The fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes is over in what proved to be a nail-biting race that all came down to the very last stage to see Demi Vollering become the first multiple winner of the event since its inception.

It was, however, a close fought battle with the yellow jersey changing hands multiple times throughout the race.

As well as a close fought battle for yellow, the polka dot, green, and white jerseys were up for grabs too, and we were treated to some long range breakaways, thanks in no small part to Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset's exploits for Uno-X Mobility on stage 3.

The green jersey was a more forgone conclusion, as Lorena Wiebes absolutely dominated the sprints with her usual display of force. Meanwhile, Puck Pieterse added to her young rider win in 2024 by taking home the mountains jersey.

Antonia Niedermaier took home the white jersey as the highest placed rider this year under 24 years of age, ahead of breakout star Paula Blasi.

Despite tensions within the squad, Blasi's Team UAE L’Imad was the team classification winner, with Elisa Longo Borghini claiming third overall, Blasi 5th, and Dominika Wlodarczyk in 7th, although the UAE squad didn’t take home a single stage win.

In total, six riders took home stage honors across the nine days of racing. Those victories were spread out among just three bike brands, three wheel brands, three tyre brands, and two groupset brands.

Stage-by-stage breakdown: Who won with what?

Bike brands: Who came out on top?

Specialized was the absolute dominant force here, with two thirds of the stages won by its bikes. Of course, the brand sponsors three WorldTour teams, with each one taking at least one stage win, alongside other Pro Teams too. This meant each of these wins was a point for the all-rounder bikes too, as the S-Works Tarmac range - now up to SL9 - has been ‘one bike to rule them all’ since the SL7 launched and Specialized removed the aero-focused Venge from its line-up.

Canyon took home two stages thanks to two of its three sponsored teams; Canyon-SRAM and Movistar. Wins were spread across the Speedmax TT bike and Aeroad aero road bike, with the Ultimate climbing bike seldom being used.

Ridley was the only other brand to take home any spoils with the epic solo breakaway of Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset aboard the very aero focused Noah Fast 3.0 frame.

Every other bike brand in the race failed to win a single stage, or jersey for that matter.

Specialized riders took home yellow and green. Canyon left with polkadot and white. Colnago, the dominant brand in the men’s race, took home the Team Classification, but no individual wins or jerseys.

All-round takes the crown

While the men’s race was a win for the aero frames, the women’s race showed that the all-rounders were the main bike of choice for riders who won stages.

This is biased due to Specialized only having an all-rounder, while Canyon and Ridley both took home honors with full aero bikes. Indeed many teams with the choice of aero and lightweight still opted for aero frames, likely due to it being easier to make aero bikes closer to 6.8kg with the smaller sizes often used across the women’s field than men’s.

Time trial bikes took home one stage win at the TT, but interestingly some road bikes were used for this, or rather road frames converted into time trial bikes.

But the main story was all-rounders winning across hilly stages and sprint stages proving the versatility. Interestingly though the Queen Stage up Mont Ventoux was won aboard an aero bike.

Groupset wars: SRAM keeps the crown

SRAM was the leading groupset brand in the Tour de France Femmes, usurping Shimano from the top-spot, but it was close.

Shimano counted its wins from Demi Vollering and Kimberley Le Court-Pienaar, while SRAM saw wins across a broader spread of riders and teams.

Campagnolo was again notable by its absence, although a reinvigorated groupset line-up could see changes in the future, as the brand is still the only 2x13 speed option available.

Roval steals the show, Zipp and DT Swiss share the scraps

Specialized’s in-house wheel brand, Roval, took the top spot as the wheels are used by the three Specialized-sponsored teams who took home most of the spoils. Winning wheels were a mix of the Rapide CLX III and Sprint CLX wheels.

Zipp took home stage wins with Movistar in the time trial, and Canyon-SRAM on Mont Ventoux, showing some versatility across high speed aero demands and long climbing efforts.

DT Swiss was part of the epic solo breakaway on Stage 3 where aero was pretty much everything to help secure that amazing win.

Triumphant tyres, with a tubeless takeover

A theme has developed, where Specialized and the in-house wheels and tyres were present across all the brand’s bike wins. The latest Turbo Cotton tubeless tyres were used across the entirety of the riders using those bikes to take home most of the stage wins.

Continental remained present with Movistar and Uno-X Mobility using its GP5000 tyres to take home stage wins. Meanwhile Schwalbe muscled in there to get a win with Canyon-SRAM.

Pirelli and Vittoria were absent, despite the strong presence both brands held in the men’s event.

Inner tubes and glued-on tubular tyres have again been missing from the biggest races. Brands have tended towards tubeless across the board now thanks to lower weight and rolling resistance. Additionally, with more lightweight race tyres, tubeless affords micro-punctures to fix mid-ride with limited pressure loss.

Two-by, or not two-by

1x groupsets only took home a single win in this race, and that was just the time trial. Even then, many riders were still using 2x, due to the presence of some hillier sections in that stage. For the rest of the event, 2x was used by most riders.

Part of this may be due to 1x being particularly useful for races where the speeds are significantly higher often across flatter terrain. Looking at the men’s event with stages in excess of 45kph most days, those stages present a perfect opportunity for 1x gearing. Plus there were fewer ‘transitional stages’ in the women’s race so fewer truly flat affairs.

Instead, 2x and the versatility it offers was preferred for the majority of riders at the Tour de France Femmes. It doesn’t look like that is set to change any time soon with the great gear ranges, smaller jumps in gears, and superb shifting afforded across groupset brands.

With the men's Tour de France (and with it, the Tadej Pogačar procession) out of the way, now it's time for the real bike race of the summer, the Tour de France Femmes.

Lorena Wiebes might be storming the early stages, but Demi Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot are gearing up for a mega duel in the GC, while Kim Le Court, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Marlen Reusser, and Elisa Longo Borghini are all vying to upset the applecart, which has already been somewhat upset already by a barnstorming ride from Norwegian national champion Sigrid Haugset.

As ever, Cyclingnews is on the ground covering the racing in all the exciting detail, and here we're going to focus on the tech. In this gallery we've got the usual cohort of nerdy tricks and tidbits, as well as a host of stunning custom paint schemes, and even an appearance from SpongeBob SquarePants (of course!) - you'll have to read on to see what that's all about.

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on every Tour de France Femmes team's bikes, kit and components.

The 2026 Tour de France Femmes kicks off on the 1st of August. The nine-stage race, now in its fifth year, will be hotly contested, with defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot aiming to repeat last year's success.

21 teams will do battle at this year's race. 14 are from the WorldTour - cycling's top flight, which ensures a team automatically qualifies for the event. The other seven are Pro Teams, which sit one division below.

Some of those squads don't have the visibility or fanbase that the larger teams do, and as such, the equipment they use can fly under the radar.

This guide provides a full rundown on every team's equipment, their frame options, tyres, computers and kit. Want to know what tyres the St Michel team use, or what aftermarket cranksets the Maybenne Monbana Mypie squad are running? This is the place.

This year's race should provide plenty of interesting tech opportunities that should create some variation. From the Stage 4 individual time trial that will demand aero optimisation to the summit finish on Mont Ventoux on Stage 7, where low weight may be a key factor.

Cyclingnews will be providing tech coverage from the race as it happens, so stay tuned.

• Tour de France Femmes key stages analysis
• How to watch the Tour de France Femmes
• Tour de France Femmes top contenders

Tour de France Femmes teams bikes and kit

AG Insurance-Soudal Team

• Bikes: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9 / Shiv TT
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Roval Rapide CLX III / Sprint
• Tyres: Specialized Cotton TLR
• Clothing: Castelli
• Saddles: Specialized
• Finishing Kit: Specialized / Roval
• Computers: Garmin

AG Insurance-Soudal have a proven equipment package from Specialized that's the same as a few other women's and men's teams.

Specialized provides the majority of the overall build. The team recently moved onto the new S-Works Tarmac SL9 frame, and Roval, Specialized's in-house component brand, provides the wheels and handlebar; even the tyres are Specialized Cotton TLR numbers.

Groupset-wise, it's the trusted Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, but don't hold your breath for many 1X setups, as Shimano doesn't currently offer a dedicated 1X aero ring.

Canyon-SRAM

• Bikes: Canyon Aeroad CFR / Ultimate CFR / Speedmax
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Zipp
• Tyres: Schwalbe Pro One / TT / Aero
• Clothing: Canyon
• Saddles: Ergon
• Finishing Kit: Canyon
• Computers: Hammerhead

The clue is in the name with Canyon SRAM; the team races on Canyon bikes and uses a lot of equipment from the SRAM family, such as groupsets, wheels, pedals and bike computers.

The team tends to always use the Canyon Aeroad CFR frame, a no-brainer given how fast pro races are now. Canyon recently gave it a small update with UDH compatibility.

Componentry comes from SRAM in the form of the Red AXS groupset. The team has several models of Zipp wheels to choose from, from the aero 454 NSW to the super light 202 NSW.

Computers are the Hammerhead Karoo model, meaning the riders can set their shifter bonus buttons up to switch the computer pages.

The team also uses saddles from Ergon, a popular choice in the womens peloton.

Cofidis women team

• Bikes: Look 795 Blade RS 3 / 796 TT
• Groupset: Campagnolo Super Record 13
• Wheels: Campagnolo Bora Ultra WTO
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Exteondo
• Saddles: Selle Italia
• Finishing Kit: Look
• Computers: Wahoo

The Cofidis women's team recently received a frame upgrade in the form of the new Look 795 Blade RS 3 frame. It is a little lighter and a little more aerodynamic.

The frame's handlebars and seatpost are also from Look, but the rest of the equipment comes from Campagnolo. Cofidis is also the only team in the race on the legendary Italian manufacturer's equipment.

The team will use the latest Super Record 13-speed groupset, with Campagnolo Bora Ultra WTO wheels fitted with Vittoria Corsa Pro or Speed tyres.

French team, French bikes, French race. Cofidis will be targeting victory from Stage 1.

EF Education-Oatly

• Bikes: Cannondale SuperSix Evo, SuperSlice (TT)
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Vision Metron RS
• Tyres:  Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Assos
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Cannondale
• Computers: Wahoo

EF Education Oatly race on the Cannondale SuperSix Evo 5 frame, which launched at the start of the year.

The bike got lower and narrower, whilst maintaining a lot of the overall aesthetics of the outgoing model. Cannondale also produced a new integrated handlebar to go with it.

The team use SRAM Red AXS groupsets, and carbon-spoked Vision Metron RS wheels also wrapped in Vittoria Corsa Pro or Speed tyres. The Corsa Speed is a time trial tyre but is being widely adopted by teams in road races for maximum speed.

Look out for world road race champion Magdeleine Vallieres' cool custom rainbow-painted bike during the race.

FDJ United - Suez

• Bikes: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9 / Shiv
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Roval Rapide CLX III / Sprint
• Tyres: Specialized Cotton TLR
• Clothing: Gobik / Nike
• Saddles: Specialized
• Finishing Kit: Specialized / Roval
• Computers: Garmin

FDJ United Suez use pretty much the same equipment package as rivals AG Insurance-Soudal.

The team has also recently switched to the Tarmac SL9 from Specialized and uses Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets and Roval wheels.

European road race champion and one of the race favourites, Demi Vollering, races for the team. Look out for her striking custom-painted white European road race champion bike.

At times, Specialized also rolls out special 'Project black' lightweight bikes for big stages. Don't be surprised if Vollering switches to a superlight all-black bike at some point.

Fenix-Premier Tech

• Bikes: Canyon Aeroad CFR / Ultimate CFR / Speedmax
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Shimano Dura-Ace
• Tyres: Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS / P Zero Race TLR SL-R
• Clothing: Alé
• Saddles: Selle Italia
• Finishing Kit: Canyon
• Computers: Wahoo

Fenix-Premier Tech use predominantly the same Canyon Aeroad CFR frames as Canyon SRAM but fitted with Shimano equipment instead of SRAM.

The team races with Dura-Ace groupsets, and we expect to see them racing on the new, recently released Dura-Ace wheels, which now have carbon fibre spokes.

The team will, on paper, have the option to use three wheelsets for road races: the C36, 50 and 60 models.

Tyres come from Pirelli and are the P Zero Race TLR SL-R model. The SL-R tyres have a specially shaped sidewall to improve the aerodynamic relationship between the rim and tyre.

The team has also launched a switchout kit for this year's race, which is in the Instagram link above.

Human Powered Health

• Bikes: Factor Ostro VAM and O2 VAM
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Black Inc.
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Verge Sport
• Saddles: Selle Italia
• Finishing Kit: Black Inc
• Computers: Wahoo

Human Powered Health races on Factor bikes and, like a few other teams, technically can choose between a few different models.

The hyper aero and aggressive Factor One is used by some riders, but not all, it seems. Some prefer to use the brand's Ostro VAM race bike.

The team use SRAM Red AXS groupsets, Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed tyres and Black Inc. wheels, which is Factor's in-house wheel brand.

Riders from the team will also race on custom bikes featuring characters from SpongeBob SquarePants. The designs reinterpret Mighty Jaxx’s XXRAY PLUS SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star collectables.

The team has also announced a TDFF switchout kit featuring the message 'True Health is Self Made'.

Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi

• Bikes: X - Lab AD9
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Branta C50 UL
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Agu
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: X-Lab
• Computers: Wahoo

Basque squad Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi race on Chinese X-Lab AD9 bikes.

We tested the AD9 in the wind tunnel ourselves; we found it wasn't as fast as some of the very quickest bikes we've tested, like the Factor One, instead holding its own and sitting mid-table in our test.

The team bikes are fitted with Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets, and the team use X-Lab's own Branta 50mm wheels, one of the less well-known wheel brands in the women's peloton.

Tyres are Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed models, like several other teams in the race.

Check out our women's Paris-Roubaix Femmes gallery for some truly wild bar tape wraps from the team!

Lidl Trek Women

• Bikes: Trek Madone, Domane, Speed Concept (TT)
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Bontrager RSL
• Tyres: Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS / P Zero Race TLR SL-R
• Clothing: Santini
• Saddles: Bontrager
• Finishing Kit: Bontrager
• Computers: Wahoo

Lidl-Trek race predominantly on Trek's Madone model, and like a lot of other squads with a couple of frames to choose from, tend to go for the more aerodynamic model.

The Madone has gotten lighter and more user-friendly over the last few updates; it's also more aerodynamic with the aero frame bottles than without.

The team use Bontrager wheels, Trek's in-house brand wrapped in Pirelli tyres, most likely the P Zero Race TLR SL-R.

Lidl-Trek are currently racing on some as yet unreleased Bontrager RSL wheels that we hear will launch later this year.

Like the 'Project black' Specialized bikes, the team also has access to Trek Project One 'Vapour coat' paint jobs, which save weight over the team's stock paint jobs.

Liv - Alula - Jayco

• Bikes: Liv Langma, Enviliv Advanced Pro, Avow (TT)
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace
• Wheels: Cadex
• Tyres: Cadex Aero Cotton
• Clothing: MAAP
• Saddles: Liv / CADEX
• Finishing Kit: Liv
• Computers: Garmin

Liv - Alula - Jayco race on Liv bikes, and have a couple to choose from, the Langma and Enviliv Advanced Pro. Fun fact: Langma is the Tibetan word for Mount Everest.

The team races on Shimano Dura-Ace equipment, but is one of the squads we have seen fitting aftermarket 1x aero chainrings this year.

The brand races on Cadex wheels and tyres, likely using the Cadex Aero Cotton models on the Cadex carbon fibre wheels.

Lotto-Intermaché

• Bikes: Orbea Orca / Orca Aero
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: OQUO RA57 LTD / CS
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Vermarc
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Orbea
• Computers: Garmin

Lotto-Intermaché is a new team from this year and uses Spanish Orbea bikes to race on.

The team can choose between the Orca and Orca Aero, which was recently updated and given 37mm tyre clearance, some of the biggest around when it comes to pro race bikes.

The team also use OQUO wheels, racing on the RA57 LTD / CS, which have striking champagne coloured hubs and carbon fibre spokes.

Lotto Intermache are also another team racing on Vittoria Corsa Pro or Speed tyres, depending on the conditions.

Ma Petite Enterprise

• Bikes: Factor Monza / O2 Vam / One
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 / Galfer
• Wheels: Black Inc
• Tyres: Hutchinson Blackbird Race
• Clothing: Velo Plus / AMD Bike
• Saddles: Selle Italia
• Finishing Kit: Factor
• Computers: Wahoo

Ma Petite Enterprise also race on Factor bikes, and some of the team's riders will also be using custom-painted SpongeBob SquarePants bikes from Factor.

The team's riders seem to favour the brand's lightweight 02 Vam, but we may well see the aero One model being raced as well during the race.

Dura-Ace groupsets and Black Inc. wheels round out the build.

The team use aftermarket disc brake rotors from Spanish brand Galfer, popular in the road and mtb world.

Unlike Human Powered Health, the team use Hutchinson Blackbird Race tyres.

Mayenee Monbana Mypie

• Bikes: Winspace SLC5
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 / Cybrei
• Wheels: Lún Hyper
• Tyres: Hutchinson Blackbird Race
• Clothing: Craft
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Winspace
• Computers: Garmin

The Maybenne Monbana Mypie team races on Winspace SLC5 bikes. Interestingly, the SLC5 is listed as an 'all-rounder' model by the brand, not an out-and-out race bike.

The team uses Shimano equipment, but uses lightweight Cybrei cranks and chainrings.

Wheels come from Lún Hyper, Winspace's in-house wheel brand, and Hutchinson provides the tyres.

Movistar

• Bikes: Canyon Aeroad CFR, Ultimate CF SLX, Speedmax CFR (TT)
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Zipp
• Tyres: Continental GP5000 S TR / TT
• Clothing: Gobik
• Saddles: Fizik
• Finishing Kit: Canyon / Lizard Skins
• Computers: Garmin

Movistar use an almost identical setup to rivals Canyon SRAM.

The team uses Canyon Aeroad road machines, with SRAM Red equipment and Zipp wheels, but with Continental tyres instead of Schwalbe.

Look out for world and European time trial champion Marlen Reusser's custom-painted Canyon Speedmax TT bike on Stage 4 of the race.

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93

• Bikes: Cannondale Supersix Evo
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Mavic Cosmic / Comete
• Tyres: Michelin Power Cup / Time Trial
• Clothing: Poli
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Cannondale
• Computers: Wahoo

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 also race on Cannondale SuperSix bikes with SRAM Red AXS groupsets, the same as the EF Education squad.

However, the team races on an all-French wheel and tyre combination with Mavic Cosmic wheels and Michelin Power Cup tyres.

Team Picnic PostNL

• Bikes: Lapierre Xelius DRS, Aerostorm DRS TT
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Ursus Arya R35 / 50
• Tyres: Michelin Power Cup / Time trial
• Clothing: Nalini
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Lapierre
• Computers: Wahoo

Team Picnic PostNL race on French Lapierre Xelius DRS road bikes. Easily recognisable in the bunch thanks to their eye-catching rear frame triangles.

In the wheel department, the team use Ursus Arya wheels for road stages and Scope ones for time trials. Ursus wheels are available in two different depths for flat and hilly stages.

Groupsets are Shimano Dura-Ace, and the team races on Mnicheli Power Cup tyres. However, we have seen them use Vittoria tyres for time trials with the logos sharpied out.

Team SD Worx Protime 

• Bikes: Specialized Tarmac SL9 / Shiv (TT)
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Roval Rapide CLXIII / Sprint
• Tyres: Specialized Cotton TLR
• Clothing: Specialized
• Saddles: Specialized
• Finishing Kit: Specialized / Roval
• Computers: Garmin

Team SD Worx Protime also races on the new Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9 frame, and the American brand is the most well-represented manufacturer in the race with a total of four teams riding its bikes.

The team uses SRAM Red AXS equipment, the only Specialized team to do so.

For the rest, it's a very familiar spec list with Roval handlebars and wheels, along with Specialized tyres.

We have also seen star rider Lotte Kopecky riding an all-black S-Works Tarmac SL9 bike, so look out for that stealthy model too.

UAE Team ADQ

• Bikes: Colnago Y1RS, V4Rs, TT1/2 (TT)
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Enve Pro / SES
• Tyres: Continental GP5000 S TR / TT TR
• Clothing: Pissei
• Saddles: Fizik
• Finishing Kit: Colnago
• Computers: Wahoo

UAE Team ADQ, has two Colnago bikes to choose from: the V5RS and the aero Y1RS, which is one of the fastest bikes in the WorldTour.

The team use Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets and Enve wheels in a range of different depths.

The team also received a new time trial bike earlier this year in the form of the new Colnago TT2, which dropped around half a kilo compared to its predecessor.

Uno-X Mobility

• Bikes: Ridley Noah FAST 3.0
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: DT Swiss ARC1100
• Tyres: Continental GP5000 STR / TT / Aero 111
• Clothing: Fusion
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Ridley
• Computers: Garmin

The Uno-X Mobility women's team races on the Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, a dedicated aero bike.

Wheels come from DT Swiss, and the team are one of the few to use the Continental Aero 111 tyres at times, depending on the conditions.

SRAM Red AXS groupsets are run with double and 1X chainrings depending on the course.

We recently tested the team's DT Swiss ARC 1100 wheels in our CN Labs aero wheels test if you want a deeper dive into WorldTour wheel aero performance.

Visma - Lease a Bike Women

• Bikes: Cervélo S5, R5, Caledonia, P5 (TT)
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS
• Wheels: Reserve 34/37 - 42/49 - 57/64
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro / Speed
• Clothing: Nimbl
• Saddles: Prologo
• Finishing Kit: Cervelo / FSA
• Computers: Garmin

Visma - Lease a Bike can choose between two models of Cervélo bikes: the aero S5 and lightweight R5 machines.

It seems this year that the majority of rides are on the S5, one of the fastest bikes around, but look out for the R5 on the hilly days.

The team use SRAM Red AXS equipment and Reserve wheels with Vittoria Corsa Pro and Speed tyres.

Look out for some custom-painted bikes for the team's Dutch national champions and a special blue and white Giro helmet for defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.

VolkerWessels cycling team

• Bikes: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
• Wheels: Fast Forward Raw 55
• Tyres: Schwalbe Pro One / TT/ Aero
• Clothing: Bioracer
• Saddles: Specialized
• Finishing Kit: Specialized
• Computers: Wahoo

The VolkerWessels team ride Specialized Tarmac SL8 bikes, but so far this year we haven't seen them on the latest S-Works SL9 model.

The team run Shimano Dura-Ace groupsets and, fittingly for a Dutch team, Dutch wheels in the form of Fast Forward Raw 55 models.

The team pair these with Schwalbe Pro One tyres for road races.

80 years ago, Gaston Lapierre gave his new bike brand his surname: Lapierre. Today, on Bastille Day, Team Picnic PostNL will race Stage 10 of the Tour de France on custom-painted 80th anniversary Lapierre Xelius DRS race bikes to honour 8 decades of their sponsor brand's history and its French roots.

Cyclingnews was out at the Tour de France in the run up to the Grand Dèpart, visiting team hotels and looking at bikes and equipment. The Catalan sun was high in the sky and blazing down on us as we made our visit to Team Picnic PostNL to try and take a look at this bike ahead of the race.

Not much was moving in the late afternoon heat, but we got some time with Warren Barguil's Xelius DRS bike whilst the team mechanics worked away quietly. By Stage 10 of this Tour, punished by the furnace-like heat and UAE Team Emirate's vice-like grip on the race, a new custom-painted machine for Bastille Day will no doubt boost rider morale.

100 individually numbered framesets of this Xelius DRS will be available globally in small, medium and large sizes, and will set you back €4,499.

Bastille Day always produces some explosive racing exploits at the Tour, and this 80th anniversary Xelius may well write a fresh page in the Lapierre history book today.

The Tour de France is underway, and first blood has been drawn. Jonas Vingegaard wears the race leader's yellow jersey, with Tadej Pogačar sitting a mere six seconds off the lead after Stage 2's explosive showdown in central Barcelona.

We bought you a comparison of the two big GC favourites' time trial bikes ahead of the opening TTT, and are following that up with their race bikes now the first stage is behind us.

We bagged some time with each rider's number two race bike at their respective team hotels in the days before the race, and took a look at their setups and a few details that, at times, fly under the radar for such famous bikes.

There's a breakdown of components here: crank lengths, tyre sizes, and dimensions. The game is set, and we're going to see a lot more of these machines over the coming days.

The bikes themselves

First, the machines themselves.

Pogačar is riding a Colnago Y1RS, which was launched in late 2024. Pogačar has taken countless big wins on it since then and uses it pretty much exclusively now in an all-black version that only he uses. The world champion rarely rides the less aero V5Rs, though Isaac del Toro did choose to use that bike for Stage 2.

Vingegaard, meanwhile, is using the Cervélo S5 aero model; that bike got a refinement in the middle of last year, and the two models are amongst the most aerodynamic in the WorldTour based on our CN Labs aero testing.

Handlebars

We were allowed a good look at both riders' number two race bikes, something that never fails to surprise and impress mere days out from the start of the world's biggest race. We did leave the mini shadow bike stands at home this time, and used a proper folding bike stand. The shadow stand is a great tool, but we wanted to minimise the risk of one of these bikes toppling over if we could; it wouldn't have been a good look.

Bar-wise, Vingegaard's S5 has the accompanying HB19 integrated bar and stem from Cervélo with a single 5mm spacer underneath. It's an aggressive and low front end, and after looking at so many bikes, where possible a low front end seems to be a priority for the team for an aero gain.

We didn't have time to get the tape measure out here for full measurements, but Vingegaard's bar looked reasonably narrow; Cervélo offers it in 36/40 and 38/42cm versions, and it will almost certainly be one of these two. As long as overall handlebar width is 40cm (measured outside to outside) and the inner distance between brake hoods is 28 cm, bars are deemed UCI legal.

Vingegaard has a photo of his family attached to the bars of his number one race bike, as we saw this at the TTT start.

Pogačar's bike features the Colnago CC.Y1 integrated bar and stem, with its distinctive forward sweep. Pogačar's bar had a 145mm 'stem' and was in the 377-400 size, which complies with the UCI rules. The bar has a reach of 79 and a drop of 130. Pogačar also had an aero Wahoo computer mount and the famous Hulk sticker on the top of the bars.

Drivetrain and gearing

Each rider and their teams use a different groupset, with Pogačar on Shimano Dura-Ace and Vingegaard on SRAM Red.

Vingegaard's bike was running SRAM Red 1x, and he's been on board with 1x drivetrains for quite some time now. His bike had 165mm cranks with a 52-tooth chainring with a 10-34 or 36 cassette, complete with a waxed chain.

Pogačar uses a 2x Dura-Ace setup with a range of aftermarket drivetrain parts. He runs 165mm cranks too, but this bike had 40-55 tooth Carbon-Ti chainrings, and thru axles, pulley wheel bolts, and a direct-mount rear mech hanger all from the same brand.

He had a Dura-Ace cassette with an 11-34 tooth sprocket sizing, and a chain that looked like it had a drip wax lube applied.

His bike was also fitted with a Beone bottom bracket - a Spanish manufacturer.

Pedal-wise, Vingegaard uses the Wahoo / Speedplay aero pedals that have dimples on one side. His team buys these pedals themselves as they have an existing sponsorship agreement with rival Garmin for computers.

Pogačar uses Dura-Ace SPD-SL pedals with yellow cleats for a few degrees of 'float'.

Wheels and tyres

When it comes to wheels and tyres, there are some interesting differences to be observed.

Vingegaard's bike was fitted with 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed time trial tyres set up tubeless. The team's Head of Performance Equipment, Jenco Drost, told me at a recent event that the team use a 29/30mm tyre combination for racing too, and said they had found it to be fastest, but no more.

Vingegaard had Reserve 42mm deep, semi- or mini-hooked wheels fitted with a 25.4mm internal width with external nipples and bladed spokes, and seems to often prefer a slightly shallower rim. The team will have tested all combinations, and though there's up to a 64mm option available, Vingegaard tends to run shallower wheels.

Interestingly, you can't seem to buy a pair of 42mm Reserve wheels on the brand's website; the stock configuration is a 42/49 pairing, so the team must have built up some 42mm rims.

Pogačar's bike was fitted with Enve SES Pro 4.5 wheels with a 49/55mm depth and 23.5mm internal width. These wheels also have a mini hook, but with internal spoke nipples and bladed spokes.

Pogačar also had time trial tyres fitted with Continental GP5000 TT tyres, also tubeless matching Vingegaard's all-out time trial tyre speed. He did, however, have 28mm tyres, so a slighly smaller size than Vingegaard.

Saddles, seatposts and extras

When it comes to saddles, Vingegaard had a 140mm Prologo Choice fitted, a sleek-looking saddle with a cutout that the brand says is aerodynamically optimised; check out those side 'vents' in the images.

It weighs a claimed 152 grams, and the rails can be separated from the carbon shell, allowing for replacement parts to be swapped in the event of a crash.

In terms of details, we were particularly impressed with the neatness with which the Visma mechanics had taped over various bolt holes to smooth airflow; everything looked tidy.

Pogačar uses a 3D printed Fizik Argo saddle without a cutout, and with carbon rails. The saddle is available in 140 and 150mm widths, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a custom saddle for Pogačar himself. It's a little heavier than Vingegaard's, with a claimed weight of 196 grams, or 190 grams for the equivalent 140mm version.

After just one day of racing his sixth Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard has laid down a marker in his bid to add to his pair of wins from 2022 and '23, by storming into the yellow jersey in the opening stage team time trial.

The Dane, who has never finished lower than second in the race's overall, makes his assault on the 2026 race on a Cervélo S5 aero bike. Widely regarded as one of the very fastest bikes in the World, the S5 received an update in mid 2025 to further refine it.

Cyclingnews visited the Visma-Lease a Bike Hotel in the days running up to the race and managed to get some time with Vingegaard's number two race bike.

Spec-wise, it's nothing we haven't seen before, with a 1X SRAM Red groupset and Reserve carbon wheels, but there are some really interesting details that, for me, highlight the team's attention to detail and their ability to focus on the little things.

I also received a tip that the team were doing a few things to lower drag in the derailleur pulley wheels; they use the stock ones, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had stripped the factory grease and added a light oil or grease to really make them fly.

Vingegaard rides a size 51cm frame that has a stack of 519mm and a reach of 376mm; he's added a single spacer under the stem.

We also got hold of Vingegaard's number 1 time trial bike, as well as his great rival Tadej Pogačar's, for a head-to-head comparison.

Tadej Pogačar comes into the 2026 Tour de France as the defending champion and hot favourite to win the overall general classification against his arch rival Jonas Vingegaard, as well as Remco Evenepoel and perhaps young Frenchman Paul Seixas too.

The Slovenian, who is also reigning World Champion, comes into the race with a relatively unchanged bike from last year’s race, but as the team’s press officer Luke Maguire tells me, this is only because Pogačar drove the team hard towards improving its equipment a few seasons ago.

Those changes included a switch from Pirelli to Continental tyres, SRM to Wahoo computers, and Campagnolo to Shimano groupsets. Similarly, I recall Colnago telling me last year that Pogačar was pivotal in driving the brand to creating the Y1Rs aero bike too.

Maguire says the team is now “very happy” with their equipment, although that does include some aftermarket add-ons that help the bike get down to the 6.8kg weight limit.

Ahead of the race’s Grand Dèpart, Cyclingnews spent some time at the team hotel in Barcelona. We’ve already brought you a comparison of his time trial bike versus big rival Vingegaard’s, and now it’s time to look at his road bike.

This is his ‘number two’ bike, so not the one he’ll start each race aboard, but set up exactly the same so that if he has a mechanical, he can swap over without issue or detriment.

The 2026 Tour de France kicks off with an unusual take on the team time trial, in which times are taken individually for each rider. The yellow jersey is on the line for the fastest rider over the 19.6km course, and that means riders are here in Barcelona with their time trial bikes optimised to the Nth degree.

We've already seen that Remco Evenepoel has a brand new Specialized Shiv TT time trial bike, and no time trial is complete without a mention of his name in the running, but what of the two hot favourites for the GC by the time we get to Paris in three weeks, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard?

The Cyclingnews tech team are here in Barcelona for the Grand Départ, and in our tour of the team hotel car parks over the past two days, we were able to spend time with both of their 'number one' time trial bikes; i.e. the bike they will respectively roll down the start ramp aboard.

So here in this article, we'll pit the duo head-to-head. Who has the biggest chainring? Are they running one-by or two-by groupsets? Who has the deepest front wheel? And who's bike is coolest?

The bikes themselves

First up, we'll look at the bikes themselves. Pogačar is using a Colnago TT2 time trial machine, the newly launched time trial bike that Colnago brought out recently. The headline for this bike is that it saves around 500 grams over the previous TT1 bike he used last year, whilst still being just about as aero.

Vingegaard is riding the Cervelo P5, which, as far as we know, has remained the same for a while. This bike has a raw carbon finish, whilst a lot of the other team bikes had full, glossy black and yellow team paint.

The machines above were the riders' number 1 time trial bikes, and we believe the bikes they will ride on Saturday and later in the race.

Handlebars

Both bikes were fitted with carbon fibre, custom time trial bars, and whilst we didn't have time to measure every dimension, we got a good look at them.

Both riders use grip tape on the base bars, and we were struck by just how low Vingegaard's base bar was; it felt extreme.

It also had a weight sticker underneath, which you can see below.

Both riders had Shimano and SRAM shifters at the ends of the extensions, and both riders had shifters glued onto the insides of their base bars.

They had their computers tucked neatly in between the extensions, but one key difference is the Visma 'mono' extension riser versus the dual risers on Pogačar's machine.

Interestingly Vingegaard is opting to use an older Garmin computer, likely due to the smaller size.

Drivetrain and gearing

Despite running different groupset brands, Vingegaard and Pogačar will be using similar drivetrain configurations. This includes the same size front chainring of 64 teeth, and both are on 160mm cranks.

Vingegaard had 160mm carbon fibre SRAM Red cranks, with a 64-tooth aero chainring. I wasn't able to get a max tooth count on the cassette, but it looks like a 10-36.

His bike was also fitted with a chain catcher from Wolf Tooth, and I know from recently speaking to Jenco Drost, the team's head of performance, that the team regularly hot waxes its chains.

I understand each bike has a freshly waxed chain for every race; they have also experimented with the optimum amount of run-in kilometres for a race chain so it’s as fast as possible.

Pogačar is using Shimano equipment with some aftermarket parts, and Vingegaard is using SRAM.

The Colnago TT2 had Dura-Ace cranks in a 160mm length, paired with a monster 64-tooth Carbon-Ti 1x chainring, whilst an 11-30 Dura-Ace cassette was fitted at the rear, though of course this could change come Saturday.

Pogačar's bike had a K-Edge chain catcher fitted, and an 'aero' Bikone bottom bracket with a smooth threaded left-hand cup.

Wax- or lube-wise, Pogačar has been said to use Absolute Black chain lube, but I also saw a mechanic applying Silca Synergetic to a different team bike. It looked like a wax-based product had been applied, but the chain didn't look fresh out of an immersive wax.

Wheels and tyres

Wheels-wise, both riders are using disc wheels and deep section front wheels; at least we assume they will on race day.

Vingegaard is using a Reserve Infinity disc, with an inner width of 24.5mm, paired with a Reserve 77mm deep front wheel.

The biggest difference is in tyre sizes; Vingegaard’s bike was fitted with 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed, which were set up tubeless.

Pogačar’s wheels were fitted with 25mm Continental GP5000 TT tyres; a 25mm tyre is something we haven’t seen in quite a while. The tyres may size up a little larger on the new Enve wheels, but the team may have decided the narrower, and likely aerodynamically faster, 25mm.

Saddles, seatposts and extras

Both riders are using time trial or triathlon-specific saddles from their team sponsors.

Pogačar is using the Fizik Transiro Aeris 3D-printed model, which weighs in at a claimed 190 grams.

Vingegaard is using a more extreme-looking Prologo TGale TT model, which weighs a claimed 252 grams for the carbon-railed model.

In terms of extras, both bikes had minimal paint; Vingegaard’s frame looked pretty raw, Pogačar’s had a slightly more normal finish.

Both bikes looked fast standing still, and in a few days we will see which one of cycling's Grand Tour titans draws first blood.

It's hot in Barcelona right now. The heat and tension only seem to be building as the start of this year's Tour de France draws near.

It's been a busy week already, and we managed to spot a new Specialized prototype time trial bike yesterday over at Bora-Hansgrohe.

Cyclingnews tech is already on the hunt for bikes and interesting kit in Spain, and we were handed Matej Mohorič's custom, brand-new Bianchi Specialissima at the Bahrain Victorious team hotel on Wednesday.

The team and brand were keen to show the bike off, and that's understandable, as the recently updated Specialissima was launched a few weeks back. We also asked about news on a new Oltre RC, but the brand remained tight-lipped on that front.

The bike has received some aerodynamic updates and new components to make it a faster all-rounder, and move it away from pure lightweight climbing bike territory, which, given the speeds pro riders are moving at, wouldn't be of much use.

This model also had a special custom paint job, a dazzling greeny/blue that shimmered next to the team's hotel swimming pool in the afternoon sun.

The bike is said to save around 16 watts over the old model; there's a more aero frame, handlebar and fork, but a size 55 is still said to weigh around 750 grams, and this bike was under the 7kg mark. It did feel light.

The bike had a few interesting details: a saddle slammed forward, a Chinese Elilee power meter crankset with Dura-Ace chainrings and Continental time trial tyres for maximum speed.

Stay tuned this week for more Tour de France tech stories and bike checks from the race.

Colnago has officially launched the TT2 time trial bike that Tadej Pogačar was racing on in April at the Tour de Romandie.

The TT2 was first spotted as an unknown prototype back in February. Colnago itself then gave us information on it in the run-up to Romandie, and now the official launch is here.

The Tour de France will soon begin, the race opening with a team time trial in Barcelona, with another individual time trial later in the race. The new bike will see action on both those important stages.

Before that though, Pogačar (and his teammates) will ride the ITT at the Tour de Suisse on Saturday aboard the TT2 after laying waste to the race on its opening day with a highly impressive long-range solo attack.

The TT2 is available as a 'frame kit' from late September. The kit includes: frame (available in XS, S, M, L), fork, seatpost, base bar, aero bottle system and cage, bearings / small parts, etc.

The TT2 has clearance for up to 30mm tyres, is UDH hanger friendly, uses a BSA 68 bottom bracket standard, and can accommodate up to a 70 tooth chainring.

Prices are: $7,500 / £6,499 / €7,040.

Lighter and faster

Major headlines around the TT2 have focused on the bike's lower weight; Colnago claims it's 550 grams lighter as a frame kit compared to the Colnago TT1, the brand's TT machine up to this point.

A small, ready-to-paint frame weighs 985 grams, and a frame kit weight is 2240 grams. The fork is also much lighter, 393 grams against 530 grams for the TT1 fork.

A half kilo saving on a top-level road machine would be very difficult to achieve without compromise. It seems Colnago has found a way to drop this healthy chunk of weight from the TT rig with its added frame real estate whilst still 'preserving the stiffness, strength and aerodynamic efficiency required'.

In short, it sounds like the TT2 will result in a 550-odd-gram lighter bike, but it's now faster and more stable, with an updated geometry that makes it more user-friendly and more suited to modern time trial courses that appear to be moving away from the long, straight drag strips of old.

Colnago says the TT2 has 'simplified structural junctions', a revised carbon layup strategy and a new fork concept. As is the norm with high-end bike design, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel testing were used in the development of the bike.

The front end of the bike has received key attention to reduce frontal area. There's a narrower handlebar that measures 36cm centre-to-centre, a new fork and a slimmer 32mm-wide head tube. Front-end performance is very important aerodynamically, and this has clearly been a concern for the TT2.

The rear of the bike has also received attention. The seatstays are wider around the rear wheel to improve airflow, and more smoothly integrated into the seat tube; it looks far less eye-catching and angular than the TT1 design.

Elsewhere, the bottom bracket, seatpost and fork, as mentioned, are all new and more high-modulus carbon fibre has been used across the frame.

The brand claims a two-watt saving compared to the TT1 across 'a weighted range of real whirlwind conditions,' and confirms aerodynamic drag is lower than the TT1.

Colnago also cites stability as a key concern for the TT2, and the frame has new shallower tube profiles specifically to provide more predictable 'airflow behaviour across a range of yaw angles'. Colnago makes the case that fewer steering corrections let riders maintain their aero position more effectively.

Various pro riders have crashed on TT bikes in training, most recently Wout van Aert; perhaps a more stable all-round bike will help riders when training and competing.

Geometry has also been updated. The XS size is new, and stack/reach numbers have been altered. Stack height now grows as reach increases, whereas it flatlined before in larger sizes. Colnago says this change reduces the need for extreme spacer configurations, i.e riders would add multiple spacers to the handlebar configuration to achieve their desired position.

The seat tube angle has gotten steeper, and the bottom bracket drop has been lowered to facilitate 'aggressive forward rider positions'.

A magnetic aero bottle

;An integrated aero bottle is also included with the TT2, and it's an 'aerodynamic component of the bike'. Colnago says the bottle and cage have the thinnest and longest permitted profile to reduce aero drag overall.

The cage uses Fidlock magnetic Twist fasteners to make bottle access easier and faster in an event.

Notably, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team will not use the stock water bottle due to a sponsorship agreement with Elite, instead using an Elite aero bottle with a custom Colnago bottle cage system.

The biggest race of the year approaches, given the way he continues to ride, the fact that the world champion now has a lighter, faster bike to use for time trials will surely only bolster his chances when July rolls around.

Stage 2 of the Tour of Slovenia has been neutralised around 27 kilometres from the finish after the race doctor had to remain attending multiple victims of a previous downhill crash.

Stage 2's largely flat stage was moving into its final, decisive phase with a series of small, technical ascents and descents including the Cat. 4 climb of Jeruzalem when the race director first indicated to riders to slow down. Then after a couple of kilometres the race was stopped completely.

The crash on a sweeping downhill left-hand bend shortly before the neutralisation involved around five, as yet unidentified, riders, with the race doctor stopping to check on their condition.

At the time, the main peloton was heading the race on the 181.8-kilometre stage from Radlje ob Dravi to Ormož , shortly after a five-rider early break had been reeled in.

Before it stopped the race director called race leader and stage 1 winner Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) forward to explain that they had to stop the stage for safety reasons.

Riders first slowed then halted completely in the middle of a deeply rural area, taking on drinks and refuelling as they waited in warm sunshine.

After 15 minutes' wait, it was stilll unclear how quickly the race would begin again. Commissaires spent time going through the peloton and attempting to ensure those who were in a second group when the race was suspended, would then wait for the same amount of time as before the neutralisation once it got underway again.

After around 25 minutes, with staff returning to the stage, the race got underway again for the last 27 kilometres.

The media circus around bike races, particularly big, tech-heavy ones like the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (previously the Critérium du Dauphiné), is quite amusing sometimes, so indulge me for a second and I'll lift the lid.

Some bikes we spot through nous, tip-offs, and a bit of sneaking. The new Specialized Tarmac Sl9 is one of those, but sometimes we just get told a bike will be available to come and photograph in advance of the race. The new Cube Litening Aero prototype is one such bike.

I turn up at a pre-arranged time along with several other media outlets (unbeknownst to one another), all shoot the bike en masse, and then get told we can't use the images "until tomorrow", so have to form a gentleman's agreement, because this is a small industry and it doesn't pay to sour relations over something like this.

We aren't told anything about the machine because it's a prototype, beyond a distant muttering of a 2028 release (which sounds too far off to be true) so have to glean things just from what we see. Then the bike is promptly whisked away and we disperse again to hotel rooms across Grenoble to ponder and mull over a chilled rosé (in my case, at least).

Anyway, here's a new Cube prototype; let's see what we can see, shall we? It's certainly a new form compared to the current Litening Aero, though I will caveat this with the fact that general angles of the frame are compact due to it being a size 50 machine, i.e. very small.

It's well and truly new road bike season. I've already bought you the first proper spy shots of the brand-new Specialized Tarmac SL9 at a race, a bike that is modestly different but clearly targeting greater aerodynamic efficiency as a one-bike system for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and, inevitably, all Specialized teams down the line.

Following that, we had another slightly aero prototype all-rounder from Van Rysel to keep everyone on their toes.

Ridley, though, is taking a different approach. Its main sponsored team, Uno-X, has been smashing about happily for some time on the excellent Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, a bike I really enjoyed riding. It was, however, a very single-minded beast, and while it handled punchy rises well, it wasn't a bike destined for the high mountains.

It seems the Belgian brand has been working on a new lightweight machine, one that has been spotted at the Giro d'Italia Women's race under Mie Bjørndal Ottestad.

Some judicious browsing of Getty Images later, and we can clearly see a svelte frame, with a 'PROTOTYPE' UCI sticker on the down tube and 'PROTOTYPE' written on the fork legs; that'll be a prototype, then.

While we can't say for sure what model this is, given the current designation, it seems likely it'll be an updated Falcn RS, a bike that, in Ridley's own words, "will help you conquer the highest mountains and the exceptional aerodynamics of the frame and the fork will convert every watt into pure speed when you’re in the breakaway."

The current Falcn RS has a generous 34mm tyre clearance, and it looks like this could be increased further still by the looks of the fork crown; it's extremely roomy. It also appears to keep the same cutout in the non-drive side leg where the brake calliper sits, but perhaps to a slightly less severe degree.

The top tube looks to be slimmer in the vertical direction, but with a slight triangle cross-section, a trend (the narrow bit at least) that's common among many new bikes targeting a low mass. The shaping behind the head tube appears to be more of a smooth curve, but that could just be the angle of the images from the race.

The head tube has a ridge, too, about 2/3 of the way up, which is very much akin to the Speed Sniffer found on the Specialized Tarmac SL8 and new SL9 that caused much consternation at launch, and also the head tube of the Pinarello Dogma, which received zero backlash despite being basically the same thing.

It appears the cutout in the seat post has gone from these images, though again, you can't see it totally side on. What you can see is the seat tube widening and flattening where the bottle cage is mounted, perhaps in an effort to smooth the airflow around the rear bottle, the frame, and onto the rear wheel.

From what can be seen here, it looks like a bike more than capable of troubling the UCI's weight limit.

Happily, having seen these images, I was able to high tail it over to the Uno-X team hotel at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and lo and behold there it was, lined up next to the existing Noah Fast aero bikes and several Dean time trial machines, so we can get a more in depth look.

I was told by the mechanics that the bike we saw was 7kg, though we suspect it would be more than possible to make it lighter than that.

Van Rysel has had quite the stratospheric rise. Its initial foray into WorldTour machines, the RCR-Pro, was an all-rounder that promised remarkable value, at least in the top spec versions (the lower tier options less so, as evidenced in our Van Rysel RCR-Pro review).

This was then swiftly followed by the very aero Van Rysel RCR-F (F for fast), which was an all-out aero bike. Given the heavy focus on aero, it's no surprise that the riders of Decathlon-CMA-CGM opt to use it at all times, somewhat putting the RCR-Pro in the shade.

Now, though, it seems the Lille-based brand has been cooking up a new lightweight all-rounder to try and compete with the likes of the Specialized Tarmacs (a new version of which has been spotted at this race, too) and Pinarello Dogmas in the high mountains, likely spurred on by the similarly meteoric rise of star GC prospect, Paul Seixas.

The Critérium du Dauphiné, or Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes to give it the full new title, has revealed this new Van Rysel, and it seems likely it'll replace the RCR-Pro.

In a similar fashion to a great many modern all-rounder machines, this new bike appears to have a focus on aero up front, and low weight at the back, where the air is dirtier and more unpredictable.

The curved seat tube remains, but it is kinked from the bottom bracket rather than straight with a cutout, and it and the seat stays look to be narrower in diameter to save some grams. The chain stays too look to be slimmer, but still intersect the seat tube with the slightly widened stance of the current RCR-Pro.

The down tube and top tube are relatively similar in proportions, but up front, the head tube is deeper. The most drastic difference is at the forks, which have deeper legs that begin to taper as they reach the brake calliper mount. This should aid the leading-edge aerodynamics.

Our own wind tunnel testing has shown that all-rounders can beat full aero bikes in the lab, and while there is a chance that this new machine could be a range killer, replacing both current models, we also know the RCR-F is a fast bike, and it seems unlikely that the team would turn their backs on a bike that's only a year old. This situation happened with Cannondale when it effectively mothballed the very aero System Six, but that bike was very old by that point.

Curiously, however, while the bike was out for Seixas at the team bus, the Frenchman opted to ride the current RCR-Pro instead. He may switch on the road, as the black machine was still on the roof of the team car, but it's clear it's still very much in testing.

The Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (formerly the Critérium du Dauphiné) is always a hotbed of new tech. Fresh bikes get released into the wild for field testing before the Tour de France.

This year, this included the new Specialized Tarmac SL9, seen at the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe camp. While the bike was interesting in its own right, closer inspection of the images reveals a sticker under the downtube bearing the name 'Remco Evenepoel', appearing to suggest the Belgian could make a surprise return to racing earlier than planned ahead of the Tour de France.

Another clue is that the chain on the bike is gold, which Evenepoel nearly always uses as the Olympic champion. However, the Belgian was also still training in Calpe on Thursday and Friday, according to his Strava, so any arrival in the south of France would be a late one.

Red Bull released a seven-rider roster in a press release about Maxim Van Gils' return to racing on Friday, but have been very quiet on their social media. Alongside Van Gils should be Dani Martinez, Luke Tuckwell, Haimar Etxeberria, Gianni Vermeersch, Callum Thornley and Finn Fisher-Black, but not Evenepoel.

At the start of May, it was reported that Enevepoel had axed the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes from his calendar, opting not to race at all for a full 69 days in the build-up to the Tour de France to focus on 'specific training'.

If Evenepoel is to appear at the race it'll certainly be earlier than planned, and while there may be a desire to get some racing in the legs it is also worth remembering that the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is the last race before the Tour to feature a team time trial, perhaps offering the Belgian specialist an irresistible final chance to tune this discipline up with a race number on before the opening stage in Barcelona and a prime opportunity to wear the yellow jersey.

Should Evenepoel line up at the start on Sunday, it will certainly give pre-race favourite Paul Seixas cause for concern, and will certainly mean he doesn't have the race all his own way. There is every possibility that if this is a surprise pre-Tour shakedown, Evenepoel will be flanked by a strong squad with a lot of firepower.

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The Critérium du Dauphiné, or the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alps to give it its new name, is the traditional place to spot all the latest new tech in use before the Tour de France. The Specialized rumor mill has been running on overdrive in recent weeks, with the launch of the new Crux mere weeks ago to keep the gravel gang happy. Now, though, attention will turn to the road, and what looks to definitely be a new Tarmac SL9, as spotted with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

The bike was hidden by the team mechanics when they spotted my camera, but thanks to an enterprising attitude, a dark outfit, and a childhood playing hide and seek I was able to sneak into the undergrowth behind the team's hotel car park and get some spy shots to confirm it was the new machine, before making a break for it and trying to get some closer snaps with some success.

Leaked images online abound, including a brief roof rack spot last week after an image was shared online, but in the flesh we can see for sure what the direction of travel is for Specialized’s flagship machine.

It is clearly still an all-rounder, rather than jumping wholesale into the aero market, though there are some clear new concessions to cheating the wind. Given the Tarmac SL8 was particularly fast for an all-rounder in our wind tunnel testing, we suspect this will make the SL9 a very fast machine indeed.

The eye is immediately drawn to the new seat tube, now infilled up to the dropped seatstays to provide a shroud for the rear wheel. This is now very much par for the course on all aero bikes like the Canyon Aeroad, but has the effect of making the silhouette a little more muscular.

The seat stays themselves look a little fatter to me, and maybe the chain stays too, but it's marginal at best. Perhaps there were stiffness demands from pro riders if this was the case, though our stiffness testing revealed the SL8 to be a relatively stiff bike despite being fabricated from relatively silly tubes.

The seat post looks essentially the same as the current model, so it's likely the two may be compatible. It also looks to have the standard Roval Rapide handlebar, as per the current generation, perched above the Speed Sniffer nosecone.

Speaking of the speed sniffer, this still remains (in fact, the main triangle looks extremely similar in form to the old model), but the fork legs appear to have been deepened, but forwards, such that the leading edge of the fork crown is in line with the protuberance of the head tube. It has the effect of appearing to steepen the head tube angle, much like the very extreme forks on the Factor ONE, though it is suspected that the geometry, if it is changed at all, will only feature minor tweaks. The forks also look to be wider set, too, in keeping with modern trends.

Beyond that it's business as usual, as much as we can tell from a pro bike rather than a shop floor model. No aero bottles that are so often specced to bolster wind tunnel results, and no great lurches to either super light or super aero. We don't have official weights to work with, but with the additional carbon it is entirely possible that it'll be slightly heavier than the old version, though it's probably also still likely to be possible to make under the UCI weight limit in smaller sizes, something all riders will now be hyper-aware of in the wake of Lorena Wiebes’ shock disqualification recently.

Once the race starts, it will be easier to get some better pictures that didn't involve hiding in a bush – the mechanics really didn't want us to see this – so stay tuned for more images in due course.

Over the weekend in Emporia, Kansas, riders on the new Crux 5 from Specialized claimed the top three spots in the elite men's 200-mile race and the top two in the elite women's 200-mile race.

It marks an opening weekend of blockbuster proportions for a bike that launched to the public less than 48 hours before the race got underway.

Among the many steps along the way to this result was testing in the Flint Hills both in and out of competition.

Matt Beers, winner of four Cape Epics and now second at this year's Unbound was involved in both efforts. Early on in the process, Beers and 2021 Unbound winner Ian Boswell were recruited for some tests that pitted the previous Crux against one of Specialized's other gravel bikes, the Diverge STR, which features a small suspension device at the rear.

"We came out [to Emporia] in 2024," Beers told Cyclingnews. "We came out here and we tested the Crux versus the STR which has the rear compliance in the seatpost. And we tested that with a bunch of sensors on each bike doing recon. Ian Boswell and myself.”

This testing was followed up a year later with a sensor-equipped Diverge race bike that Beers rode in the 2025 edition of Unbound, where he gathered data about where and how the rough terrain of the Flint Hills was translating into fatigue for riders.

As the Crux evolved from a pure cyclo-cross machine to a gravel racer, it was crucial to know where comfort could be gained without sacrificing stiffness and power transfer.

“We had a little black box on the saddle that took data from the race. I raced with that. The more vibrations that go through you, the more fatigue, so trying to figure that out and trying to eliminate that."

According to the brand, this is part of its 'Equation of Speed', which essentially aims to replicate Formula 1's lap times technology and measure everything between the power in at the pedals and how that translates to speed. This involves the well-known metrics like aerodynamics, rolling resistance and gravity, but also factors in frame responsiveness, tyre traction, course profile, course surface roughness, weather, rider fatigue, rider habits and so on. These are all measured, quantified, and input into an algorithm - built in-house at Specialized by former F1 engineer Marcel Keyser - which then runs simulations and calculates finish times. By iterating on bike design - adding extra stiffness here or more compliance there - the algorithm can calculate how that affects a rider's speed.

"Obviously, we've had the Crux, we've had the Diverge, the Diverge STR, and we've collected data through all those bikes. That had an effect on development on this bike, trying to make one that can kind of tick all those boxes and be super fast, and I think that was the main goal of this bike, was just to kind of make it as compliant, but very fast and super stiff all in the right places.”

As a taller rider, Beers, and his teammate Geerike Schreurs have found the new Crux design to be especially adapted to their needs.

"I think the head tube is always quite important. Mine is very long, and you can feel quite a lot of flex through it sometimes. But also just the overall fit of the bike. I think Gee will also know, the bike fits really well for a tall person.”

This is down to Specialized's Rider First Engineering principle, which promises the same ride quality for every rider, regardless of their frame size.

Schreurs agreed. “It fits perfectly for tall people. It's kind of built for me, I think."

The defending champion will race Unbound Gravel aboard a 32" bike this weekend, with Scott creating a prototype gravel bike to be ridden by Cameron Jones, but never to be released.

Bigger-wheeled 32" gravel bikes have been a tech theme of this year, and this moment signals a milestone as a major manufacturer experiments with the technology in the biggest gravel event in the world.

Scott has in fact created a pair of the prototype 32" gravel race bikes for the flagship Unbound Gravel 200 event, with Tour Divide and Silk Mountain Race winner Robin Gemperle also competing on the new bike.

Both athletes have been testing out 32" wheeled bikes since last year. According to Scott, it took a single test ride for both riders to be sold on 32" for Unbound.

The bikes themselves are prototype gravel RC models; 'RC' stands for Racing Concept in Scott nomenclature, and the brand has stated that these bikes "will never be released on the market".

Scott mentioned how a gravel race, in particular Unbound, is a great test ground for revealing how a system performs under "real-world riding stress".

"This bike makes you feel like you're levitating over the surface," said Jones. "I'll be experiencing a road race while everybody else is racing gravel.

"The driving traction and cornering grip is revolutionary. I'm genuinely scared how fast I'll be able to corner once on a course with proper descents."

Jones and Gemperle will ride the prototype RC gravel bike frame, but with differing builds.

Jones's bike will feature a mixed Shimano drivetrain with Dura-Ace, XTR and GRX components, along with prototype Industry Nine wheels and 50mm Schwalbe RX tyres.

Gemperle's bike will run a SRAM Red AXS / XPLR drivetrain, a '32" prototype wheelset' and the same tyres.

Why 32" wheels, and why now?

Debate surrounding 32" wheels has been swirling all year, but they are nothing new, having been a niche, little-used size for a long time. What is new is the fact that more and more manufacturers and brands are producing gravel bikes with this wheel size.

We spotted 32" wheels at the Cycleworld Düsseldorf show back in March, and again being exhibited at Bespoked London a few months later.

A regular '700c' wheel, the de-rigueur sizing standard for every road and gravel bike these days, has a BSD (Bead Seat Diameter) of 622mm, whereas a 32" wheel has a BSD of 686mm.

Bigger wheels mean more speed, and for gravel racers on fast courses, a bigger wheel may well offer an advantage over a 700c option. There's also a point on improved obstacle rollover, something that formed a key part of the debate when the mountain bike world embraced 29" wheels.

32" bikes are generally said to better suit taller riders, due to the bigger size and larger frames, which need to be custom-made to suit the wheels.

Gravel racing equipment is still developing rapidly, and a focus on making bikes faster is still a key direction of travel. If competitors decide 32" wheels offer an advantage and embrace them, we may see more and more brands creating bikes for this larger size.

New standards and sizes are often met with scorn in the bike world. Unbound will provide a stern test for these Scott prototypes; perhaps a successful outing at the weekend will soften some critics' views on these big-wheeled bikes.

In a video posted to Instagram, Dutch cyclist Jan-Willem van Schip has issued an outburst against the UCI and its commissaires at the Tour of Hellas after he was booted from the race for an illegal position on the bike.

Speaking in Dutch, he opened with the phrase: "Not normal, I've been disqualified again," before arguing his case and complaining that he feels unwelcome in road cycling.

It's not Van Schip's first run-in with the authorities. The Dutchman has faced the wrath of commissaires and the UCI on multiple occasions, including when was removed from the Baloise Belgium Tour in 2021 for using unusual handlebars made by Dutch brand Speeco, and in 2023 when he was disqualified from Heistse Pijl after using a radical new handlebar set-up from Toot.

More recently, he was removed from the Tour of Holland for an apparently unapproved forward-leaning seatpost.

The exact reason for his latest disqualification appears to be the unauthorized way in which he holds his handlebars, supposedly breaking the forearms-on-handlebars rule.

His unorthodox handlebars, seen in the Instagram post above from a race last week, allow Van Schip to adopt an aerodynamic position, but he appears to fallen foul of the UCI's outlawing of the forearms as 'a point of support', even if his hands are still in contact with the bars.

Van Schip argues that "everyone does that and I actually always hold my shifter fully," before adding, "how do you measure this anyway?"

Paul Tabak, the owner of Van Schip's Azerion-Villa Valkenburg team, was reportedly in discussion with the UCI to appeal the decision after the race, but it was upheld. Van Schip did not start stage 2.

In his video, Van Schip pointed out that he'd recently raced the UCI-classified Ronde van Overijssel with the same handlebar set-up, without any action from the authorities.

"How can it be that I'm allowed to race the Ronde van Overijssel with this, while all the other riders [here at the Tour of Hellas - ed.] in the front group are allowed to just rest their arms on the handlebars, and not me?

"Its very painful. It's really not fun. The bike is completely legal, the seatpost is fine, but they still found a way to screw us over. It hurts a lot," he said, before later adding: "I don't really feel welcome in cycling."

He also invited the UCI to "have a good talk about it" so he can ask: "How do these rules work, what is actually allowed and what isn't?"

The Dutchman has already pondered a move to gravel, where the rules are more relaxed. Maybe that will now be considered more seriously.

Aptly summing up his mood, the video ended with the phrase "wat een kut sport," – "what a shitty sport."

The new gravel race bikes are starting to rear their heads at The Traka. Cyclingnews is on the ground at the race and we are already on the hunt for new and exciting gravel tech.

A new Ridley gravel bike caught our eye on Thursday. This one will be raced by Pieter Potters of the Strada Campina / Ridley Bikes team in the 360 race. It’s certainly a bike that we don’t recognise, and is clearly a very aero and aggressive model.

Details are scarce right now, but our man on the ground, Senior Tech Writer Will Jones, spoke with someone from Ridley and learned that this bike apparently provides a "single-digit aero gain vs the ASTR [Ridley's aero gravel race machine] but double-digit gains in rolling resistance".

Ridley’s gravel race bikes are the ASTR and Kanzo Fast. This machine looks far more aggressive than either of them, with a head tube that looks similar to the one found on the Noash Fast 3.0 aero road bike.

The 'RS2' logo on the headtube could point to this being an updated version of the ASTR RS model, but we don't know for sure right now. Either way, it's another indication of the direction of travel for gravel race bikes.

Aside from the very deep headtube, sculpted seat tube and aggressive, deep frame tube profiles, the bike was running Continental Dubnital 2.2" tyres, Zipp 303 XPLR wheels, which have a 32mm internal width and a mix and match SRAM Red XPLR gravel groupset, paired with an XX Eagle rear derailleur.

Stay tuned this weekend as we bring you all the best tech and race news from the Traka.

Tadej Pogačar raced in the prologue time trial at the Tour de Romandie today on a prototype Colnago time trial bike.

He rode the new machine to fifth place in the 3.2km test, finishing seven seconds behind stage winner Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers).

According to Colnago, the world champion's new machine is a prototype TT2 model, which appears to be the successor to the current TT1 model, a bike that has been in the Colnago range for several years now.

Pogačar was spotted riding a mystery time trial bike in early February, and we speculated on what that bike could be at the time. It would appear it was an early, unbranded version of the TT2 bike which he has used today.

In February, we speculated that this new bike looked less aggressive overall than the TT1, with some less deep frame shapes, and with more regular dropped seatstays, compared to the very low stays on the TT1 that lined up with the integrated bottle cage.

The primary goal of the TT2 appears to have been to save weight, whilst maintaining or improving aerodynamic performance. Colnago says the TT1 was one of the most aero time trial bikes in the WorldTour, but wanted to save some weight. The brand also mentions the bike being made more user-friendly for amateur cyclists.

The TT2 frameset is claimed to be 550 grams lighter, and is said to achieve a two-watt saving at 50kph compared to the TT1. The brand says this was measured as a weighted average across yaw angles. In short, this bike is over half a kilo lighter, whilst being slightly more aerodynamic than the TT1. Surely music to the ears of pro riders and a certain Tour de France champion.

Colnago explained that this is currently a prototype of the TT2 and that the bike will be made available to the brand's dealer network this September.

Pogačar's time trials this year

Pogačar will ride a size small bike, and his own model in the images above is built up with a Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, Enve wheelset and Carbon-Ti aftermarket parts such as the large 1X aero chainring. One difference of note compared to his road bikes is the Fizik Aeris split nose triathlon saddle fitted to the bike.

The Slovenian superstar currently has at least four time trials to ride this year, not including any championships he might choose to ride. Today at the Tour of Romandie, one at the upcoming Tour de Suisse and two crucial ones at the Tour de France.

The Romandie prologue is very short, and the Tour de Suisse time trial is flat and fast; both are seemingly different beasts from the tests at the Tour de France, which include more climbing, with the Tour prologue including a new format which should create fireworks.

The goal to save weight on the TT2 is telling that weight at the top level is critical. If a rider of Pogačar's stature can find a half-kilogram weight saving on the right course, it could provide an advantage that will help him gain time on his rivals come July and in the future.

Pogačar famously chose to use a stripped-down road bike for last year's mountain time trial at the Tour de France, preferring a lighter drop bar bike to his time trial bike for the stage. Stage 16's ITT at this year's Tour includes the Côte de Larringes climb, a roughly 9km ascent at around a 4.3% average gradient. Perhaps this is where Pogačar's new weight saving will help him this July.

The longstanding partnership that has seen Soudal-QuickStep ride aboard Specialized bikes for the past two decades is reportedly set to end in 2027.

According to Daniel Benson's Cycling Substack, the team will switch to Merida Bikes, a brand that finds itself without a WorldTour team after its own agreement with Bahrain Victorious ended last season.

The move marks not only the end of a long-term connection between the American brand and the Belgian squad, but the end of its existing six-year agreement signed by Patrick Lefevre in 2021.

The partnership originally began with a 'bidding war' in 2006 when the team went under the guise of Quickstep-Innergetic.

In that first season together, Tom Boonen won the Tour de France green jersey aboard the team's Campagnolo-equipped Tarmac SL2 – complete with rim brakes, tubular tyres and a mechanical groupset.

The Belgian squad changed to Eddy Merckx Cycles equipment for the 2010 and 2011 seasons, but switched back to Specialized for the 2012 season, and that partnership has been maintained into 2026

In the years since, the two sides have worked together closely to further the successes of both parties. The team has had plenty of wins, with a Flanders-Roubaix double for Boonen in 2012; a dominant 2019 season in which Philip Gilbert won Paris-Roubaix and Julian Alaphilippe won Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo and spent 14 days in yellow at the Tour de France; and, of course, Remco Evenepoel's rise to dominance, including his Vuelta a España win in 2022.

Meanwhile, riders have provided key feedback to help the development of the Specialized product catalogue. For example, Kasper Asgreen, who won the Tour of Flanders for the team in 2021, was heavily involved in developing the Tarmac SL7, feeding back on early iterations and prototypes.

Meanwhile, Remco Evenepoel – whose 'aero bullet' nickname is in large part thanks to the countless hours spent in the Specialized 'Win Tunnel' wind tunnel – was a key contributor to the design of the TT5 aero helmet, the Tarmac SL8 bike, and likely the SL9 too, which is strongly rumoured to be launched this year.

The Belgian also has his own line of lightweight 'Torch Remco' shoes, which were designed to help his attempts at competing for the Tour de France.

In one of the biggest transfers in recent times, however, Evenepoel moved to fellow Specialized-sponsored team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, at the end of the 2025 season.

In recent years, Specialized has somewhat transitioned its focus toward individual athletes rather than teams. When Peter Sagan moved from Bora-Hansgrohe to TotalEnergies in 2022, for example, Specialized followed. And then again, when Demi Vollering moved from Team SD Worx Protime to FDJ Suez in 2025.

Whether or not the brand will look to retain its sponsorship of two men's WorldTour teams, and thus step into another squad, remains to be seen.

Both Soudal-QuickStep and Specialized have been approached for comment by Cyclingnews. Soudal-QuickStep have declined to comment, while Specialized is yet to respond.

With the dust settling on Paris-Roubaix and a long drive back through the tunnel to the UK for the Cyclingnews tech team, we've put our heads together to reflect on what we've learned.

Throughout our days on the ground in Northern France, we've spotted a host of new, old and unusual tech hacks as teams sought to smooth the cobbles of Hell.

Shimano's prototype pedals will be the talk of the race, or at least Alpecin-Fenix's decision to only put half of their team on them. But the most novel tech hack we spotted was the 'double bubble' wheel tech at Lidl Trek.

Some hacks worked better than others, while some will point to bigger trends that will no doubt carry forward into the rest of the season and, if not, at least on into the Spring Classics campaign of 2027.

32 is the new 28

Even a couple of years ago 32mm tyres were considered quite wide for the rough cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. Most road bikes couldn't handle them, at least not with any real clearance. Now, with the latest generation of aero bikes being able to handle 32c tyres with relative ease, almost all teams were using this size, to the point that the ubiquity of 32mm tyres was reminiscent of the days of everyone running 28mm tyres with the occasional 30mm as this was what most rim brakes would allow.

The UCI was out in force with a new tool to check nobody was running anything too wide (as a proxy for tyre height, oddly), and while Tadej Pogacar was using 35mm tyres that plumped up to a value noticeably wider, nobody was exceeding 35mm in stated tyre width at least.

Tyre clearance is advisory when you don't buy your frames

Tadej Pogačar certainly led the big tyre brigade, with his front tyre barely having enough room for a cigarette paper between rubber and carbon, but he wasn't alone in trying to eke out every last millimetre of clearance.

Decathlon CMA CGM also had 35mm front tyres fitted, and like UAE, they also fitted a smaller 32mm rear; the back end of a bike flexes a lot more than the front, and so tyre rub is more of a risk. Even so, there were plenty of frames that were pushing it to the limit, but teams know that Roubaix bikes get battered.

A great many had battle scars on them already before the start of the race, indicating that they are probably second or third bikes for the key riders, or even their training bikes.

Shimano has some catching up to do

The difference between the SRAM teams and the Shimano teams was starker than ever this year. 1x makes total sense for Roubaix, and while SRAM bikes could easily be set up with a neat, well thought out 1x setup, perhaps with a hacked derailleur to allow the use of a smaller road block for those using XPLR, Shimano teams were either using 2x and taking the risk of more frequent chain drops, or cobble together a mish-mash of aftermarket chainrings and gravel or MTB parts.

It's not so much that it's ugly or unorthodox, though it's certainly exciting to see from a tech perspective. It just feels like SRAM is ahead of the game in terms of making life easy.

I'm totally sure the Shimano system works perfectly well, even though it isn't officially sanctioned, but it creates a perception that reflects badly by comparison. With new Dura-Ace being teased by some new (and potentially disastrous) prototypes, there's scope for a big catch-up, but there needs to be a 1x option now.

Sponsors don't count at roubaix

Aside from the off-script drivetrains that Shimano teams were using there were several other noteworthy sponsor incorrect incidents that I spotted. Picnic and Jayco were both using Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres, despite being sponsored by Michelin and Cadex, respectively.

The former team’s mechanics used up what must have been several Sharpies to try and save their sponsor's blushes (unsuccessfully, I might add; the giant black rectangles do rather draw the eye), while the latter team was quite up front about it.

In any case, it seems like there's a good case to be made that if you're going to upset the sponsors at any race, it may as well be at Roubaix.

Whatever you do, you can't cobble-proof a bike

I'm not sure there were any more punctures than normal this year, but it certainly seemed that there were more unfortunate tyre disasters affecting the big names than in previous editions. Mathieu van Der Poel, Wout van Aert, Filippo Ganna, and Mads Pedersen all suffered flats, as did Tadej Pogačar, excitingly resulting in him having to use a neutral service bike for a time.

While big tyres might help, as may high-tech double-valve tyre safety systems, it seemed like the cobble gods struck down those with seemingly cobble-proof setups like Pogačar and those with pretty stock builds like Van Aert and Van der Poel with an even hand. There may be some who came away yesterday thinking that Van der Poel should have raced the new Endurace, but I am not in that camp.

He's won on the Aeroad three times, and there's nothing to suggest that if he were aboard the Endurace, he wouldn't have ended up having the same outcome.

Don't try something new on the biggest race of the year

There's a reason we head out to the Critérium du Dauphiné every year; teams don't want to use brand new equipment at the Tour de France, so they road test it at earlier, less important races first. Alpecin’s pedal disaster was a perfect storm of prototype parts not playing well with existing systems, and could easily have been avoided.

Perhaps it's the clarity of hindsight, and there's every likelihood that the team were told the pedals were compatible with what is likely a new cleat system, but why would you take the chance of having your key domestique running a different rider-to-bike interface at the biggest one-day race of the year?

Franziska Koch sprinted to victory at the end of Paris-Roubaix Femmes yesterday, fending off a two-on-one assault from no less than Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.

The German national road race champion did so aboard her team-issued FDJ United-Suez Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 race bike, and I took a look at the Roubaix winning machine as Koch gave her a winner's press interview post-race.

It was a fairly stock setup for Koch, nothing too crazy or unusual, but with some interesting details, such as Roval's fastest wheels, and a nice 1X aero chainring from British brand Drag2Zero, which you can look at below.

What made it for me was the personal message Koch had applied to the tops of her handlebars before the race, which I saw on several of the women's machines. Her reminder to herself seemed to pay off, resulting in the biggest win of her career to date.

It was a bright, sunny morning at the start of the sixth edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, though there was still a chill in the shade as the women's team buses arrived in Denain.

Paris-Roubaix Femmes covered 143km with 33.7km of cobblestones, including two five-star sectors: Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l'Arbre, but no Forest of Arenberg.

The start paddock was a relaxed affair. Teams racked bikes in the morning sun, and fans could get close to their favourite riders, UAE Team-ADQ staff even hosted a Domino's pizza party on the hood of one of their team cars.

I was there on tech hunting duty, and there was plenty to spot amongst the women's teams, mirroring the men's Paris-Roubaix tech gallery published by my colleague Will.

Highlights ranged from brand new gravel wheels to dual-headed tyre systems. I even spotted some gravel tyres, as well as some cool aftermarket parts I hadn't seen before.

A standout from the women's bikes were several fun personal stem notes they had added, including the race winner, Franziska Koch.

Mathieu van der Poel's double puncture in the Forest of Arenberg will be the mechanical catastrophe he remembers for the rest of his life.

It should have been a straightforward swap to his teammate Jasper Philipsen's bike and a return to the front group, where he could fight for a record fourth consecutive Paris-Roubaix title.

But it turned into the surreal scene of the Dutchman walking back down the Forest of Arenberg, against the flow of riders, to collect his own bike, because he couldn't clip into his Belgian teammate's pedals.

On camera, the walk appeared calm, cool and composed, but maybe there was also a hint of resignation in the moment, maybe anger too. Save for the emotional scenes of Wout van Aert's victory, these images will define the 2026 Men's Paris-Roubaix.

Luckily for Van der Poel, his young teammate Tibor Del Grosso had worked out the issue unfolding. He had a cool enough head to spot his leader's bike lying in the grass, stop, and quickly begin swapping his own wheel to Van der Poel's then-abandoned machine.

By the time Van der Poel had returned from his 50-metre trip up the road, his bike was back to a rideable state, but over a minute and a half had been ceded to his rivals.

Van der Poel then punctured again shortly after, while still on the Arenberg, but the team car was closer at hand on this occasion, and the Dutchman swapped bikes in a more straightforward exchange.

By the time he exited the Trench, he was almost two minutes behind Van Aert, Pogačar, et al.

The following 90km of the race were spent chasing. Van der Poel found himself in the second group on the road. In fact, much of his time was spent on the front of said group. And he eventually pulled it back to within 15 seconds of the leaders.

Ultimately, he sprinted into 4th, just 15 seconds behind Van Aert and Pogačar, with Jasper Stuyven nabbing 3rd.

Why couldn't he clip in?

The Alpecin-Premier Tech team are sponsored by Shimano, and all riders use Shimano's Dura-Ace pedals, but the problem arose because Philipsen, along with Florian Sénéchal and Jonas Rickaert, were using a new prototype pedal. In the aftermath of the race, Alpecin-Premier Tech's mechanics confirmed to Cyclingnews that the two systems use different cleats.

In a race as chaotic as Paris-Roubaix, where team cars are rarely nearby because of the narrow roads and stretched-out peloton, swapping to a teammate's bike is often the fastest way to get going again, and can be the difference between a quick return to racing and a race-ending long wait for support.

Christophe Roodhoft takes the blame

Importantly, the pedals themselves aren't to blame for any of this, but Alpecin-Premier Tech's decision to put half the team on one pedal and the other half on another.

It's impossible to know how the race would have played out in different circumstances, nor indeed if Van der Poel would have been able to outsprint Van Aert in the Roubaix Velodrome, but the delay on the Arenberg absolutely cost Van der Poel the opportunity to fight for the win.

Speaking exclusively to Cyclingnews, a team mechanic explained that the pedals should have been compatible, and that Philipsen swapped bikes with Planckaert at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in February.

"It should work, hey. But the Arenberg is not the same as Kuurne," he said.

Meanwhile, Christophe Roodhoft spoke with assembled media.

"They fit, but it's not the same as normal," he explained, confirming the cleats are different.

"But it's done now. I can't undo it. I should have thought of it, but I never imagined it would all come together in such a crucial way.

"Right now, I think it was very stupid of me. That sounds harsh. But I don't understand how I didn't think of it. It's more unlikely than winning the lottery, all of it falling together like that."

He also explained that Del Grosso had already punctured at the time, but fortunately for Van der Poel, it was his rear. He was attempting to ride on, but saw his leader's abandoned bike and sprung into action.

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At the start of the men's Paris-Roubaix in Compiègne, the UCI was spotted with yet another tool to ensure the riders' bikes stay within its equipment rules.

It's a small, 3D-printed hand-held unit that commissaires were seen slotting over riders' tyres, seemingly to check their size.

At first glance, it appears very similar to the tool used at cyclo-cross races to check racers' tyres don't exceed the enforced width limit of 33mm.

But in road racing, there isn't a width limit per se.

There is, however, a rule limiting the maximum diameter of the wheel-tyre system, which means by proxy, given a wider tyre is also taller, a limit that works out at approximately 39mm. It does depend on rim width, though.

Checking the total diameter of a wheel tyre system at the buses at the start of a WorldTour race would likely be a much more time-consuming process, which would make it impossibly difficult to do across 25 teams quickly.

Given that road wheels are all made to an equal diameter of 622mm, and the total system is simply this plus the tyre top and bottom, it's a logical way to measure the total diameter more easily by proxy.

Cyclingnews understands this is what's being measured by the commissaires, although it's unclear whether the tool is measuring the tyre height itself, or simply using a nominal width (perhaps 40mm) as a proxy for an illegal height.

Witnessing the checks in action, Cyclingnews tech reporter Will Jones said the commissaires didn't appear to be checking diameter at all. "They just popped it onto the tyre and then, if it didn't get stuck, moved onto the next bike," he said.

Paris-Roubaix is likely the only race we'll see this tool in action each year. At most road races, teams will run tyres between 28 and 30mm, but the boneshaking nature of the Roubaix cobbles means teams are motivated to go wider, and push up against this limit.

When we caught up with Tadej Pogačar's bike ahead of the race, we spotted a 35mm tyre at the front that came up far wider, in one of a horde of tech updates as he 'threw the kitchen sink' at his setup to chase his third monument of the season.

Three-time men's Paris-Roubaix champion, Mathieu van der Poel, has decided to race Paris-Roubaix today on his normal Canyon Aeroad CFR race bike, the machine that he has raced and won on for the last several years, ignoring the new Roubaix-specific bike that Canyon unveiled this week.

The German brand launched an updated version of its Endurace CFR endurance model this week, claiming the bike had been designed with the single purpose of 'getting to Roubaix fastest'.

Much debate has followed since the bike's launch on what Van der Poel would choose to use; certainly amongst the Cyclingnews tech team, at least.

Van der Poel raced and won on the bike at E3 Saxo Classic but was nearly reeled in at the death after a long-range attack in which he posted all-time personal bests for his power output.

He then raced the Tour of Flanders on his regular Aeroad, choosing not to use the Endurace, which was perhaps an indication of his preference between the two models.

Van der Poel's teammate Jasper Philipsen, meanwhile, will race Roubaix on the Endurace CFR. We checked out his bike ahead of the race, even spotting some prototype Dura-Ace pedals. While visiting the Alpecin hotel, the team remained tight-lipped on which machine Van der Poel would use, and wouldn't show us any of his bikes pre-race.

A lot of work appeared to have gone into the new Endurace bike by Canyon; it has increased tyre clearance compared to the Aeroad, and is said to have a stiffer head tube than it too. Van der Poel, we are told, wants very stiff race bikes, likely helping him get the power down when he's out of the saddle, especially with his preference for wide bars. Canyon itself told us he receives custom carbon layups separate from what consumers are given.

Was it just a clever marketing strategy by Canyon to boost its new bike? Perhaps a racer like Van der Poel simply prefers the Aeroad, the bike he has taken countless big wins on, despite Canyon saying the new bike is only one watt less aerodynamic.

Racers can be hesitant to change things when everything is working well. Van der Poel may just naturally prefer the Aeroad and is sticking to what he knows best for Roubaix; it has served him well for the last three editions of the race.

Van der Poel will use a double Dura-Ace chainset, a different setup compared to his two great rivals. Tadej Pogačar has fitted a 1X Carbon Ti chainring, and Wout van Aert, who will use a 1X SRAM setup.

Given the race starts with 100km of road before the first cobbled sectors, we did consider the possibility that Van der Poel would switch to the bigger-tyred Endurace before the race hits the rough stuff, but upon checking all the team cars at the start for bikes with the Dutchman's name on, the Aeroad tallies three, to the Endurace's zero.

We won't have to wait long to see how the race plays out for the three-time champion as he seeks a historic fourth victory at the Hell of the North.

While Tadej Pogačar's Paris-Roubaix bike was a pretty drastic departure from the norm, for eventual race winner Wout van Aert and the rest of his Visma-Lease a Bike men's team, things are pretty much business as usual; a marked change from last year when the men's squad rode the cobbles aboard the significantly less aero Cervélo Soloist.

However, this lack of cobble-taming tech wasn't entirely by choice. The team has spent years trialling a clever device called the Gravaa KAPS, which can deflate and reinflate tyres on the fly, but just two weeks ago, they received a letter from the UCI banning the tech outright. The team's head of performance spoke out to express his 'utter astonishment', but had no time to appeal.

Still, Van Aert evidently didn't need it. He did suffer at least one puncture on his way to victory, but had a luckier day than Pogačar, who was forced onto the Shimano neutral bike for a short time, and Mathieu Van der Poel, who was forced to walk backwards down the Forest of Arenberg to collect his bike after a bodged change.

A day ahead of the race, Cyclingnews got up close to Van Aert's bike.

Paris-Roubaix is less than 48 hours away, riders and teams are doing their final recon rides, and dialling in their equipment setups for the races on Sunday.

The question of which bike Mathieu van der Poel and his teammates will use on Sunday has been a hot topic this week. Canyon launched its latest Endurace CFR endurance race bike this week, a bike it claims has been designed pretty much exclusively for Van der Poel to use at Roubaix.

Van der Poel and teammate Jasper Philipsen have both raced on the Endurace CFR in the last few weeks, and Philipsen will use it on Sunday. The team wouldn't let me see Van der Poel's bike, and it seems they are remaining tight-lipped on which bike he will use for the moment. The three-time Roubaix champion may still be deciding himself, though he rode a recon this week on the Aeroad at least once.

The Alpecin bikes are fairly stock generally and don't feature as many Roubaix hacks and changes as some bikes, like the new double-headed inner tube liners we spotted this week at Lidl-Trek.

Philipsen's bike had a few interesting features, the biggest of which was the prototype Shimano Dura-Ace pedals it was fitted with. After the Dura-Ace wheels sighting, which have been used for a while, this is the second sighting of any new Dura-Ace componentry. Whilst the pedals are only marked 'Prototype', it seems realistic to expect them to be Dura-Ace models. They appear to have a slightly different body shape, but the axles looked similar.

Philipsen, himself a two-time Roubaix podium finisher, was running 32mm tyres and 172.5mm crank arms on his Endurace CFR, which has a stiffer head tube than Canyon's Aeroad aero race bike. Interestingly, he also had a rigid aero seatpost fitted, not the comfort boosting VCLS Aero seatpost that comes stock on the Endurace.

It won't be long until we see what gets used on Sunday, and as usual, it will probably just come down to what each rider thinks is fastest on the day.

I've already pulled together a speculative article on Tadej Pogačar's totally overhauled cobble setup for this season. The Slovenian superstar has swapped bikes and gone all in on bike hacks to give himself the best chance of moving up one place in the Paris-Roubaix rankings this year and taking his final Monument in what feels like a slightly inevitable victory (if not this year, then in the future).

The day before the Hell of the North, I managed to catch his bike at the back of the team bus, and in a frantic 60 seconds snapped the key details that make it such a wonderful bike to behold for tech fans. There are classic Roubaix mods like bigger tyres, but then there are some fantastic 'weight weenie' modifications like aftermarket thru-axles and a total lack of paint more or less anywhere on the bike or on key components.

Whether this is enough, and whether he'll be taken out of the race by a small stone getting lodged between the front tyre and the fork, remains to be seen, but he's given himself the best possible chance.

Lidl-Trek will be using an inflatable Odyssey Optis tyre liner system at Paris-Roubaix to boost protection and to enable the team's riders to keep riding a little bit further in the event of a puncture.

Paris-Roubaix always causes flats and even destroys wheels entirely. We have seen teams use foam tyre inserts and even tubular glue to help provide extra insurance to the tubeless setups that are now used, to ensure the tyres stay on the rim in the event of an untimely puncture.

Lidl-Trek, however, has found another neat solution in this quest.

While visiting teams and scoping out bikes and tech in the run-up to the race, we spotted some unusual-looking double-headed valves on Mads Pederson's spare bike that had us stumped until we saw the 'Odyssey' brand name on one side.

Odyssey, a brand that's perhaps more well-known in the BMX world, is behind the Optis system, which it offers in 27.5 / 29 and 700c road sizes. The 700c long-valve Optis tubes retail at $89.99 each, making it a fairly expensive upgrade.

Optis stand for Odyssey Pneumatic tyre insert system. It's a tuneable nylon reinforced TPU insert, which resists expanding when inflated, meaning it can be inflated to a higher pressure than the tyre it sits inside, while allowing that tyre to still be inflated to its own optimal (read: lower) pressure.

It is said to help prevent tyre burping and to protect against impacts and pinch flats, as well as acting as a bead lock whilst giving the rider more of a chance of riding on a punctured tyre, which sounds like a perfect fit for a lot of the challenges that the Roubaix cobblestones create.

Whilst we haven't seen a WorldTour road squad use this tech before, we saw a hacked equivalent being used by gravel star Keegan Swenson last year at Unbound Gravel, but rather than this solution, he simply used a flat inner tube inside a tubeless tyre to allow fast reinflation in the event of a catastrophic puncture, and he drilled a second hole in his rims to accommodate it.

Riders suffering mechanical issues - punctures in particular - at Roubaix may often have a longer wait for assistance, depending on where they are, due to the narrow and often spread out nature of the race, particularly in its later stages. A system that gives a rider an increased chance of riding on a flat for a little longer must be helpful, and may help prevent catastrophic rim damage, something that we saw at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

The team explained that the liners will be inflated to 6 bar or 87 PSI, the 32mm Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS tubeless tyres will, in turn, be inflated to a lot less than this, and we assume will still have tubeless sealant added for good measure. An added benefit of the liner itself, aside from it being lighter than a foam insert, is that if punctured, it will also release its air into the tubeless tyre itself, acting as a fast release of air similar to a Co2 or charger, which would give a welcome boost of air while the sealant plugs the hole.

The team were happy to chat and explained that the team had been testing the system all winter, on recons and was happy with it, describing it as a 'double bubble' or best of both worlds system. They believe Lidl-Trek are the only team using the system currently, but didn't know for sure.

Lidl-Trek have been using new and as yet unreleased Bontrager wheels this year, and we got a good look at them during Opening Weekend. For Paris-Roubaix, the team will use Bontrager's stronger gravel wheelset on the Roubaix stones. The team will also use the gravel-specific SRAM Red XPLR 1x groupset, which has been adopted by nearly every SRAM-sponsored team for the classics this year.

If ever you've ridden on cobbles, you probably know a few basic truths.

Firstly, it's quite unpleasant, bone-rattlingly so. They're often slippery, and with a ridge at the centre that relentlessly urges you into the ditch at either side. Your momentum is sapped with every stone, and picking a good line is akin to finding a quiet corner at Glastonbury Festival.

Secondly, and paradoxically, the faster you go, the easier it is. This may seem at odds with sense, but your momentum allows you to skip more freely across the top of each stone, whereas at slower speeds, there's more time for gravity to do its thing and pull you down into the gaps between each one, in turn requiring extra energy to climb back up and over the next one when you hit it.

Thirdly, the more you can unweight your bike and allow your legs and arms to act as suspension, the more easily you can absorb those bumps. It takes much less energy for a lightweight bike to rise and fall than it does for a 70kg rider to do the same.

All of that combines to mean that when you ride on cobbles, your pedalling technique tends to change.

You sit differently on the saddle, your position changes, your weight distribution changes, and a lot of riders choose to hold the tops rather than the hoods. At the highest level of the sport, this will almost certainly affect the best tyre choice, ideal pressure, bar tape choices, and perhaps even how you dress.

To try and quantify exactly how your technique changes when you're on the bike, Cyclingnews headed to the lab to run some tests.

The tests

We used the Pedalling Efficiency Rig at Silverstone Sports Engineering hub, which allows users to test the difference between setups in a controlled, close-to-real-world recreation, or the same setup across multiple different surfaces.

Cyclingnews' tech writer Tom Wieckowski was our test rider, and he covered over 70km of riding on our day of testing, with over half of that coming on cobbles at close to his threshold. Naturally, we ensured he was fed and watered, and weighed him after each run to ensure he was hydrated accordingly to keep his weight constant throughout.

Specifically, the tests we ran were:

Three tests: Road 'natural', cobbles 'natural', and cobbles 'loaded'

• Road natural: Simply riding on the road surface in the position that felt most natural for Tom.
• Cobbles natural: Riding on the cobbled surface in the position that felt most natural for Tom.
• Cobbles loaded: We asked Tom to ride with his hands on the tops, pushing a big gear, and loading the saddle.

Three tyre pressures: 25psi, 30psi and 35psi

Two speeds: 30km/h and 35km/h

What did we measure?

Using data from the Pedalling Efficiency Rig, Body Rocket power pedals, and the accompanying Body Rocket Saddle Sensor, we were able to quantify exactly how Tom sat on and pedalled the bike on each surface.

Specifically, we measured:

• The input power required to hold an equivalent speed
• His exact position (via the centre of maximum pressure) on the saddle, both left/right and fore/aft, including how well balanced he is, and how far this position moves from centre during a 60-second capture.
• His weight distribution across the bike, breaking down how much is placed on the left pedal, the right pedal, the saddle and the handlebars respectively.
• His pedalling power phases for both pedals, showing torque effectiveness, smoothness, peak phase and absolute power
• His pedal offset, showing how centrally onto the pedals the power is placed
• His max heart rate during each capture

What did we find?

The biggest changes we noticed were Tom's position on the saddle and his weight distribution, but not necessarily in the way we expected.

When riding on tarmac at the slower speed, Tom's position was fairly central on the saddle in relation to the sensor, measuring an average of 7.4mm in front of the sensor's centre line across the three different tyre pressures, as shown below.

But when we moved him to a higher speed, and thus a higher power output, he shuffled forwards by 15.7mm, to an average of 23.1mm, as you can see here:

Next up, things got really interesting when we moved him onto cobbles. The immediately noticeable difference is how his position on the saddle shifts from a constant hotspot to a blur from all the impacts.

Despite this, we can still tease out some averages. He was still in a more forward position, essentially reflecting the effort Tom was having to put into the bike.

At 30km/h, shown below, his average position was more forward than earlier, at 14.6mm, but not as far forward as the 35km/h test.

And then at the higher speed of 35km/h, he was 23.8mm in front of the centre, 16.5mm further forward than the slower, smoother test at the beginning.

One of the more unexpected shifts we saw was in Tom's weight distribution when changing from road to cobbles.

The expected shift is that as you transition onto rougher surfaces, you'll unweight your saddle and handlebars and use your legs to absorb the rough surfaces, but in this case, Tom's weight distribution actually moved more onto his hands.

On the six road tests (two speeds, three tyre pressures each), he only put an average of 11.5% of his weight through his hands, but when we moved him onto cobbles, that grew to an average of 18.8%, and then when he switched up his position to the 'loaded' test, it grew further to 20.2%.

Curiously, despite intentionally trying to alter his technique, the 'loaded' test actually made very little difference to his weight distribution.

His weight on the saddle grew by just 0.2%, while he put 1.4% more weight through his hands, and correspondingly less through the pedals.

There are two potential reasons for this.

The first is that since Tom moves forward on the saddle when the effort level increases, it's natural for his weight distribution to shift to the front of the bike onto the bars, even when moving from the hoods to the tops. This theory is somewhat debunked by the fact that he put more weight on the bars during the slower-speed road tests than for the higher-speed road tests, but with such a small sample of data, it's still possibly a factor.

The second is that the Pedalling Efficiency Rig only subjects the rear wheel to the cobbles, while the first is fixed into a sprung load cell. In the real world, where cobbles hit both front and rear wheels, we might have seen Tom subconsciously adapt to overcome these extra impacts up front, too.

As Tom himself puts it: "The rig is pretty different to riding Roubaix cobbles."

With all that said, despite not making much difference to his weight distribution, it consistently raised his max heart rate by approximately five beats per minute when compared to the 'natural' cobble tests, meaning Tom was working a good deal harder to maintain the same power input (at the pedals), essentially fighting the bike more in the bigger gear and different muscle usage.

This tells us that, although Tom's only ridden on cobbles a handful of times and is by no means a Pro Classics Specialist, his intuition and subconscious feeling are a good gauge of what gets him over the cobbles with the least amount of effort.

What does all this mean?

While we didn't come away with groundbreaking conclusions, nor even things we expected to see, we can still take away some interesting tidbits.

In Tom's case, we can see that his weight distribution on the bike shifts more forward when riding hard, and when on cobbles. The exact front-wheel to rear-wheel balance wasn't something we measured, but we can infer that as more weight is placed on his handlebars, more weight is on the front wheel too.

Thinking in extremes, this might suggest that Tom would benefit from fitting a wider tyre at the front than at the rear, to try and offset the increased load on his hands when the going gets rough.

More simply, it might affect his optimal tyre pressure. Most online tyre pressure calculators assume a weight distribution of 55% rear and 45% front. If we know that this shifts slightly when he rides hard, and he'll be hitting cobbles at 40km/h, he might want to avoid the lower limit of the calculators' recommendations, since his weight distribution is likely closer to 50/50.

It might also mean he can remove a few PSI at the rear for extra comfort.

In addition, it might be that Tom warrants a second layer of bar tape when riding on cobbles, since he knows his weight shifts onto his hands more.

And separate from cobbles at all, we know that Tom slides forward on the saddle when the effort level increases. If Tom were a pro athlete, he might have spent time in the wind tunnel, where generally the resistance is set at 100-200 watts, so you don't fatigue during a full day of testing. But when the going gets spicy, he slides forward on the saddle, and that could mean his CdA changes, meaning his optimal setup could also change.

Knowing this, he could test in the wind tunnel at 300 watts instead, and he might find that a different helmet or skinsuit tests better as his back becomes more rounded.

Other conclusions

This isn't necessarily a conclusion from our day of testing, but in unpacking the data, the folks at Body Rocket explained that when they performed a similar protocol with a different rider, his adjustment to riding on cobbles was different to Tom's, with the more expected change toward loading the pedals more and unloading the saddle and bars.

At face value, this suggests the technique of riding on cobbles is unique to each rider, and that the optimal setup for one rider might differ completely from the next.

But it could also be equipment-dependent. Tom was aboard a Canyon Grizl with 45mm tyres fitted, whereas we're told the other rider was on a road bike with 28mm tyres.

Given that we know wide tyres can save as many as 80 watts on cobbled surfaces compared to their narrower counterparts, it's possible that we were simply watering down the brutality of the cobbles a little too much, and Tom didn't need to adjust as much.

Regardless, with half an eye on Paris-Roubaix this weekend, it's impressive to see how much data can be captured with just four sensors.

Given WorldTour team engineers - the likes of Dan Bigham (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Jamie Lowden (Visma-Lease a Bike) - have each spent countless hours standing at the side of the Carrefour de l'Arbre in winters past, with dozens of bikes peppered with accelerometers, you can be sure they have even more data at their fingertips.

I expect they already understand how each of their respective riders responds to riding on the cobbles, and how to choose the perfect setup each time. And I expect they're feeding that information back to Specialized, Cervélo et al to engineer the next bit of new bike tech for you and me to get excited about.

With just days to go until Paris-Roubaix, UCI has reported banned Visma-Lease a Bike from using self-inflating tyre tech, angering the team's Head of Performance, Mathieu Heijboer, who has called it "no coincidence".

The system, known as KAPS (Kinetic Air Pressure System), was developed by Dutch company Gravaa and was first used in a WorldTour race in March 2023 by Edoardo Affini.

Whether Visma-Lease a Bike has any official affiliation with Gravaa is unknown, but the technology has been tested and raced extensively by the team in the years since, with various riders using it at each edition of Paris-Roubaix since, and perhaps most famously, it was piloted to victory by Marianne Vos at the Gravel World Championships in 2025.

Gravaa, as a company, went out of business in January, but the team has continued to use it.

Speaking on the Dutch In De Waaier podcast and reported by Nieuwsblad, Heijboer said: "We further developed it and tested it extensively during the winter; however, two weeks ago, we received a letter stating that it is banned by the UCI. Then it stops all at once.

"We received no announcement that this was coming; there was simply that letter. In fact, we even rode the GP Denain [on March 19] with it.

"The GP Denain is the biggest cobblestone race [behind] Roubaix. It is also our final competitive test, and at that time, there was nothing going on. But now, suddenly, [it is banned] right before Roubaix. That is no coincidence."

The UCI's 'Commercialisation' rule - Article 1.3.006 of its Technical Regulations - states that "Equipment shall be of a type that is sold for use by anyone practicing cycling as a sport."

There is a grace period of 12 months for prototype equipment, which is extendable once, but only based on "justified grounds."

It goes on to say that commissaires may "refuse the start or disqualify any rider using such equipment," and that breaches of this rule are subject to fines ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 swiss Francs.

According to Heijboer, despite the bankruptcy, the Gravaa company was relaunched soon after, and it is still possible to order the system, but there is no time to argue the case before Paris-Roubaix, given the amount of preparation the team needs to make to be ready for the race.

"A [company] restart was made shortly [after the bankruptcy], but due to the whole situation, the UCI doubts its commercial availability. And they have said, 'We are banning it for the rest of the year.'

“You can order one if you want," he continued. "So you can understand that we were utterly astonished. It was communicated on such short notice that we simply have to accept it.

"We have considered appealing, but that also entails a whole procedure. And given our previous experiences, we do not think this has a chance of success in such a short timeframe.

"The penalty ranges from a warning to disqualification, and you’re not going to take that risk. Plus, [Paris Roubaix] takes quite a bit of preparation time. Over the past two weeks, our mechanics have been preparing hundreds of sets of wheels. You can’t postpone that until the Saturday before Roubaix.

"Quite soon after that letter, we decided to cut our losses; we are not going to ride with them. We are going to challenge this, but for now, it is too late."

The news will be a blow to Wout van Aert's hopes of stealing victory from his rivals. The Belgian comes into the race as a second-tier favourite behind Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar.

Despite back-to-back crash-marred seasons, he has looked close to his former self in 2026, riding solo into third at Milan-San Remo, missing out by a hair at Dwars Door Vlaanderen, and being the fastest to react to Pogačar's stinging Oude Kwaremont attack in last week's Tour of Flanders.

"We have a lot of faith in the system and have tested it extensively," Heijboer reiterated. "It's a real shame that it is now suddenly no longer allowed, and for very unclear reasons."

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We'll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.

Canyon has officially launched a brand new version of its Endurace CFR endurance bike, and it appears it's a bike that has been designed with a very specific purpose in mind.

The Endurace was first launched back in 2014, a long time ago now. The bike received updates in 2016 and then again in 2023, and for the last three years at least, it has been the more comfortable, less aggressive, yet still exciting to ride, alternative to the Ultimate and Aeroad machines in the Canyon road bike range.

News and speculation whirled for the first part of this year regarding a new Canyon machine after a few sightings of unfamiliar-looking models on Instagram, then a new Endurace broke cover at Ronde van Brugge at the end of March, where it was ridden by several members of the Alpecin-Premier Tech squad. Team leader Mathieu van der Poel then won on it at the E3 Saxo Classic.

We got a decent look at the bike, but now, three days out from Paris-Roubaix, the bike has officially launched, and Canyon is calling it 'the world's fastest all-road race bike'.

Mathieu van der Poel has won the last three editions of Paris-Roubaix on a Canyon Aeroad, Canyon's all-out, aero race bike, that WorldTour riders use for everything.

Canyon says the Endurace CFR has been designed 'to get to Roubaix fastest' and has been developed 'in close collaboration with Alpecin-Premier Tech'.

That's pretty clear-cut. Canyon has gone away and tried to make Van der Poel the best tool for the job to win at Roubaix, which, within the pro cycling calendar, presents a unique set of requirements for a bike and equipment. I spoke with Canyon before the bike launched to gauge how much input Van der Poel had regarding this bike, and it sounds like quite a lot.

Visually, the new Endurace CFR looks very similar to an Aeroad, and from a distance, it's difficult to tell the two bikes apart at times. A lot of the Aeroad design language has been employed here; the bike's seatposts are interchangeable, and the Endurace uses the same fork as the Aeroad, for example, and it sounds like it's been needed to keep the Endurace close to the Aeroad in terms of outright speed. The geometry is also nearly identical, so this is quite a different beast compared to the outgoing Endurace CFR.

To start with, tyre clearance has been boosted to 35mm with a quoted 4mm of clearance each side, meaning 32's are going to fit comfortably.

A stiffer frame was also requested for the bike, and the brand cites requirements like sprinting up short sharp climbs, or coming out of tight cobbled corners at Roubaix. Canyon also confirmed to me that Van der Poel rides a custom carbon layup and just wants his bikes as stiff as possible.

He's also been seen using the rigid Aeroad seatpost on his Endurace CFR. Stiffer and stronger carbon fibres have been used in key areas to create this extra stiffness. A bare Medium frame weighs a claimed 918 grams raw, and the Endurace CFR is said to be a touch heavier than the Aeroad.

At the headtube, the new Endurace is stiffer than the Aeroad, with a headtube that is 12 newton degrees stiffer (a measurement of deflection). The increase in lateral stiffness, in theory, increases power transfer.

No pro rider wants to be given a slower bike, and it's probably fair to speculate that a slower bike than the Aeroad would have been a non-starter. Canyon says the Endurace CFR is within a single watt of the Aeroad CFR, which it regards as negligible. Canyon quotes an average system drag at 45km/h of 204 watts for the Aeroad and 205 for the Endurace.

In terms of testing, Canyon use the GST wind tunnel in Germany, and uses the same testing protocol as Tour magazine, which the brand says has been in place for over a decade. The brand tests with a leg dummy to replicate a rider pedalling in a repeatable way.

The Endurace was tested across a +20-degree yaw angle sweep, the bike was fitted with 2x600ml water bottles and cages, DT Swiss ARC1100 65mm wheels, and Continental Aero 111 29mm front tyre and 30mm Continental GP5000 S TR tyre rear.

The outgoing Endurace uses the flexible Canyon VCLS (Vertical comfort, lateral stiffness) leaf spring seatpost; the new Endurace CFR has a new SP0093 VCLS Aero seatpost, which looks similar to the Aeroad's aero post but actually provides a claimed 25% extra compliance compared to a rigid equivalent.

The new Endurace CFR geometry is the same as the Aeroad CFR, a request from pro riders according to Canyon, which possibly makes this the most aggressive endurance bike on the market.

The chainstays and wheelbase have grown marginally compared to the Aeroad. The brand has adopted 'effective stack and reach' numbers for the Endurace CFR geo charts; these measurements are the height and length from the bottom bracket to where the hands hold the hoods for more of a real-world measurement. Effective stack and height for a Medium Endurace CFR are 645 and 563mm, with a Medium also having a 990mm wheelbase and 413mm chainstays.

A brand new Canyon handlebar

Canyon has also developed a brand new handlebar, which also launches today and is available as an alternate option for the Endurace and Aeroad. The new CP0053 Race bar is what we spotted being tested by Mathieu van der Poel recently.

The new bar uses a more extreme-looking forward V shape, and is non-width adjustable, unlike the customisable CP0048 Pace bar found on the Aeroad and Endurace CFR currently.

The Race bar is claimed to be 120 grams lighter and 2 watts faster at 45 km/h over the Pace handlebar. The new bar will be available in 80-140mm stem lengths and 350 and 375mm widths. It's also roughly 20mm lower and 10mm longer in effective stack and reach than the CP0048 bar with the 'classic' interchangeable drops.

This seems to be another effective way for racers to gain an advantage, although it seems Van der Poel favours a wider handlebar in general.

Pricing and specs

As usual, Canyon has come in slightly below some of the more pricey premium brands on the market with the Endurace CFR. It's no doubt expensive, but not quite as pricey as some bikes.

The bike will be available in two build specs and three colours, as well as MyCanyon custom options, with both builds priced at €8,999.

There will be Shimano Dura-Ace and SRAM Red AXS builds, both with power meters fitted. The bikes will be fitted with DT Swiss ARC 1100 65mm wheels, Pirelli P Zero RS 35mm tyres and the Canyon CP0048 Pace bar with the classic drops fitted as stock.

Both bikes weigh in at a claimed 7.5Kg.

The Paris-Roubaix bike formula for most riders on most teams has, for a great many years now, been run your normal aero bike with as wide a tyre as you dare. Occasionally, things go off-script, though, and we see teams using totally non-standard bikes for the most brutal one-day race of the year.

Last year the Visma - Lease a Bike men raced on the Cervélo Soloist rather than their standard aero machines, despite doing a recon on the aero S5, and in 2024 Israel - Premier Tech made big waves by opting to run their bike sponsor’s gravel bike, the Factor OSTRO Gravel rather than the OSTRO VAM aero bike, despite only being able to fit 32c tyres in it due to the front derailleur clearance.

Now it seems Factor is at it again with a non-standard raceday option for the Queen of the Classics, with the news that Modern Adventure Pro Cycling will race on Sunday aboard the Monza rather than the lighter and more aerodynamic OSTRO VAM.

Greater durability, or just more publicity?

According to a press release from Factor, the reason behind the team riding the Monza, which Factor still classifies as a race bike, is that it is a more durable frame:

“Our rationale for this decision lies in the concept that while the ~2.5-watt aero penalty moving from the OSTRO VAM to the MONZA doesn’t put the rider into a non-competitive position, a mishap leading to a broken frame 100% will put them out of contention…The Monza’s general durability when contrasted with the ultra-light, optimised layups of the ONE and the OSTRO VAM give it an innate “toughness.”

To the surprise of nobody, though perhaps to the disappointment of some, this means the hyper-aero Factor ONE won’t be smashed over the cobbles; it’s just too stiff, it seems:

“That’s because the ONE has much deeper tube sections, a wider/deeper fork situated more directly under the rider’s hands, and it lacks the deflection from the bar/frame interface since the steerer is removed in this configuration.” The statement explained.

The Monza does, on paper, seem like a decent Roubaix option. The 34mm tyre clearance, coupled with the team's SRAM sponsorship and near-certain 1x configuration means Modern Adventure could probably run a 35c tyre on the day if they so wished, though as they are Michelin sponsored and the Power Cup race tyre only goes up to a 32c (unless there’s something new in the works) that is what we expect to see on the brand’s Black Inc. wheels.

It is probably worth outlining that there is no implication that Factor is worried that the OSTRO VAM would snap at random during the course of the race, but given the propensity of crashes, especially worrying given the weather forecast, there is a greater likelihood of a frame being put out of action after an unscheduled lie down with the OSTRO. The Monza is designed to handle everyday use, such as “leaning up in front of a coffee shop”, which perhaps speaks more to the delicate nature of the OSTRO than the outright durability of the Monza.

After using the OSTRO Gravel in 2024, Israel - Premier Tech then opted to use the OSTRO VAM in 2025, which did make the use of a gravel bike feel a little like a publicity stunt from a team that wasn’t ever going to be in contention at the pointy end of the race. Whether this is the same situation will perhaps come down to what Human Powered Health uses in the women’s race. Tellingly, Modern Adventure’s general manager, George Hincapie, outlines the team’s aims first and foremost as just getting everyone to the end:

“We’d love to have as many of our riders as possible finish our first Paris-Roubaix; that’s the main goal. If we could get one or two riders in the top 20 in the process, that would be a dream scenario for us.”

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Pinarello has today issued a statement in response to the snapped handlebar issue experienced by Filippo Ganna at Wednesday's Dwars Door Vlaanderen, before claiming the victory.

In the closing stages of the race, with 38km to go and prior to blasting past Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) at the last possible moment for the win, the Ineos Grenadiers rider was forced to swap bikes after the ride-hand drop portion of his Pinarello Dogma F cockpit hung loose.

Held in place by the brake hose and bar tape, the drop portion of the bar was bent backwards out of shape. Moments before, the Italian was seen on the race's TV footage moving it with minimal force, after leaning the bike against the team car while he waited for its replacement.

However, in a statement to Cyclingnews from Pinarello, a spokesperson has explained, "after an initial analysis, the damage appears to have been caused by excessive tightening of the brake lever clamp, leading to failure of the handlebar around the lever clamp."

That should reassure owners of the Pinarello Dogma F, and indeed the Pinarellos F9, Grevil MX, and Dogma GR, which also utilise cockpits from Pinarello's in-house component brand, MOST.

If ever there was a reason to buy a torque wrench, this is it. In layperson's terms, it means the mechanics who built the bike didn't do it properly. The shifter & brake lever hood from his Shimano Dura-Ace groupset needs to be clamped around the carbon fibre handlebar using a metal band built into the design of the shifter. It then needs to be tightened to a specified torque using the in-built allen key.

Leave it too loose and the band won't hold it in place sufficiently, and the whole shifter hood can move around while riding. Too tight, and the carbon fibre of the handlebar can be damaged, and when combined with riding over cobbles that damage can quickly be exacerbated and lead to complete failure, as is the case here.

Cyclingnews has contacted Ineos Grenadiers for more details.

Notably, this was the second bike change in quick succession for the Italian, after he was forced to stop just 9km prior with a broken front wheel. The wheel's fault remains unknown at this stage.

Despite the setbacks, Ganna managed to ride back to the front of the race on both occasions – albeit with the help of a 'sticky bottle' on the first. He then caught race leader Wout Van Aert just metres before the finish line to take an extraordinary win; his first in a one-day Classic.

While punctures are a regular occurrence and broken wheels aren't uncommon, it's rare to see handlebars break in WorldTour racing, but this event isn't without precedent.

Perhaps the best-known incident in recent history was when Mathieu Van der Poel's handlebar snapped in the finale of Le Samyn in 2021. That led to a mass recall by Canyon and a redesign of its squared-off handlebar and proprietary clamp system.

Hugo Hofstetter, the French rider currently at NSN Cycling Team, suffered two broken handlebars in quick succession – one on either side for good measure – while riding the Bianchi bike of his previous team, Arkea-Samsic at GP Denain in 2023.

Both of those were caused by crashes, and he later abandoned the race.

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A series of mechanical and bike issues for Filippo Ganna left the Italian forced to battle back hard to stay in contention in Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday, with a broken wheel and subsequent bike change, followed in quick succession by another bike change, with a handlebar that had somehow snapped.

Ganna, one of the co-leaders for Ineos Grenadiers in the mid-week cobbled Classic, was looking perfectly at ease before the double dose of trouble struck.

The Italian star first apparently needed a bike change when his front wheel broke with 47 kilometres to go.

He fought back from that incident and looked to be in good condition even as racemaker Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was radically upping the pace. However, things then got even more complicated for the 29-year-old.

He was then seen easing up on the right-hand side of the road at 38km to go, waiting once again for his team car. TV images then showed that the right side of the handlebars were broken, and Ganna gestured the issue to the team by wobbling it with his hand.

Mechanics rushed to provide Ganna with a replacement bike from the roof rack but the delay was heightened by the prior issues. It was only after 13 kilometres that Ganna was able to get back on for good.

Cyclingnews reached out to Pinarello about Ganna’s handlebar, to which a representative said following the race: “After an initial analysis, the damage appears to have been caused by excessive tightening of the brake lever clamp, leading to failure of the handlebar around the lever clamp.”

Physically, Ganna was anything but affected by the incidents long-term with the Italian finally claiming the victory that had eluded him for so long in the Belgian Classics by out-sprinting Van Aert in spectacular style at the finish.

In a race run off at a searing average speed of 48.5km, Ganna first drove across to the chasing group led by teammate Magnus Sheffield in pursuit of the Van Aert and the Niklas Larsen (Unibet Rose Rockets) two-up break at the head of the race. Then after the chasing group reformed, the Italian bridged across to Van Aert in the closing kilometre before blasting home for glory.

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Recently we brought you the news that Alpecin-Premier Tech were racing aboard a new, unreleased, and far more racy Canyon Endurace. Until now though, their talismanic leader, Mathieu van der Poel, hasn’t had the chance to ride it in a race situation, but he has been spotted aboard it for today’s E3 Saxo Classic.

Given the proximity to both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, it seems extremely likely that the flying Dutchman is using E3 as a race-test of his cobbles setup ahead of Holy Week.

The new Endurace – if it is indeed going to replace the existing model rather than sit alongside it – is clearly much more race-oriented and aerodynamic.

Van der Poel has won Roubaix in the last three consecutive years aboard his usual Aeroad, but in 2025 he was run very close by Tadej Pogačar until the Slovenian crashed out on a corner in the closing stages of the race. Pogačar, as we have reported on recently, looks to be totally changing up his cobble setup for a second charge at the Hell of the North, opting for his aero Y1Rs, as confirmed by his mechanic, with the widest possible tyres crammed into the frame and fork.

The new Endurace will have been in development for some time, and so isn’t a direct response to a change in Pogačar’s setup, but it certainly opens the door to a Roubaix arms race, and may herald a return to the Roubaix-specific bikes of old if he can hold off for a fourth consecutive victory.

A Roubaix arms race, or just a new bike?

In days gone by it was not uncommon to see Roubaix raced by many riders aboard cyclocross bikes. Mat Hayman’s famous victory aboard a standard Scott Foil aero bike ushered in a new era of aero bikes taking on the cobbles, a trend that has somewhat gone unchecked ever since, as the course is almost entirely pan-flat.

In recent years with tyre dynamics becoming the new frontier of performance, pro teams have looked to cram ever larger tyres into their frames, with 35mm being the general ceiling on many aero bikes, especially when running Shimano groupsets, as the front derailleur tends to be the width-limiting factor before the chainstays.

The problem now is that wider tyres are less aerodynamic, despite offering rolling resistance, comfort, and control advantages over the savage cobble sections. As such, the modern aero bikes are optimised around 28c or 30c tyres, which is what the pros use for 99% of racing scenarios.

The new Endurace looks to my eyes, and to yours too I suspect, like an Aeroad but with bigger tyre clearances, and a bike that to some degree will have been tailor made for the cobbled races of the Spring Classics. Van der Poel still seems to insist on using 44cm handlebars, despite the new Endurace seemingly coming with a new, narrower aero cockpit.

Whether we see this kick start a new era of Roubaix-specific bikes I think depends mostly on if he wins or not. If he does then it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see Colnago rushing to develop a similarly cobble-happy aero machine, but if Pogačar wins then the impetus to do so may be greatly reduced.

What I think will be the most interesting bike at Roubaix, however, will be whatever is underneath the Visma-Lease A Bike riders.

Visma, gravel bikes, and the rogue third option

Gravel bikes at Roubaix aren’t a new phenomenon, and they draw heavily on the tropes of the ‘cross bikes of old with bigger tyres and slightly more languid geometry. Israel-Premier Tech used the Factor Ostro Gravel in 2024, though were hamstrung by the Shimano derailleur issue making it more of a headline-grabber than an actual performance gain.

In recent years we’ve seen the men’s Visma squad do recon aboard the aero S5, before opting for the more endurance-oriented Celvélo soloist for race day, at odds with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s S5 setup to take the win in the women’s race.

Since the dust has settled on last year's race, Cervélo released a new Aspero gravel bike with a whopping 37-watt saving over the old version thanks to an aero-first design, and a relatively conservative 45mm tyre capacity given the trend towards tyres measured in inches rather than millimetres.

It’s not a huge leap to suggest that the new Aspero, dressed up with deep wheels and wide tyres, could open up a second front in the equipment war. It certainly looks more aero than the Soloist, and the aeroification of every bike genre from road, through all-road to gravel bikes means that slowly more and more teams should have the option of a much more adept Roubaix bike in coming years without brands having to invest in something implicitly or explicitly ‘Roubaix specific’.

Tadej Pogačar has been ahead of the curve in many modern cycling trends. He was an early adopter of short cranks and, likewise, his use of wider tyres on the road. But one area where he has been left behind in recent years has been in his use of a different bike on the cobbles to his standard race machine.

Last year, while Mathieu van der Poel was aboard a Canyon Aeroad, Pogačar ditched his new Colnago Y1Rs for the older V4Rs. Wout van Aert, despite doing recon aboard the more aero Cervélo S5, opted for the more endurance-oriented Soloist along with the rest of his team, but most other teams were aboard their standard aero machines.

This year, confirmed by his mechanic in an interview where it was also revealed that the Slovenian superstar won Milan-San Remo on a cracked frame, he will race aboard Colnago’s aero machine, and an Instagram post from the man himself reveals the setup is pushing the limits of what it can handle to the very extreme.

The radical Y1Rs first appeared at the tail end of 2024, with Pogačar using it for early-season races in 2025 before he mysteriously swapped back to the V4Rs for the cobbled and Ardennes classics.

Speculation online was rife as to whether he preferred the handling of the V4Rs that he was more used to, as the geometry of the Y1Rs was something of a departure from the Colnago road bikes he’d have ridden his whole professional career, or whether after initial testing in those early races the aero bike went back to Colnago for some tweaks before its return for the pre-Tour race block and the Tour de France itself.

Whatever the reason, since its return, it hasn’t been swapped out again despite Colnago updating the V4Rs to the V5Rs, and the use of it to ride to victory at Strade Bianche shows it’s at least usable on rougher roads.

Pogacar’s mechanic confirmed that this year he will use his aero bike for the cobbles:

"Before the Tour of Flanders, we will do another tour of Roubaix. There, we have been collecting data that the sports department needs to calculate what equipment and settings are optimal."

According to our contact at Colnago, this will be his fourth recon of the year, evidencing not only his, but his team's commitment to winning the race after finishing 2nd on debut last year.

"Tadej has already decided to compete with the Model Y [the Y1Rs], which he has not yet raced in Roubaix. That is why we repeated the ride on the cobblestones many times, we tested different tyre widths and pressures. In addition, the sponsors promised us that we would get material adapted for riding on cobblestones for this race."

From Pogacar’s Instagram post, we can see that he has absolutely maxed out the tyre capacity of the bike. Shots of the tyres in the back of the team car reveal that he is using Continental GP5000 S TR tyres, and we suspect these must be the new 35mm variety. They’re so tight there’s basically no room for anything besides the Roubaix dust to pass between tyre and fork. At the rear, the tolerance is equally minimal, but it appears still possible with a 2x setup.

At Milan-San Remo, he stealthily ran a 1x setup, and we expect this was something of a test run for Roubaix given the mostly flat parcours. Shimano doesn’t offer 1x setups out of the box, but with an aftermarket CarbonTi chainring and a K-Edge chain keeper, it is perfectly possible. Given we often see that the front derailleur clearance is the limiting step when it comes to tyre clearance, and that he is still running 2x in this post, it is entirely possible that he is running a larger front tyre than the rear, perhaps a 32/35mm split.

His usual 3D printed, aero computer mount has been swapped out for what appears to be a bronze-anodised alloy model to reduce the risk of it snapping, and the bar tape around the hoods also appears to have been double-wrapped too, which is very much the norm for Roubaix, though not for Flanders.

One final mod is that he appears to have swapped his race-day, $300,000 Richard Mille watch for a smart watch. The 2025 edition of Paris-Roubaix saw the crown of the watch cut into the back of Pogačar’s hand badly enough to cause noticeable bleeding, so while the luxury watch brand is a high profile sponsor of the team it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see the Slovenian either opt to go without a timepiece on race day, or add some extra padding to the back of his wrist for extra protection, in much the same way as we saw him adding foam to the underside of the levers of his 2025 Paris-Roubaix bike.

A brand new Canyon Endurace has been spotted today at the Ronde Van Brugge race in Belgium as the main block of Belgian Classics kicks off.

Detailed footage of the new bike was first shared on Instagram by Daniel Benson's Cycling Substack, in a linked post with Bikeradar.

The Endurace has long been Canyon's endurance-focused machine, blending speed and comfort, with the most recent model being launched in 2023. However, it isn't often used in races by Canyon pro teams. Mathieu van der Poel and his teammates, as well as other Canyon athletes, always race on the brand's aero bike, the Aeroad.

This new Endurace, however, looks extremely similar to the Aeroad, but we can tell it's an Endurace by zooming into the bike's seat tube.

It would appear that Canyon has readied this bike to coincide with the start of the Classics.

If you are thinking what I'm thinking, we can perhaps expect an even faster Endurace, but with boosted tyre clearances to save watts on the cobblestones, particularly with Paris-Roubaix on the horizon.

Cyclingnews has reached out to Canyon, and a spokesperson for the brand confirmed that the new bikes would be used for the Spring Classics period, starting with Ronde Van Brugge today. It sounds like Alpecin-Premier Tech were meant to first use the bikes at E3 Saxo Classic on Friday, but have started using them a few days early.

The brand also explained that more Canyon-sponsored teams would be using the bikes for the upcoming Classics races and that we can expect more information soon.

It looks similar to an Aeroad, but on closer inspection, it's definitely a new Endurace. The key giveaway is the model name written on the rear of the seat tube, which can be seen in the video above. Main differences between the two bikes also include the lack of a sculpted seat tube cutaway, and some of the frame tube profiles also appear to be slightly less aggressive than the Aeroad.

Mathieu van der Poel stands on the cusp of greatness this spring. He'll be attempting to take his fourth Flanders and Roubaix titles. As a long-time Canyon athlete, it's possibly fair to speculate that some of the new bike's design (if he rides it) is to help him go fast this spring. It appears speed has still been a key priority, and that is what pro riders want.

Separately, we also spotted a curious Canyon handlebar being used by Van der Poel himself lately, which we have photos of below.

On March 17th, Mathieu van der Poel posted an Instagram story of him riding along a canal path. What jumped out was the new handlebars he was riding with, and quite possibly teasing.

The bar has a much different shape and profile from the Canyon CP0048 integrated handlebar that is currently used on the top spec Endurace and Allroad bikes.

We also reached out to Canyon for information on this bar, and the brand supplied a statement indicating it was a prototype. It seems logical to expect that we'll see this bar appear on the new Endurace.

"Our elite-level athletes and teams support us by testing innovative prototypes and pre-production developments for many of our race-winning bikes. We rely on studying these real-world testing conditions to ensure any developments make the grade at the highest level and that they may eventually be presented to consumers.

"We aren't currently releasing any further information about this product, but we are excited to see how it performs," the brand said.

We also spotted a minor update to the Aeroad Van der Poel was riding at Opening Weekend. Canyon has changed the frame to make it SRAM UDH hanger compatible, but confirmed it was just a minor tweak, rather than an all-new bike. Van der Poel and some of his teammates were also riding on prototype Dura-Ace wheels at that race.

Tadej Pogačar's Milan-San Remo victory was already extraordinary for a number of reasons but it now looks even more so, with information emerging that he rode to victory on a damaged bike.

According to the UAE Team Emirates-XRG mechanic Boštjan Kavčnik, who spoke to Slovenian newspaper Delo, Pogačar didn't just rip his skinsuit in the dramatic crash ahead of the Cipressa, he also cracked his frame.

"The rear fork was damaged, but fortunately it didn't come loose," Kavčnik is quoted as saying.

We've run his quotes through Google Translate, but we assume he's referring to the rear triangle, namely the seat stay or chain stay, or where they meet at the dropout, on the left-hand side of the bike - the side he fell onto in his crash - although it's not clear exactly which part of the frame was broken. Cyclingnews has reached out to the team for clarity.

It was clearly not a catastrophic failure, but Kavčnik hinted that Pogačar was lucky it held up.

"If Tadej had known what condition the bike was in, he wouldn't have been descending so uncompromisingly that even Tom Pidcock had a hard time following him."

What's more, there was also the suggestion that the bike was slowing him down. "His frame broke in the fall, and the disc rubbed against the brake surface," Kavčnik added.

This would make Pogačar's record time on the Cipressa, which was already astonishing given he had to chase back through the bunch, often taking the long way round corners, even more other-worldly. Likewise, to drop Mathieu van der Poel on the Poggio and beat Tom Pidcock in a sprint on a cracked frame and losing precious watts to disc brake rub would elevate his performance even higher.

Another factor is that Pogačar apparently had to reset his gears after his Shimano Di2 rear derailleur went into crash mode, effectively locking him in gear. After a spin to check the rear wheel was moving freely, Pogačar could be seen labouring in a heavy gear as he got going again, and would have needed to hold down the button on his Di2 junction box somewhere in his cockpit while on the move in order to unlock his rear derailleur again.

"Tadej crashed onto the left side [of the bike], which has no gearshift, but the crash mode was still activated in the event of a fall. Tadej put it back into gear himself, he didn't feel anything else was wrong, so we didn't change the bike," Kavčnik said.

Pogačar only had one derailleur, as he opted for a 1x set-up in a bid to shave off a few grams and grab marginal aerodynamic gain. He also bucked the trend of wider tyres and narrowed his 30mm tyres from last year's race to a 28mm pair.

"This bike is now going into Tadej's special collection, even though it's damaged," said Kavčnik.

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In recent years, the sentiment toward the cobbled Spring Classics is that they're getting easier as a result of bikes getting better. The trend towards wider tyres, nowadays 10mm bigger than those being used just a decade ago, certainly smooth out some of the lumps and bumps, but the GP Denain just delivered a cruel reminder that the cobbles are no joke.

With 22km of the race to go, Belgian Jules Hesters (Team Flanders-Baloise) was forced to ride a cobbled sector without a saddle, after his snapped off as a result of being rattled over the rough ground.

TV cameras spotted Hesters riding at the back of the peloton, standing on the pedals, while tackling the Avesnes-le-Sec à Hordain cobbled sector.

Atop the now nude seatpost, all that remained was a section of his saddle clamp, spinning freely in the breeze. The rest of it had clearly broken and ejected itself into the countryside alongside the saddle it was supposed to be holding in place.

Commentators on the TNT Sports live stream added a succinct but apt: "That's unfortunate," before stating the obvious: "That is going to be a very uncomfortable ride."

The saddle clamp on the Eddy Merckx 525 race bike is made using a common method that braces the saddle rails from above, and clamps it down onto a curved 'base' which sits in a groove at the top of the seatpost.

The whole mechanism is held together by two vertical hex key bolts, often tightened from below, clamping the two horizontal braces down onto the rails to secure it.

The system relies on both bolts to be in place, so in the case of one breaking – either as a result of an overtightened bolt, or feasibly also a too-hard impact with a cobblestone – the whole system will then be able to work free.

Assuming it was an impact with a cobblestone, and not simply negligence on behalf of the team mechanic, it doesn't bear thinking about the force of the impact between the Belgian's nether regions and the saddle that caused the failure to happen.

The GP Denain is about as severe a road race course you'll find. It's known widely as the Mini Paris-Roubaix, and is a 200-kilometre route that takes in many of the same roads as the Monument, especially in the latter parts where Hesters' incident took place.

Despite the incident, however, the Belgian rode on to finish 44th, and although he did eventually stop to get a besaddled spare bike from the team car, he was forced to ride aboard his broken machine to the end of the cobbled sector first.

Mathieu van der Poel is no cycling Luddite, but the Classics rider and eight-time cyclo-cross World Champion refuses to follow the trend for narrow, aerodynamic handlebars and turned-in brake lever hoods.

"I just use the handlebars I've used all my life," the Alpecin-Premier Tech leader, whose bars stand out in the peloton due to their width and retro look, explained to Cyclingnews at Tirreno-Adriatico.

"They don't seem wider to me. I think they look wider because so many other riders have gone narrower."

Most riders use handlebars that are close to the new 400mm outside-to-outside minimum width enforced by the UCI, with a 10 degrees inward tilt and a minimum width of 280mm between the brake levers.

The UCI officials do not need to use their special measuring device on van der Poel's bike. His handlebars and levers are clearly legal.

According to Cyclingnews' contact at Canyon, he uses the CP0049 Pro Pace cockpit. This uses a modular system that enables a width adjustment, which the Canyon website states ranges from 350mm to 400mm (centre to centre at the hoods), via drops that can be detached from the central 'T Bar' stem.

However, Cyclingnews has measured Van der Poel's handlebars in the past at 420mm centre-to-centre, seen here on his custom Canyon Aeroad at the Tour de France, suggesting he may be running a custom-made, wider variant of this already pro-focused component.

In the pits at Tirreno-Adriatico, a helpful Alpecin-Premier Tech team mechanic grabbed his tape measure to confirm the current width of Van der Poel's handlebars for Cyclingnews, confirming a measurement of 450mm outside-to-outside. This is paired with almost no lever turn-in.

In contrast, teammate and team sprinter Jasper Philipsen uses bars that measure 410mm.

As a result of his steadfastness, Van der Poel likely has a slightly worse aerodynamic position on the bike and so needs a few more watts compared to his rivals, but that does not seem to be a problem for him.

Van der Poel attacked on the gravel stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on Tuesday and won the sprint to the line, beating Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). He then won the sprint on stage 4 on Thursday against rival Wout van Aert and the eternally aero Filippo Ganna.

"Maybe I lose a little bit of aerodynamic advantage, but I like to have the power when I stand on the pedals," he told Cyclingnews.

"I'm used to the size, and so for now I'm sticking to wide bars."

Fresh from a strong top 10 placing at Strade Bianche on Sunday, Wout van Aert, as well as his Visma Lease a Bike teammate Matteo Jorgensen, seemingly threw caution to the wind today by running double Reserve Infinity disc wheels for the opening time trial stage of Tirreno-Adriatico.

Van Aert paired the wheels with a huge 1x aero chainring and the bulbous Giro Aerohead helmet, but the super aero combination wasn't enough to net either rider the stage victory and leader's jersey.

The Belgian rider finished in 59th place, 1:10 down on eventual winner Filippo Ganna, though granted Van Aert may not have been going flat out. His teammate Jorgensen fared better and finished in 16th place, 44 seconds back on a rampaging Ganna.

A single rear disc wheel is a common sight in pro time trial events, and the aerodynamic rear wheels are most usually paired with a deep-section or perhaps tri-spoke front wheel.

The use of a front disc wheel, however, whilst common for indoor track events, is highly unusual on the road, and double discs have not been seen much in pro road time trials for several decades.

The generally accepted wisdom is that the completely solid nature of the front wheel impacts front-end handling and inertia, whilst also making the bike more susceptible to strong gusts of wind, already a factor when a rider is using tri bars.

Ultimately, it seems that the potential risks and handling issues created by a double disc setup outweigh any available performance advantage for most.

It seems that Van Aert is definitely confident using the setup, and after a dramatic outing two years ago at the Paris Olympics using the combination, he decided to do the same again today. The use of the wheels in today's event may also be a test run for other events this year that the Belgian is targeting.

This isn't the first time Wout van Aert has used a double disc combination on the road. Much to the cycling world's surprise, the Belgian star brought out the combination at the Paris Olympics in summer 2024 to take a bronze medal on the rain-soaked streets of Paris. Back in 2024, Van Aert claimed the team had found a 17-watt advantage from the system.

“When we tested it in the wind tunnel, there were different wind angles and speeds, but double discs were 17 watts faster than a normal time trial wheel. That's quite a lot.” He explained at the time.

It's clear that Van Aert and his team believe there's a performance advantage in using the combination, and most riders would probably sign on the dotted line for a 17-watt improvement.

Perhaps the two-year gap between Van Aert using the combination again points to a need for the conditions and course to suit double disc wheels. It also seems like the type of combination that just isn't considered much (apart from by Visma), there can't be very many current riders out there who must know what running double discs on the road feels like.

Perhaps now with wider rims and better wheel/tyre fitments, larger volume tyres and improved aerodynamics, double discs are no longer the handful they are perceived to be in some conditions.

It's also worth mentioning that the recently updated UCI wheel depth rules don't apply to individual time trials. Riders can use far deeper rims in time trials than the maximum 65mm depth that's permitted for road races.

The Spring Classics are regularly seen as a hotbed of tech and innovation, and for good reason. The long distances over brutal cobbled and gravel roads create extreme conditions that push not only the riders to the limit, but their equipment too.

As a result, teams are often forced to adapt, innovate, and sometimes... hack.

This has shrunk in necessity in recent years as bikes have become evermore capable and tyres have grown ever wider, but it's still a regular find in the pits at races such as Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche and, of course, Paris-Roubaix.

One such recent example can be found on the Cervélo bikes of the Visma-Lease A Bike team, who have been glueing their tubeless tyres into place since last year's Hell of the North.

Cycling innovation is an amusingly circular affair, with seemingly new ideas often found in the didn't catch on section of the history books, but you needn't look far at all to find tyres being glued into place. In fact, it will seem entirely normal to anyone over the age of... seven.

But the difference here is that we're talking about tubeless tyres, rather than tubulars.

Tubular tyres - which, for our younger readers, combine the tyre and inner tube into one piece that is glued into place on a tubular-specific rim - were all but ubiquitous in the WorldTour until the late 2010s. Clinchers, where the inner tube is separate from the tyre, appeared sporadically through the decade and reigned supreme in the amateur space, but it wasn't until Alexander Kristoff stormed to victory at Gent-Wevelgem in March 2019 that tubeless technology earned its first WorldTour win and started gaining legitimate traction (no pun intended).

The seven years since have seen tubeless grow to its own state of ubiquity, with the technology improving and compatibility issues being largely ironed out, save for the ongoing debate around hookless rims.

Tubeless relies on the internal air's outward pressure, and tight tolerances between the rim and the tyre to keep the tyre seated, with sealant inside used to plug smaller punctures, saving the rider the need to stop for a wheel change.

Glue is not a necessary part of this equation, so what are Visma-Lease a Bike up to?

To find out, we asked their Head of Performance Equipment, Jenco Drost, who was quick to affirm his confidence in the Reserve wheels and Vittoria tyres that the team is using.

The team uses the Reserve 57/64 Turbulent Aero wheels, which feature a 'semi hook' bead design to help secure the tyre, and Vittoria's Corsa Pro range of tyres.

"We’ve done enough testing together to be sure it holds up in racing conditions. The tyres seat properly in the hooks, creating a solid and reliable fit. If I had any doubts about this combination, we would have conducted additional testing and worked closely with Vittoria and Reserve to improve it."

Despite the limelight currently being on hookless, Visma has had its own instance of wheels falling foul of the cobbles in high-profile fashion too. In the 2022 edition of Paris-Roubaix, Wout Van Aert and Christophe Laporte both had their Shimano tubular wheels 'taco' – essentially fold in half – under the extremes of riding on cobbles after a puncture.

But despite that incident, and more recent examples such as Fabio Jakobsen's crash at the UAE Tour and Amaury Capiot's incident at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Drost is keen to point out that the rim-tyre interface isn't their motivation for the glue's use.

"The main reason we started doing this was because we observed some pressure loss during the Classic races, where riders experience hard impacts while running lower pressures. For example, in Roubaix we saw cases where a strong impact caused a small crack in the rim.

"Structurally this is still safe to continue racing [ed: though not recommended or endorsed by Cyclingnews] but sometimes the sealant cannot fully close the crack, which results in slow air loss. Glueing helps keep the tyre and sealant sealed during hard impacts at low pressures or in cases of minor wheel damage or burping."

Burping, for those unclear on the term, is where low tyre pressures combined with a hard impact can temporarily dislodge the tyre from the rim and break the airtight seal created by the outward air pressure. This causes some of the air to escape, or 'burp' out, which results in a slight loss in pressure. Over the course of a long race, repeated instances could massively affect the tyre pressure, which can have knock-on effects in rolling resistance and, worse, the ability to control the bike.

"This is also why we do not apply this in normal (no cobble) races, as we haven’t seen situations that require it there. In addition, our riders are confident in the current setup and do not need any extra 'peace of mind'."

This clarification puts paid to any theory or conspiracy that the glue is to help keep the tyre on the rim in the event of a complete flat, as has been rumoured and previously reported.

Many teams rely on an internal foam air liner - the Vittoria Air Liner, in most cases - to help here too. Despite many of the 'failure' images showing the lime green liner wrapped uncouthly around the wheel and frame, this is likely simple evidence of their widespread use, rather than evidence of any fault or blame. It's impossible to know how many punctures they have succeeded in retaining the tyre, because those instances don't make the headlines.

Drost adds his opinions here, too, reiterating his earlier point. "While [the liner] may help keep the tyre seated as an additional benefit, the starting point should always be the tyre-rim combination itself."

Notably, while tubular glue is a rudimentary solution to the problem of tyre pressure regulation, the Dutch team has also been employing an altogether more complex method at Classics races of recent years too. The Gravaa KAPS tyre pressure system enabled riders to inflate tyres while still riding, using a small compressor-of-sorts located in the hub. Unfortunately, the Dutch company has since gone bust, so it's unlikely that we'll see the tech again this year.

As for whether the teams have more cobble-smoothing tricks up their respective sleeves for this year's races, we'll have to wait and see.

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Matthew Brennan stormed to the win at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne yesterday, reinforcing his position as a classics favourite and staking his claim as one of the fastest finishers around.

Brennan raced on the aero Cervélo S5, like the rest of his teammates. Although one Visma development team rider who joined the team was riding a Cervelo Soloist, which you can see in our Opening Weekend tech gallery.

I managed to get near Brennan's bike at the Kuurne finish to take a look at the race-winning machine.

The standout for me was how low and aggressive the front end of the bike was in the flesh. Brennan isn't tall anyway, but his slammed front end is really low.

Brennan raced to the win on 165mm cranks, different front and rear wheel depths, size 41-54 tooth chainrings and 30mm tyres. He also had an interesting stem note on his handlebars, which I managed to get a shot of below.

Demi Vollering claimed a win today in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, making it a fine day for the Dutch, after her countryman Mathieu van der Poel's solo win earlier in the afternoon.

Vollering outsprinted Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney after almost three and a half hours of racing, after the pair ended up off the front after Vollering's efforts on the Muur van Geraardsbergen.

I found Vollering's race-winning Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 race bike post-race, which is custom-painted for the current European road race champion with a yellow, white and blue European jersey livery.

Vollering's machine is a fairly stock model that most tech fans will be familiar with. Specialized pro bikes are often fitted with a suite of the brands in house components from its own brand, Roval, including the wheels and handlebars.

Vollering's bike, which was covered in race splatter, was fitted with 165mm cranks, 32mm tyres and 40-54 tooth chainrings.

The standout tech point on the bike was the pair of 32mm Specialized Turbo Cotton TLR tyres. This is a model which isn't currently on the brand's website, and the Cotton tyres that are listed don't go up to a 32mm size. This seems to point to them being a new model, which we did see a few sets of on both men's and women's bikes at Omloop.

Mathieu van der Poel powered to his first road race victory of the year at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this afternoon. The Dutchman pressed on over the top of the Molenberg climb with 45km to go, skilfully avoiding a crash directly in front of him. This action developed into a three-rider winning breakaway, and the former world road race champion eventually left his companions behind to claim a fine solo win.

Van der Poel has been riding Canyon bikes for years, and has a 10-year deal with the German brand. It's not unusual to see a star of Van der Poel's calibre riding various custom-painted bikes, but today's race-winning machine has several interesting points to go over and could be a sign of things to come for two big brands.

First off, Van der Poel was riding a custom-painted frame that was different to his teammates' blue Canyon Aeroad frames. We'll have more of these in our full tech gallery, which will come out tomorrow. This one has a different CFR logo on the top tube, which refers to Canyon's top spec carbon frames.

This frame, and a few others at the race, also had a different rear drive side dropout. It appears the Aeroad has received an update to make the frame SRAM UDH (universal derailleur compatible) hanger compatible, which is a universal standard for all frame hangers. I asked a Canyon spokesperson if this was a new Aeroad, but they told me that this is just a small update to the frame, for now.

Van der Poel's bike was fitted with a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset with 40/55 tooth chainrings, and once again, the prototype Shimano wheels, which I assume are Dura-Ace that he has been seen using since last year, the wheels have carbon spokes, and the hubs are stamped 'Prototype'.

I had a couple of minutes tops before the team took the bike away, and it was moving off as I took the hub picture, but the 'Prototype' stamp is clear to see. Could this be another sign that a new Dura-Ace groupset is indeed on the way?

Van der Poel's Spring Classics account is open; we just might be seeing more of this bike at the head of affairs again this year.

The sky had already darkened, and the rain was falling as I headed over to the Modern Adventure Cycling truck in the corner of the team's hotel carpark on the eve of Opening Weekend.

The Spring Classics are upon us, and brand-new American team Modern Adventure Pro cycling, founded by ex-pro rider George Hincapie, has secured invitations to at least two of them, including Paris-Roubaix, one of the biggest one-day races on the planet.

Modern Adventure is a UCI second-tier team, but will race Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne this Sunday, and the Hell of the North in a few weeks. The team's riders are also racing aboard the most talked-about road bike of the last year, the hyper-aero Factor One, which must be good for morale ahead of taking on the WorldTour squads, though they also have the Ostro Vam at their disposal.

I shot both models while the team's mechanics worked on them, and they told me the riders tend to want to ride the One and prefer its feel, though some Ostro models were ready to go.