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Paris-Roubaix is the tech capital of the road cycling world, and even as the bikes become increasingly standardised with every passing year, the race still never disappoints.
In part one of our Roubaix tech series, we’ll delve into some mind-boggling watts, various handlebar setups, and much more. With so much tech on show, it’s hard to know where to start in covering it all. The end seemed as good a place as any, and so here are three head units I snapped wandering the finish area.
How does 46.3 km/h for five and a half hours sound? Or how about a 305-watt average and 344-watt normalised power for around the same time sound? Finally how about a 44-minute 40 km? Yeah, Roubaix is insanely tough and these aren’t even the biggest numbers we’ve heard following this year’s race. One rider reported a 350-watt average for another rider who placed in the top 10. As I said, insane! Unfortunately not all head units make it to the Roubaix velodrome. This photo was taken before the start of Saturday’s race, so it’s not actually an ejected head unit, but it highlights some of the measures teams will take to firm up the mount’s hold on the head unit. This looks like a velcro tab for attaching Retul bike fitting sensors. We’ve started near the front of the bike, so we might as well continue there. As mentioned in our bikes of the Roubaix podium gallery, riders differ greatly in Roubaix handlebar preferences. Nowhere was that more obvious than at Bora-Hansgrohe and Soudal-QuickStep. Some preferred two-piece setups with ergonomic bars and wireless shifting blips up on the rear of the tops near the stem clamp.Others stuck with their regular Roval Rapide integrated setups with blips underneath. Some opted for some extra wrap on those Rapide bars. Gianni Moscon prefers good old-fashioned round bars in the form of these PRO Vibe bars. Yves Lampaert chose a modern in-between: two-piece bar and stem with bare aero tops in the shape of Roval’s Rapide handlebar. Lampaert also took the prize for the lowest-mounted satellite shifter, much further below the lever than we saw on most bikes over the weekend. We say “most” because Letizia Paternoster opted for a similar satellite shifter position, even if not quite as low. We’ll have a closer look at Paternoster’s bike (and others) in the days to come. Just as with Lotte Kopecky’s bike we saw on the podium, the Soudal-QuickStep team opted to run spacers above the stem for Sunday”s race. This wasn’t the case at Bora-Hansgrohe, though, who mostly opted for a zero-spacers-above-the-stem setup on their two-piece setups. Escape Collective understands these spacers are just an additional measure to be doubly sure the riders don’t encounter any headset or steerer issues mid-race on such tough terrain. Many riders were opting for additional shifter options. Cross-top brakes have long since disappeared, but I do feel like there could be some marginal late braking and cornering gains to be found in using them, allowing the rider to brake later without the need to move across to the hoods while riding on the rough cobbles. Shimano is currently the only manufacturer offering a cross-top brake lever compatible with hydraulic road brake levers. Speaking of handlebars, EF Education-EasyPost and EF Education-Cannondale (among other Prologo-sponsored teams) all raced with this Onetouch 3D handlebar tape from Prologo. The new tape features a three-dimensional design with conical elastomer nano-structures said to increase comfort and grip on harsh terrain and rough surfaces.Thankfully that was all the sectors. Any more and even this 170 mm stem Jonas Rutsch uses (and is presumably tired of seeing referenced in tech galleries) wouldn’t be long enough.Nutrition plans are becoming increasingly important and complex. While some opt for smiley face codes, Damien Touzé of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale has a refreshing simple-to-understand plan with all the SIS products he planned to down during the race clearly represented by an image.Other Decathlon AG2R riders kept it simpler with just a course schedule sticker. No smiley faces for Van der Poel this year either. No plan at all, in fact. Sticking with contact points, Marco Haller is running a prototype Specialized saddle. The team at Specializied on the ground at Roubaix were tight-lipped about the saddle, saying only that it is a “Project Black” item. Specialized often offers its standard Project Black statement on items still in development. We have pasted the statement below. The saddle appears to be another in the brand’s growing list of Mirror 3D-printed offerings, although this one features a cover material.
Project Black: “Specialized relies on feedback from professional athletes in both developing and testing advanced pre-production products in real-world applications. With this top-level feedback, some of these design elements and products eventually show up in future retail product offerings.”Cadex unveiled its AMP saddle last year. It’s a short 242 mm-long saddle with integrated carbon rails, carbon shell, and lightweight, reactive foam. The saddle also features ETPU particles in two separate pockets at the contact areas, which are said to mould to the rider’s pelvic contact condition in something Cadex calls “Particle Flow Technology”.We just don’t see enough Elite Ciussi gel bottle cages in the world these days. They come out once a year in pro racing, and that’s at Roubaix, where teams prefer their secure bottle grip. The cages did also make the podium this year on Pfeiffer Georgi’s Scott Foil RC.Most teams and riders are racing with thru-axle tools for quicker wheel changes, as also seen in the Roubaix podium gallery.Soudal-QuickStep riders tape the tool to their seatposts. Also in that podium gallery was a closer look at Lotte Kopecky’s Wolf Tooth chain guide. However, her teammate, Elena Cecchini, had this aero-looking 3D-printed chain guide for her 1X drivetrain. Back to Soudal-QuickStep who opted for a reverse-mullet (a fringe?) wheelset combination with the deep aero Roval Rapide CLX II front wheel paired to a Terra CL rear. Specialized explained the team had decided on the combination after it was determined 1) aero matters less at the rear where the air is so “dirty” the aero penalty of a shallower wheel is less, 2) the wider bead width (not inner rim width) of the Terra helped in reducing pinch flats, and 3) the lower inertia of the slightly lower weight rim helped with accelerations which would aid the riders in fighting for position entering the pave sectors. Point three seems like the furthest stretch, but if we are honest, it feels like Soudal-QuickStep have struggled so much in this year’s Classics they were probably willing to try almost anything. The other Specialized teams all opted for their standard Roval Rapide front and rear wheel setups, even on the spare bikes as seen here with Kopecky’s bike on the roof of the SD Worx-Protime team car. And it was the same over at AG Insurance-Soudal.
Check back soon for another tech gallery from Paris-Roubaix.
