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Flanders tech finale: fueling strategies, eye-catching Canyons, and more
Tech

Flanders tech finale: fueling strategies, eye-catching Canyons, and more

Just when you thought you were out, Ronan pulls you back in.

Ronan Mc Laughlin
by Ronan Mc Laughlin Apr 6, 2023 More from
Ronan Mc Laughlin +

In the final installment of our 2023 Tour of Flanders tech galleries, we take a look at stem sticker fuelling strategies and course details, crank lengths, and some bikes that caught our eye.

Van der Poel's smiley faces broke the internet last year. His nutrition plan this year had him scheduled for a smiley face caffeine gel just before the second ascent of the Kwaremont with ~70 km of racing remaining.
We decided to take a quick shot of each rider's nutrition plan to look for variations in their nutrition plan. This is Xandro Meurisse's and has the Belgian scheduled to consume a blue dot and a red bottle less than MVDP.
Gianni Vermeersch had a similar plan to Meurisse. Interestingly ...
No smiley faces for Gogl ...
Maurice Ballerstedt ...
Nor Dillier. Who also do not have the blue dots on their early race schedule. This change in plan for the three riders most likely to assume domestique duties is representative of their key objectives lying earlier in the race than the other riders on the team expected to contest and work in the finale.
Valentin Madouas relies on a simpler parcours reminder with no fuelling strategy.
Sanne Cant's schedule is tailored to the shorter duration of the women's race.
Taco van der Hoorn has no schedule.
Sam Watson's fuelling strategy. No mention of the course other than simple kilometre markers.
These stem stickers are almost impossible to see for the majority of the race. This much detail seems either entirely useless or potentially dangerous to me.
Still the coolest press officer bike in the start/finish areas? A 2021 Paris-Roubaix Domane with flat bars, 62 mm rims, and gravel tyres!
I wanted to grab a photo of Biniam Girmay's neat Gaerne aero overshoes, but he was late to leave the bus for the start and, as such did so in a hurry. This was the best I could grab, which isn't a great shot of the overshoes but at least does also offer a glimpse of the 3D printed Ti OSPW. If the €500+ standard OSPW seemed outrageous, the €1700 price tag on the Ti OSPW is on another level.
With all the modern tech advancements of recent times, a good old-fashioned chopped-up inner tube is still the most popular way of attaching a timing chip to the bike. Rumours suggest some manufacturers have considered integrated chip housing sections within the fork legs for an aerodynamically improved integration, but it is unclear if such designs would fall foul of the UCI overlords.
Some tubes match better than others.
Movistar opt for a neater, shorter, matching tube.
Crank length is a hot topic right now. As you might expect, riders typically use 170 mm, 172.5 mm, or 175 mm depending on their height. We are, however, seeing some riders deviate from tradition, expect to see much more in the near future. Here are a few that caught our eye in Flanders. 2017 Tour of Flanders winner Coryn Labecki, uses 165 mm cranks. This seems entirely appropriate for the 155 cm tall Labecki, but might not have been an option for her with sponsor-correct equipment until recently.
165 cm tall Kasia Niewiadoma pedals on 170 mm cranks. SRAM colour codes its crank lengths, red - 165 mm, purple - 170 mm, green - 172.5 mm, yellow - 175 mm.
170 cm Tom Pidcock rides with 170 mm crank arms. So far, so normal ...
Curve ball ... 191 cm Jack Bauer rides with 170 mm cranks. Bauer is 25 cm taller than Niewiadoma but rides the same crank length. Surely both cannot be right?
Kristoff gets us back to tradition with 175 mm cranks for his 181 cm height.
172.5 mm cranks for 179 cm Valentin Madouas.
And lastly, 172.5 mm cranks for 179 cm Mads Pedersen.
165 mm cranks for 168 cm Annemiek van Vleuten on her World Champion's rainbow stripes Canyon Aeroad.
Of course, we probably all want to earn the rainbow stripes bike, but arguably this two-tone purple Aeroad as ridden by Sanne Cant and Fenix-Deceuninck is the pick of the Canyon colour ways in the peloton this season.
Most of the Alpecin-Deceuninck riders are on bikes with the same colour way.

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