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Tech gallery: Walking the Paris-Roubaix Femmes pits
Tech features

Tech gallery: Walking the Paris-Roubaix Femmes pits

From custom hacks to equipment oddities, here's what caught our eye in the Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift paddock.

Ronan Mc Laughlin
by Ronan Mc Laughlin Apr 12, 2025 More from
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One-half the Roubaix weekend is now complete with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot the first to take to the top step of the Roubaix velodrome.

Perhaps the most interesting tech of the day was Lidl-Trek's 12-speed cassette, 13-speed derailleur hack, but we spotted plenty of other bits and pieces before the depart in Denain...

Like... Lorena Wiebes and SD Worx's Tarmac SL8s which all featured a few interesting build choices.
Wiebes usually races with the Roval Rapide integrated bar stem but switched to a two-piece setup for Roubaix. In fact, the entire team switched to a two-piece setup for the Hell of the North.
Those handlebars also had a double wrap of bar tape, and two sets of SRAM's wireless AXS blips. Wiebes opted for one set in the traditional on the drops sprint shifter location but added another set on the less common front of the tops location.
1X setups are now pretty commonplace on the road, but arguably, it was Roubaix that gave the 1X system its breakthrough in the World Tour. Single chainrings were a common sight around the paddock again today. SD Worx were also using the Roval Rapide CLX II wheelset and not the Team Edition version FDJ - Suez did use.
As reported by Escape Collective earlier today, the UCI had instructed Lidl-Trek to adjust Ellen van Dijk's lever angle, which they'd deemed exceeded the permitted 10°. While we didn't measure Lotte Kopecky's lever angle, they sure looked well beyond the 10° limit.
FDJ - Suez stuck with the Roval Rapide integrated bar/stem.
As you might expect, the team also upped their tyre size to these 32 mm Continental GP 5000 S TR with the "transparent" sidewall. Several sources we've spoken to indicate the transparent sidewall version of the S TR tests considerably slower than its black sidewall counterpart.

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