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The Tour is underway, and the tech is almost as hot as the Italian temperatures. A last-minute change of plan has seen me on the ground for the first few stages, and that pleasant surprise has proved doubly fruitful with plenty of tech on show during stage one alone.
Here’s what we see roaming the start and finish areas of the Grand Départ. We’ll have more in part two, coming soon.
Where better to start than with the new yellow jersey: Tadej Pogačar. Truth be told, the Giro d’Italia winner and two-time Tour winner’s bike was the first we came across, and luckily so, because as the crowds grew it became increasingly more difficult to get up close with the big teams and riders. The quick glimpse of Pogi’s bike we did get revealed all the usual setup tweaks, but it is interesting nonetheless. Unsurprisingly he sticks with the Carbon-TI chainrings he has used for a year or more now and this time with a 55:40 combination.Pogačar prefers a much more typical sprinter shifter location than we spotted on Romain Bardet’s stage-winning bike. Pogačar’s bike also featured this direct mount derailleur hanger …… An update from the standard V4Rs hanger which requires the Shimano direct mount link as seen on his spare bike..Pogačar’s teammates had a similar-looking direct mount hanger but in a less obvious black.Pogačar and his teammates also raced with Carbon-Ti brake rotors as per usual. Most, if not all, of UAE – Team Emirates raced stage one on Enve’s 4.5 SES wheels.But there were varying tyre selections. Pogačar opted for 30 mm Continental GP 5000 S TR, which …… Looked closer to 32 inflated (we took a closer look at measured tyre widths during last year’s Tour) and, as you’d expect, proved relatively tight on the team’s Colnago V4Rs frames. Tim Wellens, on the other hand, opted for Conti’s GP 5000 TT TR tyres in a 28 mm, a combination that technically speaking falls afoul of the UCI imposed ISO standard for a minimum 29 mm stamped-width tyre on rims with a 25 mm internal rim width, as is the case with the Enve 4.5.If we sound like a broken record on these tyre widths, it is important given other teams had been forced to upsize tyres compared to what they were riding pre-UCI reminder that all teams must comply with the ISO standards. Lotto Dstny were racing with 28 mm Vittoria Corsa Pros and have since switched to these 30s seen here. Interestingly the team also seems to switch between Zipps and wheels from Orbea’s house brand, Oquo.Visma-Lease a Bike is another team that runs wheels with 25 mm inner rim widths. They started the season mostly on 28 tyres, and now run these Vittoria Corsa Pro 622×29 tyres which actually reference 25 mm rims on the side wall.And on the tyre spec imprint. Visma – Lease a Bike started stage one with some riders racing the new Reserve 42 wheels. The wheels have a 42 mm-deep front and 49 mm rear rim with 25.4mm front, 24.8mm rear inner rim widths and 34.4mm front, 32.1mm rear external rim widths.Meanwhile other Vittoria-equipped teams on narrower rims are sticking with stamped 28 mm tyres.Pirelli has added the FSC logo to its new P-Zero Race TLR RS tyres released a few weeks back. FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council and the logo indicates Pirelli tyres are manufactured with rubber from forests managed to environmental, social, and economic standards. We are planning to delve further into the newly acquired certification, which Pirelli claims is a first for cycling.Speaking of tyres, Decathlon AG2R are rocking the new, much-teased, and soon to be released Continental aero tyres.They do now have the hot patch blacked out, though. Interestingly, Movistar also blacked out some of its GP 50000 S TRs but left others unmarked. Fleche Wallonne winner Stevie Williams prefers the more traditional tape-wrapped-all-the-way-up approach. It’s an decision JP Ballard estimated cost a few watts in our aero myths and best bang for buck hacks episode of Performance Process podcast, but clearly Williams values the grip and/or comfort more highly.Williams and his Israel-Premier Tech teammates are racing these Factor Ostro VAMs with a Tour-special paint job.The Factor Ostro VAM is among the lightest aero bikes but still, Guillaume Boivin, not a noted climber, looks to shed a few extra grams with what appears to be an extra-light-weight seat post from Spanish carbon components specialists Darimo.The entire Uno-X squad started on the new Dare VA (Velocity Ace), as first covered in a much closer look back at the Tour of Flanders earlier this year. Magnus Cort and many of the team are using the dedicated and extremely aero-profiled bars.Very thin and aero looking tops.Enve wheels have graced many a TDF stage, but its frames are making their Tour debut this year under TotalEnergies. The team are racing with Enve Melee frames, mostly Enve 4.5 wheelsets, and SES AR integrated barstems.The team is also giving a Tour debut to Novaride, a French company specialising in performance-oriented components made in France, such as this oversized pulley wheel system.Going back to tyres and wheels for a second and what was old is new again. Ineos Grenadiers raced stage 1 on Princeton CarbonWorks’ Alta 3532 wheels with 25 mm GP 5000 TT TR tyres at the front and 28s on the rear. The 25 up front is likely an aero pick, with the varying 35 mm-deep rear and 32 mm front providing a presumably rule-of-105-compliant 28.6 mm external rim width when matched with this stamped 25 mm front tyre..The team is racing the new Pinarello Dogma F, a bike with only a few subtle updates and one major but perhaps lesser-discussed update. Among the updates are this new “aero keel” bottom bracket, which was touted as an aero upgrade, but as we understand from Pinarello, the increased size forward of the bottom bracket was also necessitated in order to retain the stiffness lost from opening up the area behind the bottom bracket to facilitate an increase in tyre clearance from 28 with the previous Dogma F to a “comfortable 30” on the new bike.The new handlebar and deeper head tube are other notable features, with the new, lighter, and narrower bars with flared drops a major request to Pinarello from the team.Ineos are deserving winners of the Most Thoughtful Transponder Mount award, hiding it behind the fork leg and partially inside the aero flap on the newly hidden dropout. But of all the updates, it’s the one we can’t see here that I most welcomed on a brief test ride of the new Dogma on Friday: The new 47 mm fork offset significantly reduces the trail figure and gives much sharper handling than the previous Dogma F. That’s a change I had called for in a review of the previous Dogma at the Old Place.Ineos use the same Elite Leggerocarbon bottle cages as Team DSM Firmenich-PostNL but adds these small strips of some kind of grip tape to aid with bottle retention.Ever attendant to any available marginal gains, Ineos have this maximal cooling gains chilled van on Tour with an ice bath housed within. The riders coupled up to take turns diving in for an instant cool, helping reduce core temperatures after a stage with stifling hot temperatures. Getting core body temperature back down is key to aiding recovery after stages.We’ll finish up part one of our tech galleries with Geraint Thomas’ new Quoc M3 Air shoes. Having briefly seen these at Eurobike 2023 and been impressed with how supple they felt, I’ve been waiting to get more details on them.
