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.
2024 marked the first season that the Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team stepped up to the top tier of women’s cycling. Various iterations of the team have been around since 2017 when the outfit – then called Team WNT Pro Cycling – was a UCI-registered team. Even after the advent of the Women's WorldTour, the team stayed in the Continental tier, but for last season it made the leap to the flagship level.
Orbea has been the team's bike sponsor since 2018, with 2025 the eighth year of this longstanding partnership. The team has two road bikes at its disposal from the Basque brand – the Orca and the Orca Aero.
The name Orca, incidentally, is not from the killer whale but rather a combination of the words ORbea and CArbon. As this alludes to, that was the name given to the brand's first foray into carbon fibre frame manufacturing in 2003.
Although the name has remained the same, the Orca has gone through many design iterations and also gained a stablemate in 2017 when the brand released the Orca Aero. Now in its third generation, the Orca Aero is the predominant bike of choice for the team for most races, with the Orca reserved for mountain tests where its lower weight comes into play.
This is Kristýna Burlová’s first season with Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling. The 22-year-old comes from Team Dukla Praha, with whom she took the start of a handful of Women’s WorldTour races last year including the RideLondon Classique, Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift, and the Tour of Flanders.
Starting off her first season at the Women’s WorldTour level in Adelaide at the Tour Down Under, Burlová’s best result came on stage 1, placing 18th on the flat sprint at Snapper Point.
Apart from sharing the same name, the Orca and Orca Aero are completely different machines. Where the Orca prioritises low weight above everything else, the Orca Aero is focused on aero tube shapes.It is unusual to see a two-piece cockpit as stock on a full-on aero bike. This bar and stem combo from Orbea's own components brand, OC Components, which does a very neat job of a semi-integrated setup. The rubber sections on either side of the stem are specifically designed seals that slide into place, smoothing the bar/stem junction.The colour scheme of Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team uses iridescent detailing across the bike to create a truly unique design within the peloton.Orbea has made the most of the UCI's relaxed rules around frame profiles, as the deep-section head tube shows. Elsewhere at the front of the bike, from this angle you can see how neatly the brake hoses transition from inside the bar to slotting under the stem.Burlová is running 52/36 chainrings on her Shimano Dura-Ace 9200 crankset, a fairly standard size for the women's pro peloton. Behind the cranks, more of the iridescent detailing can be seen and under the Adelaide summer sun is definitely something that will catch your eye.The design at the dropout allows for the rear derailleur to nestle into the cutout behind the chain stay.4iiii provides the team power meters; interestingly, the team appears to be running the left crank arm-only Precision 3+ model rather than the dual-sided Precision 3+ Pro option.Around the bottom bracket, the Orca Aero looks to share some DNA with the brand's TT bike, the Ordu. Both bikes have a large bottom bracket area that extends upwards, creating a flat bottom to the front triangle.Vittoria's Corsa Pro are the tyres of Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team; the 30 mm size is as wide as the frame can accommodate.Orbea launched its own in-house wheel brand, Oquo, at the tail end of 2023. In 2024 Lotto-DSTNY used a combination of Oquo and Zipp wheels throughout the season. The brand offers three depths in its RP (road performance) range.The fork on the Orca Aero feature Mavic's Speed Release dropout system. Although the fork uses a thru-axle, the right-hand fork leg has an open dropout rather than a through hole as is common. One advantage of a design like this is it allows for faster wheel swaps as the axle doesn't need to be removed all the way for the wheel to drop out. In recent years this design has largely disappeared as it proved not to be any faster than a standard thru-axle and an electric driver.The same design can be found at the rear of the bike.The 30 mm Vittoria Corsa Pro's don't leave much in the way of clearance. It wasn't that long ago that 30 mm tyre clearance on an aero bike was considered generous. Now the Orca Aero has one of the most conservative tyre clearances of any bike in the peloton.Burlová runs the Vento Argo saddle from Fizik; the shorter nose and the cut-out both aim to allow riders to sit farther forward on the saddle without putting excess pressure on soft tissue.The back face of the down tube opens to a flat profile as you move down the Orbea logo. This profile is used to create smother air flow in this section when a bottle is fitted and is reminiscent of Trek's Kammtail Virtual Foil. Stock Orca Aeros include a proprietary aero bottle and cage but the team uses conventional bottles and cages (supplier unknown).As an official sponsor to the team, Wahoo provides not just the head units but also pedals. Burlová using the Wahoo Speedplay Aero model. This features a single-sided design with the underside textured like a golf ball.There is no chance of mistaking whose bike this is. Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team are using some of the biggest name stickers of any team.
Kristýna Burlová’s Orbea Orca Aero specs
Frame: Orbea Orca Aero
Wheels: Oquo RP45
Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200
Chainset: Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 52/36 with 4iiii Precision 3+ left-side only power meter
