We’re busy bringing you as many professional bike photographs as we are able to from the Tour Down Under, which kicks off the brand-new 2025 race season.
A full tech gallery is within the works, and you’ll already take a look at the brand-new Uno-X Mobility Ridley Noah Fast 3.0 which is being ridden within the ladies’s race, however now we flip our consideration to the most recent bike within the WorldTour, one we’re all nonetheless getting accustomed to: the X-Lab AD9.
As nicely as being a producer, the Chinese X-Lab model’s guardian firm, XDS Carbon Tech, can be a title sponsor of the newly renamed XDS Astana Team.
This specific bike belongs to Henok Mulubrhan, the 25-year-old Eritrean and three-time African Continental Champion, and X-Lab has given it a customized paint job to honour his title.
It’s virtually a flip of the group bike’s blue and black color scheme, however the downtube has a beautiful white and gold marbling impact which makes you look twice.
Spec-wise, the group are just about utilizing the identical tools they did final 12 months after they have been racing on Wilier bikes. The Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets stay, as do the Vision Metron 60SL wheels. Handlebars are the Vision Metron built-in mannequin, which, you guessed it, can be unchanged from final 12 months.
One factor that has puzzled us over the previous few weeks is a spread of press photographs displaying the X-Lab bikes with each Continental and Vittoria tyres. The group bike is fitted with Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres right here, like final 12 months, however we surprise what the combo is about, perhaps a swap is coming just like the one which has gone on at Alpecin-Deceuninck as they change from Vittoria to Pirelli.
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There’s a reasonably slim headtube on the entrance of the AD9 and what appears to be like like loads of tyre clearance (Image credit score: Chris Auld)A pleasant customized contact on the bike’s high tube for the African Continental Champion, Mulubrhan (Image credit score: Chris Auld)There’s a pleasant carbon fibre weave on the one-piece Vision Metron one-piece handlebar (Image credit score: Chris Auld)The gold accents within the customized paint are complemented by the Vision wheel stickers (Image credit score: Chris Auld)The fork legs have a critical aero profile on the dropouts that’s unmissable. It’s not dissimilar to the fork tabs on the Pinarello Dogma fork, however on this case much more pronounced (Image credit score: Chris Auld)The backside bracket shell appears to be like chunky and strong, which tends to end in a stiff and environment friendly platform (Image credit score: Chris Auld)There’s loads of color on the bike, this seat keep association appears to be like fairly acquainted someway (Image credit score: Chris Auld)There’s nothing to shout about right here, it is simply good to get a close-up take a look at a professional bike we do not know an excessive amount of about proper now (Image credit score: Chris Auld)You know the place you might be with Dura-Ace, though this chain and cassette are trying a bit mucky in case you ask us. Note the open Di2 charging cowl too. (Image credit score: Chris Auld)
