Welcome to Escape Collective. Please select your language.
Please note that this is an automated translation and it will not be perfect. All articles have been written in English and if anything appears to not make sense, please double check in English.
Sunday’s time trial may have been the first fast, frantic, and competitive final stage of the Tour that didn’t include a bunch sprint or narrow breakaway win since 1989, but as such, compiling the tech galleries from a tech-heavy TT is a slow process. We published part one yesterday; here is part two:
We concluded part one of our Tour TT tech galleries with a look at Giulio Ciccone’s Trek Madone TT-optimised road bike, so Lidl-Trek seems as good a place as any to pick up part two.
The team races the Trek Speed Concept, which has Bontrager (front) wheels and these sleek-looking SpeedBar NL TT extensions. The new UCI rules now allow for some extra reach leeway for taller riders. Some Trek riders had vertical risers, some had mid-reach options (left above), but others had much more forward-swooping risers as seen here on the right.There probably is a name for these hand grips, but I’m going to call them the hammerhead grips. The main section of the extension is carbon, while the grey front section that makes up the hand grip is customised to each rider’s preference, 3D-printed and attached to the main body. The arm rest sidewalls are not as tall on these extensions. Many riders prefer taller walls for a little extra something to push against as they attempt to shrug their shoulders in as narrow as possible. The Trek TT bikes, as with pretty much every bike I saw, ran a 2X setup given the hilly nature of this TT. 54/41 chainrings for this rider.Pirelli are a major sponsor of Lidl-Trek, and so no surprise to see the P Zero Race TT tyres dusted off for TT day. Note the dimples on the disc sidewall… Bontrager don’t make a TT disc and so the team has used Zipp discs, scrubbed of logos, for a while already.Speaking of reach, Lotto Dstny riders were going in the opposite direction, with these seemingly team-only setback seat posts on both bikes and set back riser on the bike closest to camera.Orbea has been absent from the men’s WorldTour peloton for a while, so the Ordu isn’t a TT bike we’ve covered in our Tour TT coverage previously. Unfortunately, Lotto was another team keeping a wide perimeter so we couldn’t get quite close enough to any actual race bikes. Thankfully, this spare bike was already on the roof of a car and gave us a slightly closer look. Interestingly, the spare bikes were equipped with the stock seat post.The lines on this bike are something to behold. Last minute checks. We were waiting about to see if Victor Campenaerts had any trick TT kit, but the mechanics had his bike inside the truck and then inside that team-only perimeter. We did manage to grab this shot as they moved it out of the truck, giving us a glimpse of the stage 18 winner’s shifting setup. If I was to guess, I’d say the top satellite shifters control the rear derailleur, while the lower pair operate front shifting. A couple of buses down, Alpecin–Deceuninck had their new Canyon Aeroads launched just last week on trainers ready for rider warm ups. They caught my eye because these seem to be pro-only, more aggressively angled stems on the new integrated PACE bar.Jayco-Alula had a full fleet of new Giant Trinity disc brake bikes. First spotted at the Tour de Romandie under Luke Plapp, Giant has now supplied enough for the entire team and in team colours. We took a deep dive on all that is new on the new Trinity in that first look post a couple of months ago now, but to recap, it is now disc brake, features a mono-riser extension mount, and flared forks and seat stays, but still retains its Trinity identity.Jayco are using Sync Ergonomics TT extensions; some riders got the fully customised 3D-printed bars, while others less focused on the TT still get the entry-level round tube extensions.Stefan Küng was a DNS on stage 19, as such, and given he is the only rider on either Wilier-sponsored team with the new Supersonica SLR TT bike, we missed out on the chance to get another look at that new rig. Instead, the Astana and Groupama-FDJ riders raced Wilier’s lighter Turbine SLR seen here.Cofidis race the Look 796 Monoblade RS on time trial days and it’s another sight to behold. No idea if its actually “fast” but it sure looks a thing of beauty. Released last year around the same time as the new 795 Blade RS road bike, the TT bike leans heavily on the learnings from Look’s successful track frames. Not seen here, the bike features an adjustable aero extension as stock.Continuing the trend I mentioned in part one of things that take me back to teenage club 10s … the Corima Trispoke very much fits that bill, although obviously disc brakes were not a thing in time trials back then. The Look fork bucks the trend of narrow and very deep profile fork legs that other manufacturers are adopting en masse.Aero pedals for an aero bike! There’s a lot of blue, yellow, red, and white happening on this bike, as we might expect with a Look, and it works! The 796 Monoblade RS is another bike that has adopted the mono-riser front end.Another team, another rider, another hammerhead hand grip setup. While this one does seem custom made, it doesn’t seem to be a 3D-printed add-on but rather an integral part of the main body. We had caught a far-off glimpse of Remco Evenepoel’s chrome and rainbow bands Shiv TT as seen in part one of our Tour TT galleries, but he actually raced on this slightly less painted Shiv TT. The frame is much more subtle with this mainly black paint job with just two rainbow band decals, one on the fork, one on the seat tube.Remco’s custom extensions seem similarly stripped back, ditching the matte finish for this glossy clear coat over the carbon weave. Presumably, both changes were made in a bid to shave a few grams for the hilly final TT. Remco also raced a 2X, although we didn’t catch what size either chainring was.Finally, he also had a new front wheel … we think. The wheel looks like a Roval Rapide CLX II or a rebranded CLX 64, but it’s actually deeper than the CLX II and much wider and more bulbous than the CLX 64. It clearly is not the Aerocoach Aeox Titan Evenepoel had been using up front during time trial stages of late.And a hub much like the chrome one seen on the new Rapid CLX II Team wheelset. Presumably, this wheel is tubeless compatible, but Evenepoel raced it with inner tubes; again, presumably, latex.Here’s a look at the old wheel on a teammate’s bike. Notice the narrower, more v-shaped rim profile…Versus Evenpoel’s new wider, more U-shaped rim. Evenepoel wasn’t the only rider to get the new wheel treatment. A rare glimpse inside a leader’s skinsuit. Biniam Girmay took home the green jersey aboard this celebratory green Cube Aerium C:68 TT on the final stage. With three stage wins and the green jersey, there was a lot to celebrate and Cube certainly “understood the assignment.”The green with frozen effect finish and chrome detailed wheels probably wasn’t the lightest TT bike optimised for the hilly final time trial, but that wasn’t the point. ERE Research is a little like buses. I’d rarely written about ERE on the site previously, and now, following our Eurobike coverage, it’s been twice in a week. Intermarché —Wanty races with Newmen wheels on the road, but Newmen don’t currently have a TT offering, and so the team turns to ERE Research and its TT wheels. This is the brand’s Genus AE92-D, with a 92 mm deep, 21 inner width, and 33 mm external width rim.At the back, the team uses the ERE AE00-D disc wheel. 58:44 rings for Girmay.Cube has this little splitter-like tube right behind the head tube, which it calls the “Twin head tube.” Cube claims it helps “reduce air resistance in a straight line” and “helps reduce buffeting and increases steering stability” in crosswind conditions. Another team, another set of fancy TT extensions. Intermarché’s includes what appears to be an angle-adjustable base riser on its Cube base bar. A neat and presumably handy integration. Plenty of surface area all over this frame. Another wind-cheating design element. The fork blades are as deep as you’d expect to see on a modern TT bike.
