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Yesterday we kicked off the first in our Tour tech gallery series. How many parts will there be? Well, we have at least this and one more in the works, but only the tech gods, teams and manufacturers, can truly decide. Only they know what other goodies they have up their sleeves ready to roll out.
Like Mark Cavendish’s aero hacks that only appeared for the first time at the rollout for stage three, what else is yet to see the light of day?
Anyway, feast your eyes on part two and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for plenty more.
Let’s start with some brand new wheels. Israel-Premier Tech riders quietly rolled out for the start of stage three on some previously unseen 62 mm deep Black Inc rims.With the new simple block text decal, carbon spokes, and same high flange hubs, the new wheels could easily be mistaken for the 48|58 wheels launched with the new Ostro VAM back in February. Not so, though. These are entirely new and appear to be 62 mm deep front and rear. The team does now also have the choice of a slightly lighter 48 | 48 wheelset with a rear wheel made up with the 48 mm deep rim previously only used as the front rim in that 48 | 58 wheelset.We covered Remco’s new shoes in last week’s Performance Process update but we were keen to get a closer look. My wife got closer to Taylor Swift last week than I’ve been able to get to the Soudal-Quick Step team bus this week. Nevertheless, I was able to grab this quick snap of the unidentified shoes prior to stage one. They are seemingly a lightweight, climber-focused, take on the S-Works Ares shoes. The wrap around design seems to target the same increase foot retention and power transfer that the Ares did, with the velcro strap and more minimalistic build, compared to the Ares, surely an attempt to reduce weight. Specialized, as you might expect, gave us the Project Black statement when asked for comment on the new shoes. It’s a bit lengthy to include here, but basically it states, Specialized works with its pro riders to develop new products.Heat has proved a major issue so far in this Tour. I can confirm … it’s been hot! Most riders wear some sort of cooling vest pre-stage, as seen in part one, Ineos riders jump in an ice bath (Astana’s also). Evenepoel, seen here, had the vest on for his post-stage one cool down ……. On the TT bike. The TT World Champion will be eyeing both time trial stages and is clearly keen to maintain his familiarity with the aero position. There’s been quite a bit of chatter about Pogačar’s 165 mm cranks, and Remco is riding the same. The former World Champion was racing with 54:40 chainrings on stage one.The rear derailleur wire exit on the new Tarmac SL8 leaves a little to be desired. Soudal mechanics have used a small strip of tape on the chainstay and what appears to be a strip of heat shrink tubing to keep the wire in check.An appreciative inclusion for Evenepoel’s chrome paint job, including handlebar.Evenepoel, Jai Hindley, and others are racing with Roval’s new CLX Team wheelset. Easily identifiable thanks to the chrome hubs, Roval claim the new wheelset is lighter thanks to a new carbon layup with less overlap and a new hub shell. Interestingly, Hindley was racing with Turbo RapidAir tyres …… While seemingly every other Specialized rider was racing on Turbo Cotton tyres.Hindley also differed in that he is the only specialized rider who is not on a Specialized saddle. This looks very much like a recovered Fizik Antares.But he isn’t the only rider in the Tour on a non-sponsor compliant saddle: Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone is racing with this Prologo Dimension .Dylan Groenewegen took the Dutch National Championships title the weekend before the Tour kicked off. Giant had this Nederlands flag-inspired Propel ready for him less than a week later. Michael Matthews also got a special paint job, this one is inspired by team sponsors AlUla.Matthews and Jayco are one of the few teams choosing the 30 mm Vittoria Corsa Pro.Speaking of tyres … here’s one we don’t see too often, or at all, these days: an original Continental Grand Prix 5000, and specifically, not the S TR or TT TR we see dotted throughout the peloton. It was on Sam Bennett’s Van Rysel. The new S TR and TT TR are both lighter and thought to offer lower rolling resistance.Alexey Lutsenko is racing a bike I recognise quite well. It’s the Wilier Verticale SLR I reviewed just last week.As first spotted in our Spring classics tech galleries, Michael Mørkøv is racing with a repaintedBlack Inc Aero barstem. We dedicated a full gallery to Sam Bennett’s new Van Rysel FCR Pro aero bike yesterday, he raced with the RCR Pro all-rounder on stage one and, clearly keen to shed grams wherever, he had both Carbon-Ti chainrings and rotors. Decathlon-AG2R la Mondiale are also using the new Look Keo Blade pedals.Cofidis, still the only team holding out on tubulars. We’d also covered POC’s new helmet in that Performance Process tech update last week and got a closer look at it after stage 1. The helmet features what appears to be a carbon fibre shell bridging the pillar-like central sections that make up the ventilation opening walls.Those walls are almost vertical at the front of the helmet and feature straight inner sides matched with angled outer sides. POC hasn’t yet released any details on the new helmet, but I’d hazard a guess these pillars are designed to both reduce the high pressure zone in front of each vent opening and channel air flow into the vent. Hazarding another guess, the carbon plate seems like it may be providing two functions: 1) increasing the helmet’s ability to absorb impact forces and 2) given how high it seemingly sits off the riders head, perhaps channelling, maybe even accelerating, the flow coming in through the vents providing an improved cooling effect. There’s also a large vent along the side of the helmet and POC has retained its usual y-splitter strap design. All those frontal vents are matched with this huge rear exhaust port. Carapaz also has thisCannondale SuperSix in what might typically be described as a not-so-subtle gold, but compared to what other former Olympic gold medalists have done with bling bikes and kit, Carapaz’s is actually kind of subtle.Groupama-FDJ also seem to have a new helmet from French manufacturer Julbo. The new lid is very reminiscent of the Kask Mojito and is clearly designed for maximum ventilation and thermal management.Lidl-Trek is using these Kogel rotor lock rings; the Kogel website claims they provide a secure fit, are manufactured from “premium materials,” and are corrosion-resistant. But most importantly, they are available in black, purple, blue, gold, and raw for some added bike personalisation.Finally, we have given plenty of appreciation to Lidl-Trek team staff’s old flat bar Domane for getting about race starts and finishes. The staff have since had a new bike day, and now have this sweet flat-bar Checkpoint.
