they’re boring. Nobody sane can say the black Colnago V4Rs is extra enjoyable than the all-pink one. Remco Evenepoel has it proper. While it might not be to your tastes, his bike, bechromed and resplendent, is a minimum of eye-catching. It is particular.
6. A shock comeback for tubes
Inner tubes are going to come back again. This sentence works greatest if, whereas studying it, you image in your thoughts’s eye that Cilla Black shock shock meme.
Tubeless is nice, particularly in the event you drink the Kool-Aid (not the sealant!!) and run wider street tyres. Latex interior tubes although are quicker. Speaking to the Bora-Hansgrohe mechanic after seeing the crew bikes working a mixture of tubes and tubeless it appears its now simply down to private rider desire. There’s a couple of watts in it, I’m instructed, and so I believe these with efficiency ambitions will go for the quicker setup, and people who need extra consolation or reliability will use tubeless.
The stage itself can also dictate issues. The gravel stage will doubtless see everybody utilizing goop of their tyres, however now that tubeless has nicely and actually caught on there appears much less of a three-line whipping operation from the sponsors to make everybody use sealant, which is a bit mad actually now that everybody is utilizing wider tyres and it’ll lastly work correctly and never explode off hookless rims at random.
7. Mixed wheelsets will debut
I at all times wish to throw in a little bit of a wildcard, and this years is combined wheelsets. I do know, we’ve had combined depth wheelsets for yonks, nevertheless it’s at all times been a shallower wheel on the entrance and a deeper wheel on the again, principally for dealing with causes; a sudden sidewind has extra affect on the entrance of the bike, the place much less weight rests.
Recently although new bikes appear to be adopting a design ethos of aero on the entrance and light-weight on the rear. The vanguard is the place aero is most necessary, and on the again the air is soiled and so that is the place weight financial savings are made.
At Roubaix we noticed Soudal-QuickStep doing this with a combined Roval Rapide CLX entrance and a Terra gravel wheel on the rear, to maximise aero and add some a lot wanted puncture safety on the again. I see no cause we couldn’t see riders on key mountain levels working a deeper entrance wheel than rear, maximising the aero features for the valleys, and doubtlessly serving to to hit the 6.8kg minimal weight for the longer climbs.
I say I see no cause… I see one cause, and that’s that it will look terrible. Cycling is an aesthetic sport, and execs wish to look the half. They usually eschew efficiency features for aesthetic causes, so it will in all probability befall somebody like Ben Healy or Victor Campenaerts, who’re so beloved of tech journos as a result of they really do their homework.