Custom shoes, new bikes, gargantuan stems and... koalas! We walked the pits to find even more tech from the WorldTour opener
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We're four days into the racing here at the Santos Tour Down Under, where all 19 WorldTour teams are showing off their new tech for the upcoming season.
We've already brought you one mega tech gallery, but there's just so much here on show that we've decided to do another.
Unsurprisingly, the racing here has been fast and furious, and a few unfortunate crashes have kept the mechanics busy. Over the past week, we've gotten a glimpse into pro cyclists' minds by taking an inside look at the WorldTour data screens. We also got up close and personal with a bunch of exciting new tech, including Rohan Dennis' kit, the TDU edition Allez Sprint, and a brand new Giant TCR.
On the subject of new, we've had our beady eyes out for never-before-seen tech; the sort of stuff that the pros get to test before it makes its way into the public domain. We recently spotted a few pairs of new cycling shoes that are, for now at least, only available in the tight-knit circle of pro bike racing, including Romain Bardet's custom Mavic shoes that are for sale at auction for the bushfire relief.
We've also found a bunch of tech that is pretty unlikely to ever become available to the rest of us mere mortals. A ~170mm stem certainly caught our eye, as did a hyper-specific 144mm stem on Luke Rowe's Pinarello. We assumed it was custom made, but the mechanics explained otherwise. Apparently, they measure every stock stem, in the same way, to account for manufacturing tolerances and differences between models. They really do think of everything.
Trek-Segafredo riders are using a 54-tooth chainring, which when paired with a 10t cassette sprocket, offers a huge top gear (equivalent to a 59 x 11). According to the riders, it's good to have a "supercharged" top gear for descending while keeping the first 11 cassette sprockets more in line with what they've grown used to on 11-speed groupsets.
Now that the racing has begun, we've spent some time wandering the pits at the various start lines, checking out any race-day alterations and chatting with mechanics to see what, if any, changes have been made to get a bike race-day ready. Unsurprisingly, for the hilly day to Paracombe, a number of riders switched out their heavier deep-section carbon wheels in favour of lightweight climbing wheels.
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For part two of our Tour Down Under tech gallery we have even more photos than in part one, so make yourself comfortable and scroll through the gallery above to see even more pro bike tech.
Each year the WorldTour racing season kicks off in Adelaide with the Tour Down Under. With that, the riders and teams are sporting their 2020 kit for the first time, and those who have joined a new team will be outfitted in new gear from head to toe.
While there hasn't been nearly as much unrest in with bike sponsors as last season, Astana and Israel Cycling Academy are on new bikes for 2020, choosing Wilier and Factor, respectively. With Cofidis making the jump to the WorldTour, they also have a new bike sponsor, trading Kuota for De Rosa.
Here we also share how to live stream the Tour Down Under, no matter your location, with ExpressVPN.
As we have wondered the pits over the last couple of days, there is no shortage of fresh gear to look at as riders filter in and out of the Tour Down Under's infamous big white tent.
Click through to see our gallery from the first two days at the Tour Down Under.
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As the Tech Editor here at Cyclingnews, Josh leads on content relating to all-things tech, including bikes, kit and components in order to cover product launches and curate our world-class buying guides, reviews and deals. Alongside this, his love for WorldTour racing and eagle eyes mean he's often breaking tech stories from the pro peloton too.
On the bike, 32-year-old Josh has been riding and racing since his early teens. He started out racing cross country when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s and has never looked back. He's always training for the next big event and is keen to get his hands on the newest tech to help. He enjoys a good long ride on road or gravel, but he's most alive when he's elbow-to-elbow in a local criterium.