Four new bikes, two new wheelsets, fresh custom paint, tyre nerdery, and much more besides: Biggest ever tech gallery from the Critérium du Dauphiné

Because Ineos were so vehemently opposed to me (and all my journalistic colleagues from other outlets) shooting pictures of the new Pinarello Dogma F, to the point of rather comically trying to park the team car behind a small tree, it's going in first. It's also not all that different looking from the current model, save for the deeper head tube, though I'm sure there'll be the usual slew of aero, weight, stiffness, and, being a Pinarello, unquantifiable vibe-based aesthetic gains.

The deeper head tube is, unlike many new bikes, angled to flow better into the top tube. I am almost certain this is an aesthetic choice rather than a performance one. The forks still have the trademark Pinarello wobble, but it's less pronounced.

The down tube still has the little shelf into which the bottle cages nestle, and the fork dropouts have the characteristic little tabs on the trailing edges.

Ineos certainly weren't alone in running time trial tyres for the road; this is an increasingly common trend I'm seeing, aided by wider tyres making tubeless setups more effective, meaning teams can risk running faster but more flimsy rubber.

Teams usually opt to keep the race transponder in a strip of inner tube, most use black butyl or beige latex. I really do respect the mechanics use of a red latex in this case, to better blend it in with the forks.

All stacked in front of the bus, the details of the rear end of the frame were hard to make out.

Fortunately, I managed to snap Laurens de Plus after stage one. Here we can see the 'F' on the seat tube, so it's definitely keeping the Dogma F name. The seat stays are less wiggly, but curiously in the face of many brands opting to dramatically slim their bikes down at the rear, the back end doesn't seem to have gone on a diet at all. De Plus isn't using TT tyres here, so that means it's probably rider preference, or something reserved for the leaders only.

Right, ready for round two? Good, because here's the new Canyon Aeroad that F1 driver Valtteri Bottas leaked to the world by riding it around in the pits at the Monaco Grand Prix, in what was almost certainly a stage-managed piece of marketing.

The changes aren't drastic, visually speaking - obviously I cannot speak to the internals, and my eyes aren't a wind tunnel. My theory is, due to the 'Aeroad' model name, Canyon couldn't reasonably make it less aero, but lighter, in a bid to make it an all-round racer like so many new bikes lately.

That being said, it is slightly less chunky. The head tube is a little more dainty, especially in the small size that Davide Formolo uses.

Something that Canyon seems to be working towards is a really consistent design language, especially at the fork. The fork here bears more than a passing resemblance to the fork of the Ultimate, and of the Inflite cyclocross bike too.

An extremely neat rear derailleur mounting. No messy bolts on show at all.

There's also a new seatpost clamp, which was infamously prone to issue on the previous model to the point Mathieu van der Poel has been riding a modified version of the old Aeroad for some time with a different clamp design.

If you ever find yourself trying to differentiate between the old and the new models, the new one has this organic upside-down U-shape at the chainstay bridge, which is slightly at odds with the sharp angles elsewhere on the frameset. I appreciate this is a little like when biologists tell you how to differentiate between two extremely similar-looking snakes by looking at the pattern of scales around their genitals, but I assure you neither of these bikes is able to deliver a lethal dose of venom.

In actual fact, the front end of the bike, up to the point where the head tube begins to extend, looks remarkably similar to the Ultimate.

The new Aeroad appears to be also getting a new cockpit. Canyon already has a gravel cockpit with the central 'gear grove', into which various accessories can be mounted, but it has significant flare to the drops, which this set doesn't.

Stack and reach figures are handily written on the downtube, and while these are not the whole story of the bike's geometry, they remain unchanged from the current model, so it's safe to assume the geometry will be identical, or at least very very similar.

Let's have a bit of a break from new bikes and talk wheels and tyres. In much the same way as I saw some riders at Ineos using TT tyres and some not, the team bikes in the Bora paddock had a real mix of tyres on show. Here it's tubeless S-Works Turbo T2/T5 tyres, mounted up the new Team Edition Roval Rapide CLX II wheels.

Here, though, it's Turbo Cotton tyres with latex inner tubes. The team mechanic informed me there's a few watts difference, and the team just leaves it to the riders to choose which they'd rather run. Some choose speed and go latex, some comfort and reliability.

While most of the Turbo Cotton users were rolling around on 26c tyres, the tubeless cohort had wider rubber, though only 28c primarily.

Marco Haller is a rider with a fantastic moustache who clearly prioritises his rear end comfort. The team is Specialized sponsored, and I'm pretty sure this is still a Specialized saddle - the bobbles give it away as 'Mirror' tech - but it's unclear what model it is, nor whether it's old and discontinued or new and unreleased. We see this more commonly in the women's peloton, where the impact of a poorly fitting saddle on soft tissue is greater, but the men sometimes go off-piste too once they've found something that clearly works for them.

Now that the palette cleansing melon sorbet of tyre and saddle chat has washed away the first two new bike courses, it's time for another big, savoury, unreleased one. A new Trek Madone. A new Trek Emonda. A sticker on the top tube had both model names, which is all part of the media play, but whatever it is it's hard to hide it given Mads Pedersen won the first stage of the race aboard it.

The bike features aero bottles and special cages in much the same way as the new Cannondale SuperSix Evo does, but in this case the pro teams can actually use them. In aero terms, they effectively raise the bottom bracket (in airflow terms) and I expect are faster than not running bottles at all.

In terms of team branding, Lidl-Trek does a very good job. Bikes, cars, kit, it all works beautifully. The new paint is significantly more fun than the all-red scheme of the old Madone, and as there's more black it's probably lighter too.

Posh disc rotor lockrings are cool in themselves, but in this case they also show that the wheels are spinning on premium Kogel bearings. Bearing manufacturers have the hardest time of anyone getting their products seen, so this is a neat solution without having to slap some stickers on the frame.

As ever, Pedersen was using a 1x setup, but the really interesting thing is that he's using old Pirelli P-Zero Race tyres, the non-tubeless version, with latex inner tubes, despite Pirelli only recently launching a new top end, tubeless race tyre.

Carlos Verona will happily remain in the sponsor's good books. New tyres here, the Pirelli P-Zero Race TLR RS.

No melon sorbet, you'll have to wait for dessert now. Here's another new bike, a Wilier all-rounder. The model name is a mystery, but it seems more likely that this is a replacement for the Zero SLR. The team were kind enough to give me five minutes with David Gaudu's bike before stage one, so there's a full gallery already live if you want to pore over the details.

While it isn't nearly so aero-looking as many new all-rounders, it's certainly more aero-leaning than the current Zero SLR.

I have a real soft spot for French teams that steadfastly refuse to change. Running 25c Continental Competition Pro Ltd tubular tyres in 2024 is borderline luddite behaviour, but because its Marc Madiot in charge, it makes me want to go out and smash a loom to pieces rather than slate the choices.

The hard-to-read decals say 'Innovation Lab', but the main aim of them is to visually obfuscate, rather than advertise.

National champions should get proper paint jobs. Just painting the fork is a cop-out. Valentin Madouas is the French national champion on a French team and deserves better. Visma Lease-A-Bike do this all the time with their Cervelos and it does my head in.

Feel free to just look at this and get misty eyes about French cycling in general. I know you're thinking about Thibaut Pinot - we all are - even though he never rode the Wilier team bikes.

Now we're talking - this is a proper national champion's paint job. Remco Evenepoel was showcasing his new, extremely shiny Tarmac SL8. It's not overly Belgian, but it is at least not just a Belgian flag painted on the fork.

Paint this deep and shiny is a weight penalty of a few hundred grams over a black bike, so hats off to Evenepoel for taking the hit. Cycling relies on sponsorship exposure for its survival, so he's doing his bit here.

Even the seatpost is chromed, though probably only the bit that's sticking up out of the frame - gloss paint is prone to slipping in the seatpost clamp.

This large, flat, mirrored surface is absolutely perfect for... checking your hair, or whether you've got rice cake stuck in your teeth.

While I find the 'Wolfpack' branding a little cringe, it is subtle here and neatly done.

Newmen is a lesser spotted wheel brand, borne out of the same company behind Cube, but this is a new wheelset. The Streem A.49/A.54 mixed-depth wheelset already exists, so the rim profiles may be the same, but the spokes are substantially more bladed than those on the current wheelset.

You ever see a mechanic or a pro pumping a tyre up from the roadside? Me neither. You'd struggle to do so here though, given the valve is hidden. This also indicates that, although the TT tyres fitted here are tubeless ready, they are probably being run with inner tubes, as with tubeless the valve has to be clamped onto the rim with a lockring. Most TT tyre setups I saw were set up tubeless, so this could be the fastest setup of the lot, but also probably the most puncture-prone.

While most teams came to the Dauphiné with one main bike model, Israel-Premier Tech had a real mix on the roofs of the team cars. Here is a Factor O2 VAM, a very lightweight, climbing-oriented bike.

Much like the Giant TCR, it has an integrated seat mast.

But there were also the old Ostro VAM (left) and the new one too (right).

The 48/48 wheelset from Factor's in-house component brand Black Inc. is new too, in relative terms, coming out earlier in the year at the same time as the new Ostro VAM.

Canadian Derek Gee had the biggest computer of anyone, and it's a testament to the signal strength of his heart rate monitor that we can all see how chill he was inside the team bus.

The new Dare Velocity Ace that we first spotted at Paris-Roubaix was out on show again with its truly monstrous head tube.

It's always a great bike to photograph, despite how much I bemoan all black bikes, mostly because the UNO-X team bus is a great backdrop.

The latest CeramicSpeed OSPW system was on show too, with its solid jockey wheels.

At Roubaix the new bike, ridden by Alexander Kristoff, had an older cockpit fitted. At the Dauphiné, Anders Skaarseth was using the new cockpit, which is by far the deepest we've ever seen. You could eat your dinner off it.

Riders at the Arkea-B&B Hotels paddock who opted to use the Bianchi Specialissima over the aero Oltre model seemed to also get annoyed at the rubber flap for the headset compression bolt flapping up in the wind. I had the same issue on my test bike and solved it with electrical tape too. This is one of the very few ways I am similar to a WorldTour rider.

Aesthetically, I think the Oltre has been given a pretty severe beating with the ugly stick, but some of you will probably disagree with me. If you do, here's something to placate you.

Jonas Rutch's 170mm stem is as close as anything has come to a tech gallery hall of fame part at this point.

Right, that's all the new tech. Here's your pudding that I promised you a while ago, in the form of some closing images that I'm just happy to publish not because they are interesting from a tech perspective, but because they are nice to look at.

While it's not against a backdrop of a French flag, the team bikes of Cofidis are more French. French bike brand, French wheels, French tyres, and the riders are in French kit too. Ignore the Japanese components and Italian saddles please and thank you.

This paint on the Wilier bikes of Astana Qazaqstan involves a chemical etch and is tricky to pull off. It's a real investment in aesthetics, and given the team isn't doing so well in terms of points this season and may well face relegation, I feel we should all appreciate it while we can.