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With most of the tech on show at Paris-Roubaix now covered in our two galleries published last week, it’s time to switch focus and take a look at some of the bikes on show at the Queen of the Classics. The so-called “Holy Week” of cycling may already be a fading memory as the WorldTour has already moved on to Ardennes week, but we are sticking with Roubaix for a little longer to cover some of the bikes that caught our eye in the Compiègne and Denain start areas.
Grace Brown | Lapierre Xelius SL
First up is Grace Brown’s Lapierre Xelius SL, one of a few examples of teams opting for their lighter climbing bike over the weekend rather than the slew of aero bikes that most riders opted for. But that bike choice perhaps shouldn’t come as a huge surprise given Brown usually rides the Xelius SL and Lapierre’s so-called 3D Tubular design concept which sees the seat stays by pass the seat tube and attach directly into the top tube. Lapierre claims this feature improves ride comfort by freeing up the seat post to flex, with the resulting longer stays also claimed to aid in dissipating vibrations. No doubt the pavé of Roubaix would push the concepts claimed benefits to their limits. The design brings an undoubtedly unique appearance in a peloton of increasingly similar bikes. The stays entirely bypass the seat tube.The bike is otherwise as you’d expect in a modern “all-rounder” bike optimising aerodynamics within the constraints of a slightly lighter, climbing focused package. As such the designers introduced fully internal cable/hose routing in the new Xelius alongside the usual truncated tube profiles now ubiquitous in the category. 54:40 chainrings for Brown. Brown was another rider racing with Prologo’s new bar tape covered in part one of our Roubaix tech galleries. Wrapped all the way to the stem. Brown also races with a Prologo saddle with what could be considered a quite extreme negative saddle angle. 32 mm Continental GP 5000 S TRs on Dura-Ace C50 wheels.New meets old: While other teams were adding thru axle tools to their axles and seat posts, some Shimano-equipped teams opted for the Shimano tool-free thru-axle
Riley Sheehan | Factor Ostro Gravel
Israel-Premier Tech lined up with Factor’s Ostro Gravel, which, as the name suggests, is a gravel bike, not a road race bike. Why? I hear you ask. The hope was the longer wheelbase, front centre (distance from the centre of the bottom bracket to the centre of the front wheel axle), and slacker head tube designed to make the bike more composed over gravel would have the same effect on the pavé of Roubaix. These features are coupled with the Ostro Gravel’s stacks of tyre clearance, and, at least by gravel terms, the frameset is aero-optimised, and so on paper it makes sense. Furthermore, without a potential winner amongst its starting lineup, IPT had little to lose in trying something different. In fact, one could be forgiven for missing that the Ostro Gravel is a gravel bike.On closer inspection, though, it reveals its gravel ambitions. Clearance for 45 mm tyres making these 32s look skinny. That gravel geometry also means a more upright position and so the 140 mm stem some riders had to run is another clear hint to the frame’s intended use case.As are the top tube bag mounts. But this 55 tooth chainring is by no means “gravel.”That’s one chunky 3D printed chain catcher.IPT’s Riley Sheehan was another rider opting for bar tape wrapped all the way to the stem and raced with no satellite shifters. The team also raced with the Black Inc Forty Five wheelset rather than the new 48|58 mainly due to the older wheels’ steel spokes, deemed to offer a slightly smoother ride over the rough pave.Those 32 mm tyres mentioned earlier are the ever-popular Continental GP 5000 S TR.Sheehan races with a Selle Italia 3D Boost SLR Kit Carbonio saddle … a short saddle with an awfully long name and 3D printed cover.
Marianne Vos | Cervelo Soloist
Marianne Vos lined up as one of the pre-race favourites aboard this Cervelo Soloist. Is it the Soloist, the paint job, or is it Vos’ setup, slammed stem and all? I’m not sure, but there is something great looking about this bike.Just one more, from another angle.Credit to the Visma-Lease a Bike mechanics also, they were one of the only teams to take the time to set the bike up photo-ready with matching wheel positions and horizontal crank arm. As for the actual setup, Vos chose a 52 1X AXS power meter chainring with 10:33 cassette out back.Just as we saw with the men’s Visma-Lease a Bike team, Vos was also racing with a Corsa Pro Control at the rear …… And a Corsa Pro at the front, both 32 mm.Although Visma-Lease a Bike was one of the few teams to have riders actually change frames for Roubaix, some things are a constant across all teams, including the aforementioned inclusion of thru-axle tools. One of the few waxed chains we saw over the entire weekend.SRAM RED 1 AXS power meter with 52-tooth aero chainring, Wahoo Speedplay pedals, and a Wolf Tooth chain guide.Wolf Tooth were once again on chain guiding duty with this Cervelo specific guide. Vos also prefers a forward and negative angle saddle position. While the steeply banked rear of the Fizik Argo makes the overall saddle angle appear even steeper, the nose is not as steep, although still angled down quite considerably.Vos added wireless blips in the so-called “sprinter position”But kept the tops clear. With rythm so important over the pave, its still surprising to me that riders don’t opt for a satellite shifter up top as a back up just in case it’s needed. Perhaps Vos never rides on the tops on the pavé.
Luyao Zeng | Winspace T1550
This is the Winspace T1550 of Chinese national champion Luyao Zeng, whose teammate Xin Tang became the first Chinese rider to finish Paris-Roubaix. Both riders racewith team Winspace, a French Continental squad title-sponsored by Chinese bike brand Winspace. The team’s fleet of Winspace T1550 frames and Winspace Hyper Lun wheels was the first time I’d seen the increasingly popular brand’s exceptionally competitively priced products raced at the WorldTour level. The T1550 frame feature list ticks many modern race bike checkboxes. It is described as an aero-optimised “top-of-the-line option for road cyclists who demand the best in terms of performance, comfort, and style.” Features include aero-profiled tubing, a “wide-clearing fork” for better front-end aero, asymmetric chain stays, T800 carbon, and an “aggressive geometry.” Being a national champion, Zeng’s frame is, of course, treated to a mostly red with yellow stars Chinese flag-inspired paint job.Winspace also incorporates something it calls “T-Tail” on the T1550, which is seemingly a truncated profile to the aero seat tube. The “T-Tail” design is said to increase rear-triangle rigidity, while “the flat section intersecting the seat tube also serves to separate airflow around the rear wheel.”Zeng, like so many others we seen, raced with 54/40 chainrings, although not the Dura-Ace crankset-matching rings from Shimano. While we weren’t able to immediately ID these rings, sharp-eyed Escape Collective members in our Aero/TT Discord channel pegged them as from Pardus Bicycle’s in-house components brand, MVMT. The only striking omission from the current T1550 is wider tyre clearance. Clearance is currently limited to just 28 mm. It’s also not the lightest frame with a claimed weight of 880 g +/-35 g for size medium unpainted, but that is to be expected given some of the aero profiles included.Profiles which extend onto the seat post. And up front on the integrated bar stem. Winspace describes the Lún Hyper D45 as its “best-selling wheelset,” and it’s easy to see why, considering the carbon spokes, ceramic bearings, filament-wound 46 and 54 mm deep rims with 21 mm internal and 27.6 mm external rim widths, tubeless compatible wheelset priced at US$1,500 / £1,200 / AU$2,300 / €1,400.The team was not just the only team I spotted all weekend racing on anything smaller than a 30 mm tyre, but they were right down at 27 mm with these Challenge Strada TLR tyres. Whether the T1550’s limited clearance drove this tyre choice or whether, being one of the smaller teams, they simply don’t have the support or resources to get wider tyres specifically for one day of racing is unclear.
