Starting with an intentionally over-exposed image of something that was initially flagged to me by Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's head of engineering, Dan Bigham. It's Victor Campenaerts, who appears to have stuffed his radio under his armpit, rather than putting it on his chest (as is the current trend) or on his back like they did before they realised how bad it was for aerodynamics.

This is one of the NSN mechanics coolly riding a £15k time trial bike across a busy car park, wheeling another £15k time trial bike to his side. You see this in cyclo-cross often, but you've got to appreciate the skill and confidence. And there's definitely some extra risk here.

Speaking of mechanics, I really appreciated José Rodriguez Gil going the extra mile, towelling off the front wheel of each of his riders' bikes in turn, literally lifting the front end of the bike to spin the wheel and cover off all of the tyre, even though the riders were using the bikes to warm up.

There's a lot of talk about aero fabrics and pre-cooling optimisations, but sometimes a bracelet means enough to you that you'll happily wear it, no matter what. Unfortunately, Florian Lipowitz was a little too focused on the task at hand to want to chat, so exactly what this bracelet means to him remains a mystery.

The same applies here to Warren Barguil's bracelet. The word 'dad' give us a clue, but I was unable to find out whether it referred to Barguil's own father Denis, or Warren as a dad himself, in the form of a gift from his own children, Frank and Oscar.

It's unclear what this extra disc is on the Lidl-Trek heart rate monitors. I'm assuming it's a breathing sensor from TymeWear, who are more famously involved with Visma-Lease a Bike, but I can't find any evidence of a partnership between them and Lidl-Trek.

This one's fun, from the Lidl-Trek team. They each had a different coloured strip on their overshoes to help each rider identify other riders, to know when to slot back into the line without needing to look around.

They also had colour-matched stips on their bikes' forks and seatstays to achieve the same goal. This is an idea coined by Alex Dowsett at XDS-Astana, and has the added bonus of making it easier for the team car to see which riders are where, and be quicker to respond if they have an issue.

Here's a photo of Netcompany Ineos' Briton, Josh Tarling, wearing a skinsuit with the zip down the back. Nothing unusual here, right?

But wait... he also has a zip down the front!? Now that's unusual.

I had a lot of time for this TTT Day Plan provided to the Lotto-Intermarché staff, with to-the-minute precision on the schedule for each rider, and rules around who's allowed on the bus, and which car each rider will be travelling in.

Anthony Turgis rocked up to the start area with two (presumably) inhaler sticks up his nose. These are likely doused in menthol or eucalyptus to help open up the airways.

A couple of Van der Poel-isms now. This one was actually in use by the whole Alpecin-Premier Tech team. They had Wahoo Speed sensors fitted to their which I'm told was to improve the accuracy of the speed data being sent to their Wahoo computers. This is because riding in a paceline is more about holding a consistent speed than a set power, especially as you roll through to the front, where your required power increases, but required speed doesn't.

And now Van der Poel's Wahoo computer, ready to roll a few minutes before their start. No fancy metrics, just speed and power. Absolute legend.

Speaking of computers, Netcompany Ineos all had the smallest available option from Garmin; the Edge 130. Smaller is lighter, and presumably more aero too.

Of all the cooling hacks, this one from TotalEnergies went under the radar as Ineos' arms in buckets grabbed the headlines. Instead of the riders warming up under the shade of an awning off the side of the bus, their turbo trainers and rollers were set up in the air-conditioned sanctuary of the mechanics' truck. Smart!

This one also went unnoticed by a lot of people, except Ellis Pullinger (aka CyclingSpy) who pointed out to me that Alpecin-Premier Tech had rigged up a water line into their bus awning to spray mist onto the riders to help them stay cool as they warmed up.

This one was an odd one. Simply placed in the corner of Lotto-Intermarché's allocated bus area at the start of the TTT, they had this gold-coloured bottle, branded with Lotto, Precision Hydration, and Garmin, locked in a perspex box.

I really liked this hack from Visma-Lease a Bike. Each bike had a number sticker placed here on the head top tube. Jamie Lowden initially joked this was a power target, but soon confirmed it's actually the last three digits of the power meter ID, making it much easier to find and pair, when surrounded by dozens of other bikes.

First unveiled by Ineos Grenadiers a couple of seasons back, Tom Pidcock's clearly taken this hack over to Pinarello-Q36.5, as they have started placing the race transponder in the wake of the fork's dropout.

Far from the weirdest helmets on show at a bike race nowadays, but this row of Tudor Pro Cycling's Oakley helmets caught my eye, because when you look closely, they're all slightly different. The shape of each visor and how it interacts with the red shell above it are all slightly different. And I like that the little red covers, yet to be fitted to some of the helmets, are stacked up in the corner.

Excuse me sir, I believe you've got your shorts on inside out… What do you mean they're designed like that?

Red Bull gives you wings! Although when they came up with that slogan, I imagine they had visions of a more impressive bird than a pigeon.

I spotted this at the Bahrain Victorious hotel. It's essentially an ice bath in a van, and I understand it's following the team through the whole race.

Why is this saddle giving emu vibes?

I love a sneaky look inside a mechanics' truck, and here at NSN, this overview of each riders' preferences for what the extra button on a SRAM shifter does. Apparently, every time you swap from 1x to 2x (and swap the power meter with it) it resets and needs re-configuring.

I also love that Visma-Lease a Bike have a collection of staff bikes in each size, so if you want to go for a spin during your workday, you can! Just grab a bike and go.

To wrap this up, I couldn't help but fanboy over seeing Andrés Iniesta's bike, and later Iniesta himself. I refrained from asking for a photo, but my Dad would have been very impressed, so maybe next time.

Speaking of Iniesta, every member of the NSN team - riders and staff - were wearing Mikakus shoes, which is a new shoe brand launched by Iniesta himself and run by his wife Anna Ortiz.

After being refused entry at Ineos, we kicked off properly with a visit to Visma, where the team were happy to let us tour their pit; Vingegaard’s bike had this extra-tidy carbon-fibre computer mount. Probably the neatest we saw on the day.

Slightly less dialled was this Movistar shifter wiring; this wasn’t the cleanest setup on show, and exposed wires can still be seen on some bikes.

The Cofidis teams' Look time trial bikes had some new Campagnolo Super Record time trial equipment fitted, new 1x chainrings, and TT-specific shifters. This was a 64-tooth ring.

Here’s the prototype Specialized Shiv that was on the race; there were a couple of bikes for Evenepoel: one black, one painted in a kind of black-and-white camo.

A very neat sticker covering the pedal axle and, in theory, providing a tiny gain on this Uno-X Ridley; nice work.

We snapped the Lidl-Trek pit before things got crazy. Note the double row of Kickr Headwind fans and misting fans with water bottle feeds to keep the riders comfortable.

It’s always nice to see the mighty Campagnolo Boras at a race, especially in a deep-section version.

Not all teams fit their TT bikes with the same handlebars, but each of Lotto-Intermarche's Orbea bikes had these neat Speedbars installed; note the different ends of the extensions.

Who doesn’t love a rack full of matte black, aggressive-looking time trial bikes? Lotto-Intermarche has gone with Miche 1x chainrings for their Shimano cranks; the great Shimano 1X chainring search continues.

This was a spare Ineos time trial bike; note the modular extension risers, as opposed to a one-piece unit, and electrical tape over what looks like some bolt holes too.

We managed to get close up with the Ineos race bikes later on though, and noticed a couple were running SRM Cybrei carbon cranks with the SRM PM9 power meter unit. The claimed weight for a 170mm version is 340 grams. You're looking at about €2,100 for these, not including the aero chainring.

The non-drive-side crankset hole was taped over to smooth airflow.

There’s still some Ultegra in the race; Caja Rujal had an interesting mix of components on its bikes: Ultegra mechs with bling KMC chains.

This tape was starting to flap on the extension shifters. I hope the team corrected it before the race start.

Movistar bikes had these towelling-style pads velcro'd into their extensions. We initially assumed it was for sweat-wicking and grip when the going got hot, but when the riders arrived at the start ramp, the towels had been doused in icy water to help cool the riders' arms.

This was an interesting setup: a raceware computer mount, with what looks like some kind of heatshrink over the shifters. The computer certainly sat a little prouder than some other teams'.

Tom Pidcock had a custom black and gold Pinarello TT machine. This was his handlebar with what looked like some kind of 3d printed arm pads on the upper extensions.

This clock was set up at Jayco Alula, showing 39.4 degrees Celsius and 30% humidity.

Several teams had these fans that misted water; the cooling game is constantly evolving.

The Orbea Ordu has a modular-looking front end; spot the flat head screws on the upper base bar riser.

This is some of the new Campagnolo Super Record time trial equipment: the shifter pods sit against the brake lever units, and admittedly do look a little bulky.

This mono base bar riser over at Jayco Alula wasn’t one piece. Some teams taped these riser blocks up, but these were left. The computer mount is nice and recessed here; it’s neater than some teams' setups.

We saw a lot of Wattshop handlebars, the company owned by Dan Bigham. The satellite shifters are very neatly integrated here.

Here’s another look at the Campagnolo time trial brake levers. This handlebar had a few wraps of bar tape, not grip tape fitted.

The latest Cube bikes look very aggressive. Total Energies were happy to roll one out for us to have a look at. They also use Carbon-Ti 1x chainrings on their Shimano cranks.

Groupama had these silvery Tri-bar extensions: these could be 3D-printed, given the colour and finish.

Ben O’Connor had this Dash saddle fitted to his matte-black time-trial bike; it is a very light, TT-specific model.

Here’s the front end of another team bike; the hand holds are bolted on at the very ends of the extensions, and a lot are personalised to each rider now. A bit of gel wrapper has been added into the computer mount too - a common fix for rattly or loose computers.

This Movistar disc wheel had a Zipp Tyrewiz pressure monitoring unit; on the front, there was just a regular valve.

Despite using wired shifters, the Caja Rural team had done a fairly good job of keeping it out of the wind.

A similar solution was found here at XDS-Astana too.

Traditional bar tape on aero extensions isn't a common sight these days, but we did find some over at Cofidis, with little holes cut into it for the Campagnolo shift buttons.

Lab 71 denotes Cannondale's top-tier product line, and this bike certainly looked top-tier, although I might suggest they tidy up that seatpost dust cover.

The head tube of the Cube Aerium C:68 TT is unusual. It has a second strut behind the main head tube, presumably to add stiffness, or perhaps to aid airflow off the head tube.

I really like that TotalEnergies have their logo etched into the K-Edge chain catcher - a nice touch.

The Tudor BMC bikes looked dialled; these handlebars are the Wattshop ones that are used by a lot of teams.

I was drawn to this ‘aero fin’ on Marco Haller’s BMC Timemachine Mpc; there are so many cool things to look at on that bike.

The Groupama Wilier Supersonicas have a lot of Miche components fitted, including the tri-spoke and colour-coded aero chainrings.

Alpecin were keeping their bikes under wraps. They had these bikes out for warming up, but they raced on different ones. Van der Poel seemed to have some of the cleanest and most integrated bars on the team. The riders were all eating ice pops just before the start to cool off.

A Super Record 1x chainring is just cool to see; Shimano now stands alone as the last main groupset manufacturer without a big 1x aero ring.

It’s not pretty, but it worked: grip tape and zip ties to keep the satellite shifters in place for this bike. I hope the mechanics cut the ends nice and flush.

I liked these neat base bar grips over at Lotto; they were some of the best-looking and fitting I saw.

An inner tube and neat anti-valve rattle patch on one of the Caja Rujal wheels; the inner tube is alive and well.

Healy’s cockpit was looking pretty dialled, though the front end wasn’t the cleanest of the bikes we saw.

Ineos had smoothed over their thru axles with tape on the race TT bikes; I didn’t see this from many other teams. I doubt mechanics will have been stopping to change wheels mid-race; it would have been a full bike swap. That’s also a new tri-spoke wheel from Scope that was recently released.

The Total Energies Cube bars looked very neat and slick; note the one-piece extensions and lack of individual spacers.

Pidcock had a special black and gold time trial bike that was different from the rest of his squad; Olympic Champion Evenepoel won’t be happy.

Here’s another shot of Pidcock’s handlebars. It looks like the 3D-printed pads used in some helmets now. Perhaps Abus hooked him up.

A fun sticker for De Lie: ‘The bull of Lescheret’

Caja Rujal also use Bikone components and bottom brackets, the same as Team UAE; this isn’t the ‘aero’ bottom bracket Pogačar uses, though; this one has quite large splines.

Even more electrical tape over the squad's riser spacers to neaten things up.

These carbon extensions at Movistar looked neat, but the angle of the bottom riser spacer caught my eye when I saw a gap.

At first I thought this was a problem, but I believe it’s set up deliberately to achieve the desired handlebar angle.

Here’s the inside of that Campagnolo TT shifter again; it’s a little on the chunky side, but look to offer multiple shift options for 1x configurations.

Stockings filled with ice cubes were utilised by lots of teams; and since they were banned by the UCI, they littered the start area floor once squads rolled out.

Pogačar arrived at the warm-up area behind the start ramp in an ice vest, but also in a new helmet from his sponsor MET, and I'm reliably informed he's in a new skinsuit too.

It's not the first time we've seen the helmet, but it's yet to be released by the Italian brand. Interestingly, as he warmed up here, he had an ice sock compressed between his wrists - an efficient area to cool since the veins sit so close to the skin.

Nils Politt had chalk paste on his hands, presumably to help grip when the going got sweaty. He's not the only one...

Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling used it too, but since they applied it to wet hands (see below for why), they needed to use the nearby fan to dry it off. Also notable in this image is their differing skinsuit fabrics.

This helmet also caught our eyes for obvious reasons! It's the new Ultimate Race X from Uvex. The Cofidis rider hadn't yet put the visor on properly, but since this was around 10 minutes before their start, we'll let him off.

I'm told that Evenepoel was also in a new skinsuit. Notice here how the trip strips in the fabric are more closely spaced than those of his teammate next to him.

Victor Campenaerts took the 'pour water over your head' approach to staying cool, but he was also wearing a cut-off pair of aero arm sleeves which were soaking wet. He removed them before the race, though.

The UAE Team Emirates squad all wore these Pissei-branded overshoes, which look really well-fitted to this rider's feet.

I really liked how these Q36.5 overshoes shimmered in the sunlight.

Here's another view: the white fabric is stretched so thin that it's almost become see-through

While most overshoes' trip strips run vertically, those on Paul Seixas's Swissside overshoes ran the opposite way. If you look closely, you can see that he also has socks underneath that do the same.

At Tudor, there was a mix. On the left, a smoother but double-layered fabric, and on the right, a more traditional vertical trip design.

The Visma-Lease a Bike team also used double-layered overshoes, branded up with Nike and Nimbl.

I really liked the design of this Total Energies skinsuit too, with the trip strips forming a V shape behind the helmet.

Five members of the Netcompany Ineos staff rocked up at the start with a trolley cart full of gear, and proceeded to unfurl these folding tables and place these tubs on top. Everyone watching on was confused.

They were subsequently filled with cold water, and all of the riders sat for a few minutes with their arms submerged before they set off to race.

The temperature was measured here at 8.8°C, but I expect the target was more of a broad range.

Ganna and Tarling had a brief chat, but mostly sat in silence. Interestingly you can see here that the two riders were using different visors on their Kask helmets

Ganna looked super focussed thoughout his time in the start area, and he very nearly delivered his team the yellow jersey come the finish, losing just eight seconds to Jonas Vingegaard.

There are a couple of things going on here. Firstly, check out that additional strut that sits behind the head tube is an unusual frame design. Secondly, the plate that sits at the top of the base bar's stem to hide the cables is sitting proud of the base bar itself. Hopefully the mechanics get round to fixing that before stage 1.

Little and large! TotalEnergies had two different handlebar options, and they couldn't be more different.

The front end of Remco Evenepoel's new Specialized Tarmac SL9, with his Olympic champion gold colourway, looks really smart.

The new Bianchi Specialissima is a smart-looking machine, and this dark green colourway was really subtle in certain light…

…but it popped into this stunning shimmering flake in the sun.

I also have a lot of time for Movistar's new paint scheme.

"Assemble Before Flight" – this is a nice touch on the DT Swiss disc wheels used by the Uno X team.

This TGale TT saddle is a cool-looking thing, and it pops nicely in this photo against the yellow of the Visma Lease a Bike bus.

Visma goes through the effort of adding a little 3D-printed bung into the hole on the back of the seatpost sliding rail. Presumably a marginal aero win.

I also really like the addition of the component weight on this mono riser and TT extensions.

Another thing I really like is the team's newfound attention to detail, and this simple but neat method of improving aerodynamic performance. This bolt isn't ideally placed, so the team has stuck a small circle of tape over it. It's the perfect size to cover the hole with no unnecessary extra.

The same can be found here, with the saddle clamp adjustment dial, which sits behind this well-shaped sticker.

This one's a little more arbitrary, with a simple strip of what I assume is electrical tape, but it's enough to hide the hex bolts that hold this aero WolfTooth chain catcher in place.

We found the same on Pogačar's seatpost clamp bolt too; this is another very neat touch.

The rear derailleur on Josh Tarling's time trial bike had the hole in the rear mech arm taped over.

Tim Merlier went another route by snapping his off! Of course, this wasn't intentional, and it was about to be replaced.

And Filippo Ganna even had the chainring spider bolts taped, although the excess material here feels a little counterproductive.

This one at Cofidis was also a little counterproductive. Taping up the mount only to then bolt another one to the underside. This is presumably because the original position made it hard to quickly glance down and see when the rider's hands were in position.

TotalEnergies was getting in on the tape-over-holes action too. This is over the top tube bento box mount holes on their time trial bike.

Likewise, Uno-X, whose time trial bike had this underneath the base bar.

While we're on Uno-X briefly, I had a lot of time for these low-profile bottle cage bolts.

Likewise, this 3D-printed out-front mount is complete with Uno X branding incorporated into the design.

Perhaps my favourite tape-over-hole hack, though, was this duo from Visma Lease a Bike. First, the hole on the SRAM Red AXS chainset is quite large and presumably quite draggy. Not anymore it isn't.

And second, the inner face of the pedal axle is another hole that presumably catches more air than you'd want at the pinnacle of time trials. Jonas Vingegaard's team has clearly put a lot of effort into his bike setup.

Tape has many uses, of course, and this is probably more a bodge than a hack. My guess is that the tape unravelled mid-training ride and was ripped off, then taped up as a get-home solution.

To briefly jump back to TotalEnergies, here's an amusing find. This sticker is on the seat tube of their prototype frame Litening frame. I'm no expert, but I don't think that's a fork.

Another amusing find: Most teams simply set out their bottles on a table before filling them all with water. At Lidl-Trek, that's not possible because the bottles don't stand up on their own. Instead, SRAM supplied dozens of these folding bottle carriers. The folding action helps with the bottles' lean, but the carry handle was quickly nixed.

More Lidl-Trek for a moment. The team is racing aboard this really eye-catching paint job, which celebrates Trek's 50th anniversary.

We're told that each of the squares represents a point in Trek's history, and that all of the pre-orders for the frames being made available to the public are unfortunately sold.

And while we're at Lidl-Trek, check out the new hubs they're rocking. These Tactic hubs are a £1000+ upgrade per bike and help drop some weight.

They've also added new aero chain catchers from Leap Components. I really like that they specify what size chainrings they can be used with.

I was surprised to see the €559 SRM X-Power pedals, which were designed in conjunction with Q36.5 shoes. Their headline figure, besides the high price, is the 9.7mm stack height, including the cleat.

They've also been reading Alex Dowsett's playbook and have introduced a different coloured strip on each time trial bike to make it easier for each rider to know where to slot back into the line when they're riding at max heart rate.

They also had a clever jig, which is designed to enable teams to perfectly align riders' cleats. A real step up from the Ergon tool that I have at home.

And to wrap up our time at Lidl-Trek, just take a moment to appreciate the neatness of this mechanic's tool layout.

As has probably become clear, I really like acts of attention to small details, and this one is a good example of that. The seatpost dust cover on the Wilier Filante SLR has been replaced with one that also incorporates a race number holder. That's really cool.

Another neat find was this Schwalbe Clik tubeless valve. I really like the two-part nut that holds it against the rim.

I'd also not seen these Topeak valves in person before I spotted this on Biniam Girmay's bike. They looked quite smart.

Speaking of Girmay's bike, the team unveiled this new paint scheme earlier in the week.

I found a few other neat things at NSN. Not least this bike for team owner and footballing sensation, Andrés Iniesta.

This was inside the team NSN Team mechanics' truck. The mechanic told me that they regularly have to set up riders' groupset configurations and how they pair with Hammerhead computers. This sheet helps them remember who wants what.

This checklist was nearby too, helping mechanics in the pre-race chaos.

I also saw this Selle Italia Watt triathlon saddle at the NSN hotel. The addition of 3D-printed lattice material on the underside is an unusual touch.

Over at Picnic PostNL, one of their workstands was upgraded with the best quick-release lever in all of cycling.

At Ineos, there were a few new-to-market products on show. First, this Scope Trispoke, which the Dutch brand released just this week.

And second, these helmets from KASK are new too. The details remain scarce but we'll do some digging over the next few days to try and find out more.

Another new helmet is this one from POC, the apparent heir to the Tempor throne. I was allowed to pick it up and was amazed by how light it was. I'm told it's in the region of 350g.

This is a curious one on Tadej Pogačar's time trial bike. Shimano's base bar Di2 brake lever/shifter comes with a single shift button on either side, and relies on 'Synchronised Shift' to change the front mech. Pro riders prefer to have the choice when to shift, though, so it's common to add a second 'satellite' shifter. However, Pogačar's bike was set up 1X, so these added shifters are just added weight at this point. Does it mean he'll actually run 2x on race day? We'll have to wait and see.

Pogačar's bike was otherwise outfitted with a full package of titanium from Carbon-Ti, including the thru-axle and derailleur hanger seen here.

He was also kitted out with this so-called aero-threaded bottom bracket from Bikone. The aero-ness comes from its completely smooth shell, where most have splines or ridges to allow a tool to grasp it.

Speaking of aero, the most aero rider in the world (unproven but widely claimed) has a new bike and a new front wheel, as Specialized's Shiv TT is getting an upgrade.

I also really like how these extensions look. The shape just somehow looks better than everyone else's. Spot the customised grips too.

I also really liked these changeout jerseys that Matteo Jorgensen and Victor Campenaerts wore at the team's presentation. They're part of a collaboration between Nimbl and Nike, which also includes a pair of €650 shoes.

A trio of tech from Tom Pidcock now: First, a fairly common sight in the WorldTour now, but he was the only rider on his team to use the Leap Components aero out-front computer mount.

Second, the team has clearly borrowed the race transponder hack that we first saw being used by Ineos a couple of seasons ago. It places the transponder behind this fork tab, hiding it in the wake behind the fork rather than taping it to the side, where it adds more aero drag.

And third, he has his name on his wheels, but perhaps more interesting than that is that he's using Vittoria's TPU inner tubes, rather than setting up his tyres tubeless.

We got to spend some time with the new Van Rysel bike of the French hope, Paul Seixas. We'll bring you a fuller gallery in the coming days, but my initial takeaway is that it looked really unfinished. The stickers were already beginning to peel away, and the seatpost clamp was left exposed. It's only a prototype bike, of course, but I'd expect more from a team with such a prodigious rider with a realistic chance of a podium on his first outing.

A lot of effort had gone into the setups at Caja Rural. For example, Bikone had supplied new pulley wheels for their Dura-Ace derailleurs; they had bling KMC chains, and although not shown here, bikes were fitted with lighter-weight Overfast thru axles.

There was also a prototype bike from their sponsor, MMR, at the hotel. We were told that it wasn't yet approved by the UCI, so it wouldn't be used in the race, but Fernando Gaviria had been out training on it earlier in the day.

In the same hotel, Alpecin were unusually cagey about their time trial bikes, despite not being the new Speedmax that has broken cover at the Challenge Roth triathlon this weekend. They had Scope wheels with Shimano branding (as we've seen already this year), Wahoo Speed sensors on their hubs to help riders keep pace more smoothly, and they'd done similar to Lidl-Trek, with different coloured stickers for each bike. Here, though, you can see new Dura-Ace logos under this black tape on the wheels, which on closer inspection were labelled as WH-R9370.

Mathieu van der Poel's bike here, and there's a real classic aesthetic to the drop profile of his new handlebars.

Van der Poel has long been a traditionalist when it comes to tech. He stuck with 44cm handlebars long after his teammates and the rest of the peloton went to narrower options, but you can see here that he's finally caught up, and these are listed as 350mm. Right on the UCI limit.

I found these time trial extensions to be quite funny. It appears the mechanics have stuck on some microfibre cloth using a Velcro base, presumably to add a bit of comfort and some sweat-wicking grip to the forearms.

And in a slight juxtaposition, these Speedbar extensions are really well finished, with a perfectly shaped cut-out for the shifters.

First seen at the Traka, Ridley's latest gravel bike looks production-ready.

Plenty of tyre clearance; these are Schwalbe 55mm G-One RS Pro tyres fitted on a 27mm internal rim with loads of room to spare.

Dropped stays, aero cut-out seat tube, aero 1x set-up. Race-ready.

A neat, if not huge, frame storage bag is included.

Eddy Merckx bikes had the new and clever 525 aero bike on show.

It looks like an aggressive race bike, but...

Some clever geometry manipulation could make this the ideal aero bike for the everyday rider.

Given that the brand is owned by the same parent company as Ridley, it's no surprise that it looks similar to the Noah Fast 3.

Canyon used the event to launch its updated Aeroad CFR race bike.

The frame is largely unchanged, save for a UDH-friendly update, with all of the gains coming from its new, more aerodynamic cockpit.

It saves 2 watts in the wind tunnel, which in some tests makes it the most aerodynamic bike in the WorldTour.

There was an updated version of the Grail CFR on display, which we first spotted at the Traka, and much like the Ridley, it now looks ready for production.

As you'd expect, it's got much bigger tyre clearances, though this had 45mm rubber fitted.

It also takes aero cues from the recently updated Aeroad and Endurace CFR ranges.

In addition to aero features, it has a similar comfort seatpost to that of the Endurace bikes.

Cyclo-cross bikes are a rare sight these days, but since Canyon has the greatest-ever CX racer riding its bikes, it seems fitting that it still offers one.

Wider tyres? Not here. Just the CX standard 33mm.

What's this for, I hear you ask? Shouldering, of course.

Classic close-ratio double-ring setup, 46/36. There is something I just love about a bike with a very singular purpose.

And it doesn't get any more singular-purpose than a top-tier track bike.

They cost £20,000 apparently, though I feel that's just the standard price rolled out for niche bikes that brands don't really want to sell outside of national federations.

Born from one of its track riders wanting the same performance on the road, Toot had this crazy aero build at the show.

It looks mad from any angle, and it's great to see bikes that push the limits.

Toot was one of the first brands to bring bunch-race track handlebars with ghost hoods and super-narrow positioning, and its road versions are just as wild.

No mention of comfort, rear-end flex or compliance here.

Winspace had an updated version of its T1600 bike on show.

Though much like the Canyon Aeroad, most of the benefits come from an updated handlebar.

It's a forward-sweeping bar, much like that found on the Colnago Y1RS; the overall bike felt very light.

Canyon had two on show, this wild road bike with all sorts of sensors and clever bits.

Though it was the super-smooth lever-hood-to-bar transition that really caught my attention. Maybe I need to get out more.

And this crazy-looking 32-inch-wheeled XC race bike.

With a winged handlebar, naturally. Though I do think they have a good use case for aero in XC racing with the ever-increasing speeds of the top-tier pros.

And from a concept bike to an actual race bike. The Canyon Lux World Cup prototype.

Raced earlier this year at the Cape Epic and the XC World Cup this year by German powerhouse Luca Schwarzbauer.

The frame was covered in little details, including the Anti-Squat flip chip. With XC bikes getting more travel and closer to their trail-bike cousins, it's not surprising to see major brands experimenting with more complex suspension kinematics than before.

Still keeping with XCO, but this time at a far more privateer racer-friendly price, starting at just £4,999, Nukeproof's Hyperfly could be the race bike bargain of the season.

With 120mm travel front and rear, it's bang up to date and ready for the most technical courses.

Non-headset-routed cables make this ideal for the home mechanic or racer on a budget to work on, too.

Race-ready rubber and wheels come as standard.

Gusto had a new gravel race bike for all to see.

It follows the same design language as its GTR road bike.

And looked great in this matte green finish.

Laget had this very impressive bit of 3D-printed Titanium on its booth.

With some super sharp and well-finished lines.

And with the thinnest top tube I've ever seen. How thin? 7mm, apparently.

Avinox was the talk of the show with its new combined motor-and-gearbox launch, but they also had an interesting Megamo on show that uses its latest 2S motor unit.

It's clearly still an E-bike, but it's neatly done and looks good considering the size of the motor and battery.

Ever wondered what the inside of an Avinox motor looks like? Well, now you know.

Tired of boring shoes? Why not design your own?

Lake had a selection of shoes designed by customers using its bespoke custom option. You can also select the Boa dial colours to create a fully customised shoe.

One for the influencers and content creators amongst us here. Fidlock has a neat range of mounts that use its clever magnetic clasp, designed to work with a range of action cameras.

Being able to remove and securely remount in the blink of an eye is perfect if, like me, you often change camera angles when filming.

The team from Daysaver was roaming the halls, carrying its latest gravel pump and its latest Incredible 6 tool, which neatly fits inside.

The Incredible 6 has a cool tubeless repair prong that tucks away neatly into its arm.

And a decent-sized hex key to help shift stubborn bolt-through axles.

Prologo had a new lower-cost version of its Predator TT and Tri saddle, which is around half the price of the 01 version at £493.

It makes use of lower-cost materials to reach a lower price point, but still has the same shape and design as the top-end versions developed with the Visma-Lease a Bike team.

And finally, some wheels. With the ever-increasing number of Carbon wheel brands hitting the market, it's hard to stand out, but these from Pertual really caught my eye.

They are light at 1240g a pair and come with mixed rims at 47 and 58mm deep with 23 and 28mm internal widths, but it was the quality of the hub finish with the bonded carbon spokes that really set these apart.

Naturally, the talk of the town was the new Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9, which was at the race but was not actually being ridden. It turns out it was Remco Evenepoel’s bike, causing much confusion as to whether the Belgian was about to make a surprise appearance.

The SL9 is much the same as the SL8, but with deeper, wider fork legs and now a curved seat tube.

Here you can just make out the ‘Remco Evenepoel’ name sticker under the down tube. Note the gold SRAM chain too, which seems to be reserved for world and Olympic champions.

Here you can see the deeper fork legs, and the top of the curved seat tube.

Over at Tudor, I always enjoy seeing these neat saddle height stickers so riders maintain the exact same position every time.

The raw carbon has a lovely sheen through the clearcoat.

The fork looks very wide, but the tyre clearance is relatively modest.

Yannis Voisard was riding a ‘Masterpiece’ edition of the team’s BMC Teammachine R, which has the paint stripped back to save some grams; a theme of many teams.

The team also runs Schwalbe tyres and the brand’s Clik valves.

Unlike the Giant of Luke Plapp, which we will get to later, the BMC still has a sheen from a top coat over the carbon.

With head tubes looking somewhat similar across many brands now, this MMR does stand out.

Over at UAE, another raw carbon machine, a Colango Y1Rs, for Isaac del Toro, complete with a 3D-printed computer mount.

As is becoming almost ubiquitous now for the team, Del Toro was running time-trial tyres.

While it’s become normal now, it’s easy to forget how mad this seat cluster looked on release.

Slammed stems are becoming less common, and his cockpit was jacked up by 20mm of spacers.

Like Tadej Pogačar, Del Toro uses lighter Elite Legerro Carbon cages rather than the aero-integrated ones that come with the stock Y1Rs.

Enve SES 4.5 Pro wheels, easy to spot with silver spokes and hubs, which, it must be said, look absolutely fantastic in contrast to the matte black.

Aftermarket thru-axles from CarbonTi, front and rear.

Curiously, the team does have an aero bottom bracket (no, really) available from Bikone, but none of the team was using it.

Look past the aftermarket mech hanger for a sec and see the black tape where the Di2 cable comes out… When testing, I found there was no bung to keep the cable from pulling out entirely and had to tape it in place, and it seems UAE have the same issue.

This looks to be a new Orca Aero from Orbea, seen on the Lotto-Intermarché team bus. The current one is quite old, so well due an update.

Handily, presumably to draw attention from the media, paint pens had been used to highlight certain areas. The forks and headtube have been reshaped.

The seat stays are lower and more heavily sculpted into the seat tube.

Here’s that deeper head tube again.

Tyre clearance looks to be increased from the quite limited 30mm on the current model.

Holy Garmin mount, Batman!

The old Orca had the option of a downtube storage aero canister, and the blanked bosses under here show it’s probably going to remain for this model, although it’s illegal for UCI use.

Here’s a better look at the rear triangle- the horizontal-ish chainstays with the upward kink to the axle seem to be remaining.

It certainly looks like a purposeful machine, though curiously it appears to have a setback seatpost, which is against the trend of riders using zero offset ones to get more over the bottom bracket.

Another prototype, this time from Cube: a new Litening Aero. This is easily differentiated from the current model by the chopped-off seat cluster design.

Room up front for modern road tyre widths, even for the cobbles.

The bottom bracket is chunky, as expected. The chainstays look to meet it at the sides rather than the rear, though, potentially keeping the shell narrower in the frontal area.

A different machine, but the latex tube transponder holder in full effect as it is with most teams.

This is the new-ish 3D-printed version of the new-ish Selle Italia SLR Superflow saddle.

It’s certainly a more modern looking machine than the brand’s current aero bike. There were two on show, though this race was their very first use I believe.

Over at EF there wasn’t anything drastically new, but these bars are really very pretty. Ben Healey also uses the old Velcro-in-the-computer-mount trick year-round it seems.

Decathlon CMA CGM had a mobile cryotherapy unit at their team hotel this year.

Paul Seixas also had what looks to be a new lightweight aero jersey on his back on a pre-race training ride.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think this might be a new Deda x Van Rysel cockpit.

As well as a new prototype machine, Paul Seixas had an aero RCR-F stripped back to raw carbon on the roof of the team car.

You can see the weave, especially where the seat stays clearly join the main part of the frame.

Daan Hoole also had the biggest head tube we’ve seen in a while, along with a monster 150mm cockpit.

Many of the team, not just Seixas, were rocking the new prototype all-rounder.

It looks to be deeper up front than the current RCR-Pro, but remains svelte at the rear to keep the weight low.

No Tarmac SL9 to be seen at Soudal, but sprint wheels in evidence despite the hilly stage profile on day one.

Not a new bike, but it must be said that the Scott Foils of NSN still look incredibly up to date compared to aero bikes of a similar vintage.

They have many of the modern tropes, and while it’s probably due for a refresh soon, our own testing shows it’s still got the aero chops.

Nope, no SL9 here either.

Ineos have been using Scope wheels for a while now, and these Artechs look great.

Now sponsored by Netcompany, the new livery basically amounts to a big logo on the current machines. Expect these to get a refresh in due course, though.

Ineos, formerly Team Sky, pioneered marginal gains, and that still goes on today with this neat race transponder placement.

Oscar Onley has strips of sandpaper in his bottle cages for extra security, something we usually only see in the Classics.

Here’s the back side of the transponder, mounted directly into the fork tabs.

I think this is new paint on the Canyon’s of Movistar, but it’s hard to keep up with Canyon paint as there are about ten thousand different editions now.

Cian Uijtdebroeks had no paint on his machine, though, again to save weight, and the new Zipp 202 lightweight wheels.

Some Look bikes at the Cofidis bus had these seatposts that look like they’ve been reversed. I don’t think they are, but they’re certainly a novel take on zero offset.

It seems that if you’ve got a GC contender and they don’t have a paintless bike, you’re lagging behind. Luke Plapp had the most extreme example I saw with his Giant Propel.

You can just make it out at the back, hiding behind the much more eye-catching purple and silver machines.

I’ve not seen this SQ Labs saddle before; It’s quite an unusual shape.

Plapp had an even lighter-looking saddle on his machine, and by the looks of the finish on the frame, it doesn’t even have a clear coat over the raw carbon.

The raw carbon underneath really pops in the sun.

This is mirrored pleasingly by the carbon hub flanges on his Cadex wheels.

Unlike most teams, Jayco seemed to use fabric tape to secure the race transponders.

It’s those Elite Leggero bottle cages again to save more weight.

The team paint is cool, I think, and it’s a bit of a shame that more and more machines are ditching livery for performance gains, but it’s a performance sport, and every gram counts.

Still, with the tan Cadex tyres, it does look pretty cool. I think black tyres would look better, but that’s just a personal preference.

The new Propel looks pretty similar to the old one, but it’s a machine that’s been around long enough to have the weight of iterative history on its back when it comes to new designs.

It’s not just new bikes on show either… A stand of vintage race machines was erected at the start. Imagine racing for hours on these!

As a fan of classic bikes, this really tickled my fancy. 650b wheels, because France, and gorgeous bags with matching piping.

This classic Lemond with THAT handlebar was on show too.

And the best-looking rim brakes ever made, the Campagnolo Delta.

Picnic-PostNL had new Michelin Power Cup S tyres. These have been seen for a while but are still yet to be released.

Custom 3D-printed race number holders for Uno-X.

On a custom 3D-printed computer mount, some riders were using the Garmin Edge MTB computer to save a few grams over the road versions.

A new Ridley prototype, likely a replacement for the Falcn RS, was on show on the stands.

While it’s clearly a climbing bike, aero shapes can be seen at the fork and head tube.

A neat seat clamp is integrated into the seat tube.

The fork looks able to accommodate a 36mm, perhaps even a 38mm at a push. The head tube has a distinct ridge on the upper portion, though, likely an aero feature.

Here’s a better look at that head tube profile. It’s not quite a Speed Sniffer, but it’s on the same track.

The bosses on the down tube suggest the battery is mounted low down in the frame for better weight distribution.

Elsewhere, a paintless Noah Fast was also in evidence, as is the fashion.

To be fair, the Noah Fast has a lot of surface area, so ditching the paint here probably saves more than on most frames.

While many teams are going for minimal paint, I love the fact that Groupama-FDJ has this gorgeous red.

Aero bottles aren’t everywhere yet, but they’re growing more common. While they’re faster, they aren’t often supported by neutral service bikes, though many aero cages nowadays also accept standard bottles.

This bike needed a last-minute pad-spread minutes before the stage start.

Your Elite Men's Unbound 200 winning bike, Mads Würtz Schmidt's S-Works Crux, complete with teammate Keegan Swenson's rear wheel.

It is custom-painted to reflect Schmidt's status as European champion. You might not be able to tell with all that mud, though.

These are 170mm cranks, and despite all the walking required on course, Schmidt opted for road pedals and shoes. Check out the buildup of mud around the bottom bracket and on the underside of the down tube, too.

The seatstay yoke collected its fair share of mud too.

Mads' rear derailleur picked up a bit of vegetation along the way, but looks to have cleared out the mud fairly well.

On closer inspection, that does appear to be pretty clogged up. The clean section is likely from the wheel swap.

It's unclear what size chainring this is, but the Crux has clearance for 52T. I'm still impressed that he used road pedals in these conditions.

These Pathfinder tyres are a popular choice, but it's unclear what size he chose. Given the clearance to the seat tube, I expect he didn't max it out, and instead left room for the mud to clear.

Matt Beers ran the Pathfinder tyres, which feature a smooth-rolling centre and file tread either side.

Although disguised by the mud, you can see a zip-tied chain-lube applicator here on Beers' seat tube.

He also suffered from mud clogging, no doubt like everyone else on the day.

He also used a Quarq Tyrewiz pressure sensor on his tyres.

The podium ran like an advert for the new Crux. Here's Tobias Kongstad's, albeit in a funky, swirly stripy paint theme.

He too ran Pathfinder tyres, but in the already-mud-coloured tan wall options.

And unlike Beers and Schmidt, Kongstad used a Shimano drivetrain, courtesy of the new wireless GRX groupset.

Specialized will be pleased.

Kongstad went rogue from the Roval cockpit, though, and instead used this narrow Aerocoach Ornix bar, which are 325mm wide at the hoods, 375mm at the drops, and have a long 91mm reach.

4th place Brendan Johnston's prototype Giant is hidden somewhere beneath that mud. Those clean sections on the downtube and top tube suggest he may have been shouldering his bike at some point. Also, those bottles might look the same, but strangely, the down tube bottle was made by Elite while the seat tube bottle made by Tacx. Likely a result of different batches being created by the Aid Station brand.

The tyres are the new Terra Competitions from Continental. The bike has clearance for at least 2.2in but we're unsure what he's using here.

His cockpit has a couple of extra padded sections, and what look like inbuilt buttons on either side of the stem. The cue sheet was clearly abandoned, too.

Cameron Jones ran a Scott prototype with 32" wheels. It barely fits in the stand.

Unlike Schmidt, Jones went for mountain bike pedals and shoes, which are much easier to walk in, and then clip back in afterwards.

If this level of mud was built up in a road pedal, you'd have no chance.

Floris de Tier's bike looks remarkably clean, save for the rear of the seatpost here, on which a CO2 canister has been buried.

Adne Koster used the Seka Exaero gravel bike, complete with Reynolds wheels and Shimano GRX derailleur and 2x Dura-Ace chainset.

Most riders have an emergency CO2 canister taped somewhere onto their frame, and Simon Pelaud is no different.

His Maxxis Rambler tyre boasted a much chunkier tread than his competitors. It looks to have shed the mud impressively well though.

Check out the size of that bottle – not sure how that cage managed to hold that.

Cyclo-cross racer Daan Sooete's crew brought their own power washer to the finish

He was also running the biggest tyres that I saw all weekend.

Most elite athletes fashion their own aero number holders, but Sooete kept things simple with pipe cleaner.

Alexey Vermeulen's dog, Sir Willie, rode shotgun aboard the American's Enve bike.

Vermeulen typically fits plugs to his seatstays for the race too. This makes them quick and easy to grab in the event of a puncture.

The mud has definitely shrunk the Enve Mog's 50mm tyre clearance a little here.

Cole Paton was also on the new Giant, which we presume will be an update to the Revolt, with chunky Vittoria tyres (T30 front and T50 rear) which we believe were both 55mm. He also ran a mismatched Shimano groupset, with an XTR derailleur, Dura-Ace front chainset, 1X chainring from WolfTooth, and XTR pedals. He ran a Silca Mattone saddlebag which boasts a Boa dial for closure (and clogs up badly in mud), and three bottles. It's unclear what's in the box under his top tube though, presumably spares.

Drew Dillman ran the Lauf Seigla with its leafspring fork, those wild Enve G SES 6.7 wheels, shod with Continental Dubnital tyres, and a SRAM Red AXS XPLR groupset. He ran a neat top tube flask, called the HSC250 from Profile Design, alongside two one-litre bottles. He also had a GoPro under his stem, which is naturally covered in mud.

Paige Onweller was aboard a Trek Checkpoint. It was fitted with DT-Swiss GRC 1100 wheels, shod with fairly chunky 48mm Gravel Thundero tyres from Tufo. She too had a camera up front, albeit a much smaller version from Insta360. She had a top tube bag, but the tape around her top tube just behind it suggests she used whatever was originally there.

The Dynaplug and saddlebag under her saddle went untouched though.

Geerike Schreurs went detailed with her stem notes. MMR is likely 'Minimal Maintenance Road'. BUF eludes me, and FUN, I presume, is just a reminder to enjoy herself. The Garmin suggests she's set a new distance PR too, although given she's raced this before I assume it's just a new Garmin. Those fuelling notes are excellent, too.

Schreurs ran a 46T chainring. It looks like the rubber bung over the power meter has worked itself loose in the chaos. The chain keeper looks to be mounted to the bottle cage bolts. I don't think it's the K-Edge one though, unless Schreurs' mechanic has hacked off the outer plate.

Her bike was fitted with a SWAT box for storage below the down tube bottle, as well as an Apidura top tube bag behind the stem. The lid of the down tube bottle has "just breathe" written on it, and the elastic bands around them suggest they were collected with gels attached, for a bit of extra speed at the transitions. Her left lever looked to have sustained a knock too. It's very much on the wonk.

Rosa Kloser was aboard the mystery new Canyon we previously spotted at the Traka, with its slightly unusual stepped seat tube, which cuts in just beneath the seat stays. The clearance looks great, with clear daylight between the fork and the front tyre. I'm obsessed with those mega bottles, which upon closer inspection, are still only a litre in size, but Arundel bottle cages are rock solid so I'm not surprised it's still there. Her paint stick, taped to the top tube, remains untouched, as is whatever she's zip-tied under her saddle, but the toolkit on the top tube is missing, suggesting it was put to use or fell off.

Continental did a lot of work with Kloser ahead of the race to quantify the fastest setup, and evidently landed on the Terra Competition for Unbound.

Those stem notes are simply hand-written and taped into place. There's a mention of Train Tunnel Mud, Taco, and more mentions of MMR - minimum maintenance road - like Schreurs above. Note the three plugs taped to the top tube too

While those plugs weren't used, some clearly where.

Sofia Gomez Villafane's bike was.. Yet another Crux. She too had an unused paint stick taped to the top tube, and a similar - but smaller - Apidura top tube bag to Schreurs. Her cranks are 165mm long - denoted by the red marker that you can see on the inside of the non-driveside arm.

Why use pipe cleaners to hold your race number when you've got a custom-made aero number holder that straps into place with a small rubber band?

Here's how it looked before its day in the mud. I really like the idea to use a black quick link in the chain. It stands out from the rest, and no doubt speeds up finding it when you're hurriedly needing to remove it due to a mechanical. I also like her Argentina-themed water bottles.

Cecily Decker, for the second year running, had a two-pronged mud scraper rubber-banded onto her stem. It also looks like she ran the wrong top cap for the Enve one-piece cockpit, or dropped 5mm from her usual position.

Here's that custom mud scraper in action. Sort of.

She also taped a multi-tool to the underside of her top tube, and a CO2 canister to the top.

She had a custom-made chain-lube dispenser built into her chain keeper, too.

Cecile Lejeune's bike was fitted with chunky Continental Race King tyre up front, plus an Insta360 camera beneath her Hammerhead computer. Content is king! Note the SRAM blips under the handlebar too.

At the rear, she ran the smoother file tread Continental Terra Competition tyre.

Lauren Stephens and Cecily Decker both opted for the same Vittoria Terreno T30 tyre in the brown finish.

32in wheels were the talk of the town, and there were a couple of ready bikes in the expo area. Here's the BTCHN Cycles titanium bike from Shimano display. It's cheaper to produce a small run of frames in titanium or steel than it is carbon fibre, since you don't need moulds for each size.

I enjoyed this fun little eye-catcher from Silca.

The most critical piece of tech at Unbound: The paint stirrer, for clearing the mud.

I also really liked this Lancia Stratos rally car tribute from Rodeo Labs; a bike that was equipped with Campagnolo's Super Record gravel groupset. The wheelbase appears to have some adjustment at the rear on this frame too.

This tribute to Campagnolo's Delta brakes was a neat touch too.

For those saying 32in wheels are only for tall riders, Salsa would like a word. This is a size small Fargo.

This GS1 from Ventum looked pretty good with the Fox fork and fat Maxxis Rambler tyres. The 'Ivy' on the SRAM AXS battery tells us this is likely owned by Ventum rider, Ivy Audrain.

This was a nice minimalist Lauf Seigla, set up ready for the 350XL with an Apidura top tube bag, time trial extensions, and a massive Exposure front light.

And this was a more maximalist setup, with a full frame bag housing water reservoir, an extra bag atop the top tube and rear fender.

This Dogma GR sits somewhere in the middle, with an emphasis on aero, with Apidura aero frame bags and the TT extensions.

Another hot-dog mention, this bike's bags have a definite foodie theme.

And to wrap us up, this carbon fibre Calfee Mountain is pitched as the 'most capable mountain tandem ever designed'.

Let’s kick things off with Chinese brand Overfast, which specialises in lightweight products. Such as these carbon thru-axles weighing around 30-31 grams a pair. Carbon thru-axles might sound a bit scary, but I’ve heard some positive comments about these.

Overfast also brought a new crankset to the show, the Mono RS, weighing a mouthwatering 249 grams. These aren’t available yet, but a spokesperson for the brand told me they should be soon.

It doesn't just do lightweight; they also produce cranks that are supposed to offer a slight aerodynamic advantage.

One of the booths I was most impressed by was Elite Wheels'. The wheel brand is one of the few Chinese brands that’s commercially available to some extent in some Western markets. It had a new pair of wheels on display with a one-piece construction.

The Drive Mono 65D features complete integration of the spokes into both the rim and the flange.

They come in at a staggeringly low weight of only 1,245 grams per wheelset. That’s especially impressive given the rims are 65 millimetres deep.

And it’s up with modern standards too, with an internal rim width of 25 millimetres. The wheels should be available later this year, and although the exact price is to be determined, a spokesperson said she expects the RRP to be around 2000 US dollars.

Want to go really lightweight? Elite Wheels had another unreleased pair of wheels on display, the Drive Ultra 40D.

These wheelsets feature regular spoke lacing, although they do use carbon spokes and spoke nipples. According to the brand, the wheels weigh only 990 grams per wheelset.

Another wheel that caught my eye was this one at Komcas. Most of its wheels didn’t look particularly appealing, but this rim pattern looked quite interesting. I figured it might have something to do with aerodynamics, but the brand said this wavy pattern is actually meant to improve stiffness. From the side, the rim did actually feel more sturdy - although that says nothing about its ride quality.

Cybrei has been making moves with ultralight brands. It's clearly getting some recognition for that, because SRM decided to partner with it on a lightweight crankset with an integrated power meter. It weighs 335 grams according to the Chinese brand.

Another brand producing lightweight cranks is Elilee. I first noticed these cranks at Omloop het Nieuwsblad on Matej Mohoric’s Bianchi Oltre RC – The brand has been a sponsor of Bahrain-Victorious since the beginning of this season.

It doesn't only make cranks, but also wheels and bike frames. This triathlon frame will appeal to the bare carbon fetishists.

One of the wildest frames of the show was over at the Incolor booth. The Chinese brand has been gaining popularity over the last years, especially with its SSR road bike, which combines top-level aerodynamics and lightweight.

Its TTR time trial bike has some impressive looks, and the chainstays are scarily close to the rear wheel.

Around the rear of the bike, we see some design features that are reminiscent of the Hope HB.T track bike. Something I haven’t seen before, however, is this little extension on the front of the seatstays. The brand told me there’s usually a lot of turbulence in the area around the thighs, and this is supposed to help pull that turbulent air towards the rear by making the wind ‘stick’.

The split seatpost is something we’ve also seen on the second iteration of the Hope HB.T, which the Team GB squad used during the Paris Olympics.

Over to Seka for another crazy time trial bike, which it designed together with World Hour Record holder, Vittoria Bussi.

Bussi, who holds a PhD in mathematics at the University of Oxford, thought that reducing the headtube length would lead to a smaller frontal area of the bike. Seka also added little blades to the inner side of the fork to help reduce turbulence.

It also added an extra tube to connect the seat tube with the chainstays.

Seka definitely isn’t the only brand looking at the area around the seat tube and the chainstays. Actually, alternative designs around this area are something I saw remarkably often at China Cycle.

Winspace is another brand looking for aero gains with this kind of vertical spoiler.

Some more crazy frame shapes over at Java. At first, I thought this was a TT-bike, until I looked at the handlebars.

These handlebars feature regular drops and hoods, but also a sort of mini TT-bar in the middle. I do wonder whether it’s actually long enough to comfortably ride in that position.

The frame had some other interesting design features, such as this opening below the junction of the seattube and seatstays.

There aren’t only Chinese brands on display at China Cycle, there’s also a growing group of European brands that show their products in Shanghai. Such as Selle Italia, which brought its new Opal White capsule collection.

And how about this beautiful Colnago Steelnovo?

I really love how clean this design looks with the seatpost clamp integrated in the seatstays.

Starting to see a trend? It’s no coincidence that many major Italian brands are present. They perform particularly well in (south) Eastern Asia because of their brand image and heritage. Even if they don’t or barely have the latter, being Italian seems to be a stamp of approval around here.

A simple touch I really liked on this Prologo Predator 01TT is the rubber finish on the top. It’s supposed to help you stay in an aero position.

One Italian brand I was particularly surprised to see at the show was Alba Optics. The company is only 10 years old, but co-founder Piergiorgo Catalano told me it was a very popular brand around here. It actually first started growing in Asia before it got a grip on the European market.

Some of the finest bikes of the show were courtesy of Panda Podium. Like this Cannondale CAAD 14 that belonged to its founder, Joe Whittingham. He was inspired by a Cannondale CAAD 3 that Mario Cipollini rode in the 1997 Tour de France, as an homage to the 4th of July.

The cable opening was actually too small for the L-Twoo ERX electronic derailleur cable, so Whittingham drilled the frame to enlarge the hole.

I’m a big fan of this clever but neat little solution for cable management on this ERX derailleur.

Another bike with an interesting story at the Panda Podium booth was this Mentech ARC Sport. Mentech is a Hong Kong-based, exchange-listed company that comes from the magnetics and optical industry. Its founder is a big fan of cycling, so he decided his company needed to start making bikes as well. This is its first aero model.

E-bike brand Troxus is also getting into road bikes, with the Aria.

It’s another bike brand introducing a radical design around the seatstays and seatpost. In this case, it doesn’t have anything to do with aerodynamics, but it’s said to improve stiffness.

Mid-show robot hug, I guess?

We saw two familiar faces over at Factor, those of Chris Froome and David Millar. Froome is an investor in the British-Taiwanese brand. He sadly wasn’t willing to speak to me about his retirement (or non-retirement, who knows).

One fan even brought out an all-yellow Pinarello Dogma F10. It isn’t an original, though. Froome never won a Tour de France on disc brakes.

The brand also had a beautiful custom Factor Monza on display.

Although there are a lot of high-quality goods at China Cycle, there are also a lot of imitators. Such as Jauble, which is clearly trying to tag along on Factor’s success.

I don’t think this needs any more words.

There’s definitely a tonne of brands out there doing great work. I really liked this pointillist-style artwork. Although…

...They might need to think about a slight rebranding if they want to bring their bikes to English-speaking countries.

One of the most absurd bikes on display was this TT-bike from Falco. That jaguar’s actually part of the frame; it’s not just a cosmetic addition. If you really want to go all-out, it’s also available in a shiny gold version.

Li-Ning is a Chinese department store that also has its own bike and accessory brand. It even sponsors a continental racing team.

The Spoiler 1X features this radical handlebar, which looks like… well, a spoiler.

The top and base of the handlebars are actually two separate parts. You can attach the tops in different positions to adjust your reach. That’s helpful, but it actually looks quite ugly and not particularly aerodynamic.

This Laget Aero One is a very impressive feat of engineering. It’s a completely 3D-printed titanium frameset, which comes in at a weight of 2.1 kilograms. In this configuration, the full bike weighs 7.9kg. The frameset isn’t for sale, but the brand aims to have it available at the end of this year, for around 10,000 US dollars.

Almost all the tubes are ridiculously skinny. It gives the bike a unique but very clean look.

Also, the seat tube and top tube were beautifully thin.

Another eye-catcher is the Quick Pro AR:one. This one was custom-painted for 2025 Junior World Champion, Harry Hudson. I think it’s the first true Chinese-brand road bike to claim a road world title.

More interesting, though, is that Quick Pro unveiled a new brand, Assisting Force. It’s going to be a direct-to-consumer brand which currently has two gravel bikes. Prices are reportedly starting from 900 US dollars for a frameset.

One detail that stood out to me was this integrated storage system. I’ve seen many storage solutions (especially magnetic ones) that will jump open on rough roads. This, however, felt super sturdy. That lever might be tough to access once there's a bottle cage on top, though.

This Evolve Cima Gravel won’t be as cheap, but it only weighs 6.6kg. Evolve is a sister brand of Elite wheels, so it’s no surprise that it knows how to build a lightweight bike. The Cima Gravel is currently not yet available.

Panda Podium had the same model on display, but something else caught my eye over there, this 800 millilitre aerodynamic bottle from Kreuza (also a sister brand of Elite Wheels). I like how they use space efficiently by extending the bottle through the bottle cage.

A slightly more familiar brand that was also present at China Cycle, is Merida. It brought its new Merida Reacto.

Merida was situated next to fellow Taiwanese brand Giant, which also had a recently launched bike on display, the Propel.

A simple design feature, but I think the junction of the seatstays and seattube is quite neat.

Another household brand, although I did not know Ford produced bikes. Produced is probably a big word, because I'm told this is just an open mould frame with Ford branding.

One thing you’re guaranteed to see at Asian bike fairs is crazy folding bike setups. Such as this one with a tri-spoke front wheel and a disc rear wheel.

I guess this is the total opposite of that. Venzo produces these monstrously big 36in wheels.

I’m not sure if this is truly new, but I really like this use of Fidlock’s magnetic buckle as a closure system for bib shorts. This should make it much easier - especially for women - to use the toilet. Then again, I wonder how comfortable the buckle is if it’s constantly pressing on your back.

Fidlock also had a great solution to carry a baguette on your ride… of course.

We’ve seen tyre liners and inserts, but this product by Tannus Armour sits somewhere in between. It’s an insert with an inflatable TPU tube in the middle. The brand said it offers a combination of low rolling resistance and puncture protection. I don’t think this truly does offer low rolling resistance, but I like the idea and wonder whether, with further development, it could actually be quite promising.

Another Asian brand that’s entered the WorldTour is Magene, as a sponsor of XDS Astana. It supplies the team with its C606 Pro cycling computer. The pro part in that is that it has an enhanced screen with better brightness. That way, the screen should also be visible during summer days when the sun shines at its brightest.

Besides bike computers, Magene also produces direct drive indoor trainers. Such as this new T600 ECO Smart Trainer, which offers a maximum resistance of a whopping 2,800 watts.

Although the name might suggest otherwise, Ganna is a completely Chinese brand. It is best known for its AEROFIN seatpost. It’s supposed to reduce drag with a slim design, but it’s also incredibly light. It produces the seatpost for many different bike brands.

Bigrock had a lovely lightweight build on display. This isn’t a production build, but rather a personal project from one of its fans, who is clearly a weight weenie.

The bike featured multiple parts from Darimo, a Spanish brand that specialises in ultralight, handmade carbon fibre components such as this T1 Loop seatpost. It doesn’t have a traditional seat clamp, but instead uses two Dyneema loops to attach the saddle to the seatpost.

The bike only weighs 4.58 kilograms. Yes, I did offset the scale.

Tavelo brought two new bikes to the show. This is its Grow gravel bike in a lush paint scheme. It has 55mm of tyre clearance in the front and 50 mm in the back, and is UDH-compatible.

It also has integrated storage in the downtube, with a magnetic Fidlock closure.

This is the officially unreleased Arden, which is its new all-round race bike. It reportedly allows up to 40mm tyres and is UDH-compatible.

This Spect Mira looks to be all-out aero, but it’s actually quite light too. The frameset weighs 940 grams and this exact build comes in at 6.8 kilograms. The frameset (including handlebar) retails for only 6999 Chinese Yuan, which is about 760 Great British pounds.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this lovely-looking saddle. Not sponsored by Red Bull, despite the wings.

Right, let’s kick things off with an all new BMC Kaius that I managed to steal away from a fancy bike shop for ten minutes.

Don’t be fooled by the slick nature of these Continental Terra Competition tyres, it can take 55mm knobbies.

Unlike many of the new bikes we will get into it retains quite a slender looking frame, despite the wide forks.

As ever, an integrated cockpit is a must.

Truncated tubes, but the head tube isn’t crazy deep.

The hoses route through recesses covered by a plastic cover, which should make installation a lot easier.

As well as bosses on the underside of the down tube there is a set for a bento box up top.

To be unobjective for a second, I think the Kaius looks pretty stunning, especially with the slicks, and the front end is the best bit in my opinion.

One neat feature is this strap tab that can be bolted to the underside of the down tube to strap various things to like a mud stick for Unbound.

Down the road I managed to squirrel away Simen Nordahl Svendsen’s Fara GR4 into the street from one of the many popups across town. This is his spare bike, so not his true Traka spec, and I’m told this is more how he would run it for Unbound, just with a bigger chainring for Kansas.

The front end swallows the massive Schwalbe MTB tyres with ease.

The cockpit is a novel two piece design that's somewhere between the Cervélo S5 bar and a set of Coefficient bars.

These Race Pro Thunder Burt Speed tyres are new from Schwalbe, too, and are labelled as 2.1”.

Like the Kaius, the headtube here isn’t massively extended rearwards.

I was told the clearcoat used over the raw carbon is black tinted to avoid the bike looking grey.

It’s becoming less and less common, but round seatposts still have advantages; you can run a dropper, and they tend to have more flex for comfort than aero or D-shaped options.

Frame storage is very on trend right now, though anything in there isn’t easy to access in the race.

One last thing in the Fara popup were these wheels… not new Campagnolo Boras, but certainly new logos.

Normal Look pedals; nothing to see here.

Gotcha! They’re single sided, which is a new trend that seems to be growing in popularity.

At the start/finish paddock I spied this. Not a Traka bike, but it was ridden to a new 7 day distance record by Alex McCormack.

3826.47km, mostly in the rain, hence the somewhat bodged rear mudguards.

Drop bar MTBs seem to be here to stay, for the time being at least.

I’m surprised the suspension fork wasn’t bouncy enough to avoid whatever is going on here.

That’s one way to put it, I suppose.

There’s not anything greatly special about this S-Works Crux, though the paint is lovely and understated, however…

Not sure I’d want to sit on this for 10 hours or more off-road!

Speaking of unlikely gravel bikes, it pays to follow your nose at Traka. This paint caught my eye…

Good Grief, it’s a road bike… or is it? It’s a Specialized Roubaix that, in this guise, is very much a gravel bike.

Goes to show that you can get away with under-biking more than you think.

It probably helps if you’re former WorldTour pro, Daniel Oss, though.

Despite launching a different new gravel bike (more on that later), this new Factor aero gravel machine drew the eyes of many in the crowd.

The fork is unmistakably similar to that of the hyper-aero ONE road bike.

I stalked another Factor rider into a car park to get some more shots.

Much like how road bikes are going, it seems to be super aero at the front, with a focus on low weight the further back you go.

Piotr Havik had a very tricked out Colnago when I cornered him at the Smith stand.

Double-sided Gabaruk gravel chainset in raw aluminium.

These WolfTooth DEL pedals are like the Look ones from earlier.

“The Traka is not cyclocross”.

The rear cassette, save for the largest sprocket, is machined from a single billet.

Courtesy of Havik’s fiancé, Mérida Miller who also rides for the Castelli Spirit of Gravel cabal.

He was also on new, carbon-spoked OQUO wheels.

Most riders carry tubeless plugs and a couple of CO2 canisters. This rider just strapped a one-shot solution that blasts gas and more goop into the tyre through the valve. It’s ugly, but it probably works well.

This Look is the oldest of the new bikes I saw at a fortnight old or so, and has already been ridden to victory at Belgian Waffle Ride by Russel Finsterwald.

Oh look, another brand new bike casually being ridden through the crowds under Unbound XL winner, Rob Britton.

Here it is, the new Factor Sarana, in a different setup for Victory Bosoni, but still for the Traka 560.

I can’t think of a gravel bike with more dropped seat stays than this, can you?

The rigid fork is suspension-corrected, so if you fit a bouncy fork as Bitton had you maintain the same geometry and handling characteristics.

Bosoni hadn’t maxed out the Sarana’s 57mm clearance.

While the 560 race means packing more with you in frame bags, some things need to be close at hand to avoid having to pump manually in the dead of night in the cold.

It’s a more svelte front end than the hyper-aero machine.

These are new wheels from Black Inc., too: 46 gravel wheels, almost certainly denoting the depth.

It’s my tech gallery and if I want to put in a photo of Cane Creek’s eeWings titanium cranks then nobody is going to stop me.

It’s some whiplash going from titanium to a wooden bike but here we are.

I’m told this Ornus is hollow, and only weighs 8.8kg.

The joinery is beautiful, but if I had one of these in the UK I think I’d worry about it rotting. Luckily it’s in Spain where it famously only rains on the plain, which isn’t where we were.

Another new thing, this time in the form of a whole new Campagnolo groupset with a striking cassette that caught my eye.

Record is a tier down from the über-expensive Super-Record, but retains much of the aesthetics and features of the top-tier option.

It’s fully wireless, as is to be expected.

The lever shape looks pretty similar, too.

Despite ditching the thumb buttons for a short time, Campagnolo has brought them back and they’re in evidence here.

I’m not totally sold on the cassette from a visual standpoint, but overall it’s a tasty looking setup.

It actually has more than a passing resemblance at a glance to this all carbon Gemini Rigel chainring I saw on a Giant on the same rack.

While Chad Haga was on a new bike we will get to that later. For now look at the tyres; I’ve not seen an ‘ST’ version of the Maxxis Aspens before, and Haga was tight-lipped about them. I really rate the Aspens, so am keen to see what these are about. I presume a faster casing in a slightly narrower width than the full MTB tyres much like the 50mm Continental Dubnitals.

Preloaded bacon strips in case of emergency.

If you’re going to have a national champs setup you may as well go all in, right? Ben Perry is doing things properly.

He’s also aboard another brand new bike, the Ace from Guava.

Like Havik, Perry has a twin-sided Gabaruk power chainset, but this time in a fitting red.

Matching high-flow Muc-Off valves and contrast nipples make for a classy wheel build.

The head tube is oddly devoid of a logo, though. You never really notice something until it’s gone.

Matching Industry Nine hubs are also a very bling touch for the Canadian who came home in 4th.

Another drop bar MTB on the stands.

Want another new bike? That’s lucky: Here’s an unreleased Ridley.

The front end is very similar to the Noah Fast 3.0 road bike, but the tyre clearance isn’t.

The bottom bracket starts to dwarf the Traka-spec chainring.

RS2? Rally Sport 2? Answers on a postcard.

This front light was held in place with Velcro, presumably for easy removal once it got light.

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I’m told the aero gains over the current Kanzo fast are single-digit in wattage terms.

Here’s that monster BB from the wrong side.

While the aero gains are modest I was told the rolling resistance gains that can be won by fitting 2.2” MTB tyres were in double-figures.

Pieter Potters is clearly happy with it.

He was the only person I saw using Schwalbe’s new Clik valves. Apparently they’re on all the family bikes and make it easier for his young children to do their own tyres. If you want to raise your own tyre nerd then it pays to start early, folks; take it from the Belgians.

At the queue for bike checking from the commissaires I spied this Seka. I am ashamed to admit I forgot the name of the nice chap who let me shoot it, but it’s a busy day and I’m certain he’s forgotten my name too.

It’s not a brand that’s super common yet, but it is growing in popularity and it drew the eyes of many around me.

Henry Nelson of Lunchbox Racing had the narrowest bars I saw all weekend.

He’s a narrow boy, though, as he pointed out to me.

The bars are from Profile, and apparently these levers “needed to come in a bit more, actually”.

It’s been at least four images since I showed you a new bike, so here’s Adam Roberge’s brand new Felt Breed, with FOUR bottle cages, all of which were filled with 750ml bottles for the race.

He was one of very, very few riders running Shimano, and like many riders at Paris-Roubaix had resorted to a hybrid XTR x GRX drivetrain.

A round seatpost, much like the Fara at the start of this massive gallery.

And like the Factor Sarana, the fork is suspension-corrected, though not nearly so wide. These 50mm Continental Dubnitals were quite close to the fork legs.

Let’s keep the new bike ball rolling with a prototype Canyon Grain CFR, complete with custom frame storage bags.

Here’s a stealthy version of the same bike, but in a smaller size. It’s very like the new Endurace CFR in its proportions, but with much greater tyre clearance.

There were a few bikes on show behind the Canyon stand. Some had the standard cockpit that is common to many Canyon drop bar bikes, while others didn’t.

The downtube becomes very chunky around the bottles, presumably to maintain a similar width to the wider MTB tyres as well.

Here’s one fitted with the new aero cockpit that released with the new Endurace a few short weeks ago.

It seems like Enve is coming out with something to take the fight to Zipp in terms of wide, aero gravel wheels.

“G SES Pro”, says the label.

They really are quite wide, but there's another version that I’ll show you shortly that made these look normal.

They do look to support the 50mm Dubnitals well.

Showing a rim’s width while it’s in a bike isn’t easy, but I tried my best.

Back to new bikes, here’s the last one: A new Argon18 that I happened upon while doing some important admin over a frosty euro lager in a bustling square. This job is easy in Girona.

It ticks almost all the same boxes as the new Ridley: Aero, mega tyres, huge bottom bracket, but no frame storage.

Oh yes, top marks to the paint designers for this one!

The forks have a very pronounced squared-off rear side.

This was quite a small bike (I shan’t get the rider in trouble with their sponsors), and the fork was almost wider than the head tube was tall.

You can have all the aero in the world, but if you haven’t got the legs you’re still going to be beaten by a strong Dane on a round-tubed S-Works Crux.

As riders trickled into the finish I caught another glimpse at the crazy new Factor aero gravel bike.

These forks are bonkers!

I think you could probably fit a 3” tyre in there with relative ease.

Here are Ben Perry’s Quoc shoes at the finish. The Maple dials are a really classy touch.

These dials however were covered to make them more aero.

OK, I promised you some even wilder Enve wheels so wrap your eyes around these. There’s actually loads to unpack here, not least the homemade frame bag and the fact this rider was competing on giant slicks. The wheels, as well as being mega deep and mega wide were also slightly wavy and not actually Enves at all, but Lightbicycle rims with Enve stickers... sorry!

I started at Team UAE ADQ; they chose the Colnago V5RS, not the super-aero Y1RS that the men's team usually ride. I love that white-and-blue paint.

Several riders had fully taped their handlebar tops, providing a little more comfort as riders tend to hold the tops more at Roubaix.

The team had fitted 35mm Continental GP5000 S TR tyres, and they fitted pretty nicely in the Colnago frames.

The team bikes were fitted with Enve SES 4.5 wheels, a nice combination with the 35mm rubber.

Check out this aftermarket CCD EVO S derailleur pulley from French brand Nova Ride. They were fitted to some of the Ma Petite Enterprise Factor Monzas.

Factor Monzas were used widely at Roubaix this year by Factor-sponsored teams. It is still a race bike, but is a little more durable, and has bigger clearance than some of the brand's other bikes. This blue looked fantastic in the sunshine.

The team ran Hutchinson Blackbird Race tyres in a 32mm size and without any tyre inserts.

Next was the Mayenne Monbana My Pie team, the team were racing on Winspace SLC 5.0 machines - the brand's all-rounder. They had some interesting parts fitted.

This crankset drew me in, a 54 tooth Cybrei carbon aero chainring, with some electrical tape over the crank arm brand, answer on a postcard...

There were some great messages on handlebars. I love this one. It belongs to Constance Valentin.

The team chose 32mm Hutchinson Blackbird All-Season tyres; probably ideal for Roubaix, but not as fast as something like a Vittoria Corsa Pro. You don't often see tread like this on race bikes.

All team bikes also had allen keys taped to their computer mounts, I assume to help with emergency wheel changes.

Alison Jackson's bike was receiving lots of attention thanks to her custom Canadian paint scheme. It was, however, a pretty stock build overall.

Spot the speaker, Jackson emerged from the team bus holding a Bluetooth speaker, and it went straight into her bike's bottle cage.

Jackson's St Michel - Preference Home team uses an all-French Mavic and Michelin wheel and tyre combination. The wheels were fitted with Mavic Power Cup 32mm tyres.

It's great to see Mavic back in the mix; these silver hubs looked great in the spring sunshine.

The Volkerwessels squad have some super stealth Specialized Tarmacs; the paint jobs just look mean. The team bikes had two-piece bars and stems, and the team ran tyre inserts.

They also had this cool flat-bar conversion on show, always a fun thing to see.

Fast Forward Ryot 55 wheels and Schwalbe Pro One tyres, spot the Clik Valve tubeless valves too.

The Laboral Kutxa team ride X-Lab bikes. I was enjoying the bright pink and white paint jobs; they really pop.

This was a nice touch on one of the bike's fork legs.

Here's a wild move, fully bar taped STI shifter hoods here, surely a bid to make things a touch more comfortable. Note the two different lots of bar tape, too.

Here it is from the front, the tape wrapped around the front of the Dura-Ace levers.

One Cofidis Look bike was the recently released limited edition 795 Blade RS Ciel Du Nord. The paint reflects Northern French skies. It looked fantastic in the flesh.

The team uses Campagnolo. The Bora wheels were fitted with 32mm Vittoria Corsa Control tyres.

This is a very expensive collection of parts. I believe this is the Super Record Ultra Titanium cassette from the Ultra upgrade kit. That's one piece of machined titanium.

The Lotto Orbea Orca bikes looked pretty stock; the team had some of the narrowest tyres around.

The team had fitted 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pros, a seemingly conservative choice.

Here's Pfeiffer Georgi's Lapierre team bike; she was the only rider using some brand new Ursus wheels.

Ursus released a new wheel on Friday, the Arya G, designed for rough surfaces. The wheels use Sapim PBO vibration-damping spokes.

Here's a close-up of the new Sapim spokes; the stock Ursus Arya wheels use carbon Vonoa spokes.

The team had also switched to Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres from their usual Michelin models. All the logos were sharpied out. They wouldn't give me a hard answer on why, but it's likely because Michelin's tyres go only to 30mm.

Next up was a trip to see Zoe Bäckstedt's bike; she was using an ISM PN4.1 gravel road saddle.

I also spotted this very cool-looking carbon chain catcher, very neat.

Bäckstedt's chainring looked a little dirty pre-race, unusual for a pro bike. Check out the purple SRAM chain for some bling.

Bäckstedt was also riding the new Canyon Endurace, spot the grip tape on the bottle cages.

Bäckstedt also had the existing Canyon PACE handlebar fitted, not the recently launched CP053 RACE handlebar, which we will see next.

Here is the new non-adjustable RACE bar, fitted to Tiffany Cromwell's bike. It's lighter and more aerodynamic, Canyon says.

Bäckstedt was running the Zipp 303 NSW wheels with wireless tyre pressure sensor tech, a useful feature on the cobbles to monitor tyre pressures.

Tiffany Cromwell was using 35mm Schwalbe G One Speed gravel tyres, an unusual but probably smart and comfortable choice

Two custom-painted Aeroads here on the team car roof, from the Canyon custom paint programme.

The Cervélo S5 from Visma-Lease a Bike had the bars fully taped; it really stood out, and I assume the rider planned on holding the bar tops.

Third-place finisher and former winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot had a fairly standard setup, but I saw more special tyre sealant on her tyre sidewalls, I assume to give more security and protection.

Here it is, it isn't tubeless sealant, it’s some kind of clear thin sealant. I've seen it on men's and women's bikes.

I think the idea is that the sealant provides a better seal, helps bead retention and possibly prevents sealant leakage. But would it also boost aero performance by smoothing that bead, rim interface?

Over at Uno-X, there was a nice custom-painted Ridley Nosh FAST for Anniina Ahtosalo, the Finnish national road champion.

Liv Alula Jayco had swapped their usual Cadex tyres for what appear to be sponsor-incorrect Vittoria Corsa Pro Control rubber. The Control offers a little more protection than the Corsa Pro, and both models were on show at the start.

The team had also switched to a one-by aero chainring, like many other teams. Shimano doesn’t currently offer such a product, and it’s beginning to feel like it’s a glaring omission for the groupset giant.

FDJ United-SUEZ's Specialized bikes looked great; the shortness of this stem struck me, and generally, you do see some shorter stems in the women’s peloton.

This bike also had more comprehensive stem notes, denoting which sectors were coming and at what point in the race.

This is a nice one, race winner Franziska Koch’s motivating stem note, she battled until the finish in a two against one situation and took a fantastic win.

Some eye-catching custom-painted Factors at Human Powered Health got a lot of attention; they really stood out and seemed to feature Pokémon.

The paint scheme was done by popular Belgian artist Vexx, whose work features lots of bright cartoon, doodle-like designs.

34mm Corsa Pro Control tyres were fitted to the team’s Factor Monzas; a wider tyre really helps on the cobblestones.

Another custom Factor, this time for Austrian champion Kathrin Schweinberger, the eagle features on the Austrian flag.

More motivating stem notes here, which I believe translates as 'slay the beast'. The rider also had section notes neatly applied to either side of the bar tops, although it must get to the point when you can’t pay attention to them.

This was one of my favourite chainset setups over at AG Insurance-Soudal, Dura-Ace cranks with a big old aero ring, it just looked mean.

There was also a solid K-Edge custom 'Wolfpack' chain guide and chain catcher mounted as well; you can’t be too careful at Roubaix.

The team had also fitted wired Shimano GRX gravel derailleurs with a clutch to aid chain retention over the cobbles, a move we saw from a few Shimano teams over the weekend.

The bikes had allen keys mounted to the seatposts, so that riders could quickly remove a rear wheel in the event of a flat; it’s notoriously hard to get a spare bike at Roubaix.

Lidl-Trek used the Odyssey Optic Tyre inflation system, which features a toughened TPU tube inside the tubeless tyre, and the two are inflated separately. The tube provides more run-flat capability and increased protection on rough ground.

Elisa Balsamo had a custom-painted Trek Madone, which mirrored the one Mads Pederson was using.

Who doesn’t love a few bling bottle cage bolts?

This was an interesting bar setup for Shrin van Anrooij, a narrow bar, full bar tape wrap and SRAM wireless shifters on the tops and drops. Very Roubaix specific.

I bagged a few minutes with Lotte Kopecky’s bike; she had a two-piece bar and stem with a fairly shallow bar drop.

Kopecky had a 1X SRAM chainset with a 50-tooth chainring, a slightly smaller size than a lot of the male racers run.

Kopecky was on the recently released Cotton TLR tyres from Specialized in a 32mm size, ‘A’ possibly denotes this being a race day or ‘best’ tyre.

This made me laugh. I thought it could mean carbs for Lotte, or a lot of carbs. Either way, Roubaix needs fuel.

Full bar tape wrap for Kopecky, with satellite SRAM Blip shifters on either side of the stem. That electric tape finish would put me off, I think.

This was interesting. Kopecky was using the older Roval Rapide CLX Team wheels with the easy-to-spot silver hubs, not the newer Roval Rapide CLX III or Sprint options. Perhaps there’s something she prefers about these wheels.

This Uno-X bike had me scratching my head for a minute. That’s an SRAM Red XPLR rear mech, but paired to a 12-speed road cassette, not the XPLR-specific 13-sprocket cassette. They'd drilled an extra limit screw to convert it to 12-speed. This gives you the durability of the gravel derailleur but the close-spaced gears of the road cassette.

I could hear the race helicopters by now, and finished with a quick stop at the EF Cannondale bikes, which were very stock, though several of the bikes had a nice double wrap of tape.

This bike had an essay on the handlebars, chapeau to the rider for reading all over this whilst rattling over the stones of Roubaix, which will now lie silent and untroubled until next year.

I’ve already brought you a gallery of Tadej Pogačar’s race bike, but I’ll share some highlights here as it’s a wild machine.

His ‘foam under the brake levers’ was in evidence again to protect his fingers.

His computer mount was back to the stock Colnago option that can pivot if it takes a knock, rather than snapping.

A massive Carbon-Ti single front chainring transfers the power, and a chain keeper keeps the chain on… hopefully.

Unnecessary hardware is removed to keep the weight down, replaced instead with this slick tape job.

His front tyre is nominally a 35 but it comes up even larger.

He’s running the new (and now re-approved) SES 6.7 wheelset.

He was also running an aero bottom bracket where the non-driveside needs installing from the driveside and has a totally smooth exterior cup.

His spare bike had the usual 3D printed aero computer mount though.

At the Visma bus, Wout van Aert’s helmet had fingerprints from other Red Bull athletes on it.

He was also using a new Prologo Choice saddle, which is designed to be aerodynamic and modular.

There was an all black, entirely paintless Cervélo S5 at the bus too, which I think belonged to a mechanic or other team staff member.

Many team cars run Starlink, with square data receiver panels mounted to the cars somewhere.

A neat mechanic trick is a dab of pen on properly torqued computer mount bolts, to save having to get the really fiddly bits out.

Wout van Aert was running 32mm Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres, and clearance was tight at the rear.

I didn’t see it on his spare bike, but his race bikes had a neat line of glue around the tyre bead to stop them burping. There are no inserts inside either.

Van Aert was a contestant on Belgium's version of The Masked Singer, with a sticker on his cockpit to remind him.

A square of bar tape in the bottle cages is an old trick to aid security.

Purple SRAM chains on the Modern Adventure Pro Cycling bikes.

These were wrapped around 56t SRAM chainrings.

The team were using the more affordable (though certainly not cheap) Factor Monza, with some riders running a very intricate paint job.

Are these… Pokémon? It was designed by young Belgian artist, VEXX.

Back to bike tech: Unreleased new Michelin Power Cup S tyres were on the team’s Black Inc. wheels for the race. They have some texture on the shoulders, unlike the current Power Cup.

Yeah, these are definitely Pokémon… at least some of them are.

In other good paint news, the Rose Rockets had a wonderfully painted bike for Lukas Kubis.

Why have a boring black seat post when you can have something resembling a fairground helter skelter?

More Starlink here, too.

Now then, that’s not a road derailleur… it’s not even gravel: It’s an XTR wireless MTB derailleur on Anthony Turgis’ bike.

Shimano doesn’t have a native 1x system for the road, so Shimano-sponsored teams have to go off-script to optimise their machines for the race.

These Carbon-Ti chainrings are really catching on since UAE started using them a few seasons ago.

With a one-by system, most teams use a chain keeper, just to add safety and ensure it doesn't fall off

Ignore the tyres for a minute, as these wheels are ‘66’. I asked the team and they are 66mm deep, but apparently they have a ‘UCI approval’. I’ve no Idea how as yet, but am investigating.

Lotto appeared to have Roubaix specific hubs, or at least hubs earmarked specifically for the race.

They were in the minority in using the slower but more durable Corsa Pro Control tyres.

Most of Movistar were on the new Canyon Endurace, but only one rider was using the new cockpit.

There’s one lone Aeroad user still… old habits die hard.

35mm Continental GP5000 S TR tyres are happily accommodated in the Endurace fork.

EF were also using the SRAM Red XPLR derailleur hack. Take a look at the extra long limit screw in the middle of the parallelogram that stops it accessing the 13th gear.

They were also using gravel wheels, and several riders had bars double-wrapped to the centre.

Suggested headline: Ineos uses sponsor-incorrect 50cm wide Michelin tyres for Paris-Roubaix. (The team is sponsored by Continental, for those at the back)

As another Shimano team, Ineos had a whole host of aftermarket chainrings. This one from Drag2Zero.

The team bikes were also using Scope’s second tier R series wheels, rather than the faster but more fragile Artech options.

This Carbon chainring on Filippo Ganna’s bike is from Miche.

Josh Tarling was once again sporting his usual monster Digirit 62t chainring.

It was the biggest one I saw all day, with most teams topping out at 56 or 58t.

With tyres being pushed to ever-wider extremes the commissaires were roaming the pits with 3D printed tools to check for illegal setups.

Decathlon were running Swiss Side All road wheels with 35c Continental tyres at the front, and 32mm at the rear.

This hood position must be absolute murder on the wrists at the end of the day.

While the BMC bikes of Tudor have very wide forks, the actual tyre capacity isn’t huge. A 32mm Schwalbe is quite snug.

SRAM blips glued under the tops is a classic move for the cobbles.

The new Selle Italia SLR Super Flow is a lot more angular than the old model, and not a saddle we see very often.

Bikes aside, the team had a very nice coffee setup at the bus.

DT Swiss gravel wheels and Schwalbe’s proprietary valves rounded out quite an interesting setup here.

Astana had aftermarket colour matched lockrings.

While many riders are going for ever shorter cranks, some staunch belevers in more leverage remain.

GRX gravel derailleurs aid chain retention at the back end with another off-standard 1x setup.

This alloy chainring appears to be from The Mechanic Parts.

The machining on the back side of it was very pleasing.

Sprinter Gleb Syritsa was running an alloy Velobike stem and separate Vision bars. He also gets a special layup to his frame to handle his huge sprint wattages.

Not many teams were using Prologo’s stippled bar tape, but there were a few bikes at Astana with it on.

It’s nothing technical, but this Kazakh national champs paint really grabbed me.

Bahrain’s Bianchi’s were kitted out with Chinese Elilee power cranks.

And their race holders were bonded on to make a very neat system free of rubber bands.

Uno-X had the Sram derailleur hack on too, as well as gravel wheels like Tudor.

They looked to be using ‘only’ 32mm tyres however.

Lidl-Trek were once again using their XPLR hacked derailleurs from last year.

The talk of the town was their innovative new ‘double bubble’ tyre safety system, involving a small air bladder inside the main tyre void to force the tyre bead onto the rim.

How many Sharpies do we think Picnic got through to hide the fact they were using Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres rather than the usual Michelins? I bet if they hadn’t made it so obvious they might have got away with it.

Q36.5 were riding bikes with a Tissot collaboration paint job, with a corresponding watch to match. Sadly I didn’t get to see the timepiece itself.

After all the media noise about the new Canyon Endurace, Mathieu van der Poel ended up riding his standard Aeroad.

He does have a custom saddle, which is neat.

He’s also not opted for the new Canyon cockpit, sticking with his usual wide handlebars.

He also had the standard, non-prototype Dura-Ace pedals, though Jasper Philipsen had them on his bike.

A 55/40t double means he doesn’t have to engineer a back door 1x solution like so many others.

He's aboard the Pirelli P-Zero Race TLR RS tyres

Its name is quite a mouthful, but not as much as the brand’s new even more aero tyres, the P-Zero Race TLR SL-R, which only come in 28 and 30mm options.

I checked the roofs of all the team cars and he only had Aeroads on there, so no hope for a bike swap for the sponsors.

32mm tyres have worked for him the last few years, so why change now?

I think his actual race bike was on the roof, as it was the only one sporting the prototype Dura-Ace wheels we’ve seen since last year.

Philipsen had the prototype pedal goods on his race bike, however. Given Van der Poel couldn't clip into these when offered the spare bike on the Forest of Arenberg, it's safe to assume they use different cleats.

Jayco usually run Cadex tyres, but they were another team going off script and using Corsa Pros, but they weren’t trying to hide it.

They also had the only wireless GRX rear derailleurs that I could see.

At Red Bull things were remarkably normal. Standard Rapide CLX wheels and Cotton tyres.

At Soudal the team mechanics had coated the outer walls of their Specialized Cotton tyres in a layer of urethane though, likely to aid in sealing, but it also stops them rotting in the wet over the long term.

‘The Wolfpack’ as they are known (at least to themselves) also get custom K-Edge computer mounts.

There was one special edition Look in the Cofidis pits, and while they aren’t new I have a real soft spot for the gloss Campagnolo Bora Ultra WTO wheels.

Corsa Pro Control tyres will slow them down compared to the standard Corsas though.

We start at Omloop, in the vast hangar on the side of the velodrome in Ghent. This is Arnaud De Lie’s Orbea Orca Aero; he may have drawn the short straw here; my hunch is that he started with this camera and removed it as he progressed into the race. No pro would want this on their bars.

Lotto–Intermarché are very keen on stem-mounted fuelling notes. I didn’t see many other teams with nutrition plans like this. Fuelling is clearly important to the team during the races.

The aero Orbea Orca has a deep, aggressive head tube, spot the healthy spacer stack for a pro bike, this is a key theme from Opening Weekend.

The team also had some neat aero 3D printed computer mounts this year. More teams are doing this now; last year, it mainly seemed to be UAE.

Here’s a close-up of the nutrition plan, which is a healthy amount of carbs. Try it on your next five-hour ride.

Get yourself over the Bosberg, and the finish isn’t far away.

Separate bars and stems used to be very rare; I saw quite a few this year. This feels like a rider still finding their position to me.

And then there was this monster belonging to Mathias Norsgaard, it's not pretty, but it seems to work for him.

Here are the unreleased Bontrager wheels the team has been using. I took a good look at the hubs. The rim of this one looks like it’s had a good ding to me.

Here are the silver hubs with ‘RSL’ on them, which stands for Race Shop Limited in Bontrager / Trek speak. This could well be a new addition to the Aeolus wheel range.

The wheels have carbon spokes, and I spotted the Vonoa brand name, a Chinese brand whose spokes can be found on several brands' wheels.

Lidl-Trek signed a deal with Gatorade at the start of the year. The Madone is more aero with these bottles fitted, spot the '30' written on the rear, which I assume is the carbohydrate amount in the drink mix.

Lidl-Trek use these aftermarket disc lockrings to save weight.

Another 3D-printed computer mount, this time from Dutch company Leap Components.

Lidl-Trek kicked off the SRAM 1x13 Red XPLR use this time last year, and now many teams seem to have followed suit. They had fitted K-Edge chain catchers for extra security, which SRAM recommends.

Rose Rockets switched to SRAM groupsets from Shimano over the winter; they had a mix of double and 1X chainsets, but I think the riders' race bikes all had SRAM Red XPLR fitted.

Here's a 1X Red chainset; the team developed a custom Wolf Tooth chain catcher to go with its Rose frames.

This rider stopped to sign some autographs for some young fans. There were a lot of young cycling fans at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, in particular. The sport is alive and well in Belgium.

Here’s the bike that everyone was talking about or trying to spot at the beginning of the year. The new SuperSix Evo. These new Cannondale bars were designed specifically for the bike.

The Gen 5 SuperSix is slightly lighter and faster than the old one, though nearly every frame tube shape has been updated and changed.

I liked this custom EF race number holder, and several teams had cool custom ones.

The Van Rysel RCR-F machines look super agressive in the flesh, there's loads of deep, wide tube profiles, and that includes the Deda handlebars.

It was dim in places in the Omloop hanger; the lights of the team cars illuminated certain bikes depending on where they were. Note the thru axle lever here to help with faster wheel changes in the event of a flat.

Here’s the brand new 3D printed Fizik Arione, which launched just a few days before Opening Weekend. The Arione name has been around for a very long time now.

This is a lot of spacers, even for a pro. This is one of the Flanders-Baloise Eddy Merckx badged bikes, which are actually Ridley Falcon RS models; Ridley owns the Merckx name these days.

The team were using 32mm Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres and inner tubes. I’ve got a lot of time for this setup.

Here’s one of the as-yet-unreleased 32mm Specialized Turbo Cotton tyres. This size of Cotton isn’t currently available on the brand's website. There was some interesting stuff going on with Bora’s tyres.

Several of the tyres had a clear, silicone-like coating on the sidewalls that overlapped slightly with the tread. One of the mechanics I asked told me it was for protection.

Bora also had SRAM 1X chainsets with K-Edge chain catchers fitted.

Here’s that sidewall sealant again; it was definitely on several pairs, and I can’t say I’ve seen it on many pro road bikes before. Perhaps it’s something to do with the unreleased nature of those 32mm tyres.

The team appeared to be back on 30mm tyres for Kuurne, which has slightly less testing cobbled surfaces.

Bora had a bike or two with a separate handlebar and stem. I wonder if teams are simply waiting on custom integrated bars, or riders are starting to revert back to them to achieve a better position.

And here’s the Roval Rapide integrated handlebar; there was a mix on show.

Nils Politt’s bike is huge. I couldn’t stop looking at it. He was running a high seatpost height on his Colngo Y1Rs.

Carbon-Ti direct mount rear derailleur hanger on the UAE bikes. Spot the neat Di2 wiring.

Team UAE were also the only team riding on the Continental Archetype tyres, supposedly developed with the team. No other team had them fitted.

This Y1Rs had some extra padding at the bar hood area, I think it’s so the rider can hunker down and hold an aero position more easily. This bike belonged to Rune Herregodts.

New Wilier Filante SLR machines for Groupama-FDJ United, the team told me they are still waiting to receive the new Miche wheels, which were recently launched.

The team was also the only squad on the 30mm brown sidewall colourway Continental GP5000 S TR tyres. They told me this was the only option when I asked, but a check on the Conti site shows both black and dark brown versions available, strange.

Simple stem notes from Picnic-PostNL, sometimes this is all you need, especially when you're going hard for five hours.

For Omloop, a lot of teams were using the Zipp 303 SW wheels with the Bluetooth AXS tyre pressure sensor. Pro teams haven’t used these wheels much, but a lot had them on for Omloop. The whole Movistar squad were riding them, for example, over the deeper 454 option.

Bar-mounted dropper post lever for the Shimano neutral service bikes, which allows any rider to adjust the seatpost height to suit.

Shimano neutral support has everything needed to help riders who can’t get a bike. The famous Shimano blue stands out a mile away. This was at the start of Kuurne.

Picnic-PostNL were on Ursus Proximo wheels and 30mm Michelin Power Cup tyres, not the latest Arya wheelset from Ursus.

The Lapierre bikes reportedly have special light paint jobs to drop some weight.

This is Timo Roosen’s bike, a very intimidating setup. This is the Prologo T GALE TT saddle.

I spotted Alpecin-Premier Tech riding an updated Canyon Aeroad frame this weekend. This is the regular Aeroad; note the smooth drive side dropout.

And this is the updated frame that has been made SRAM UDH ready. Canyon told me this isn’t a new Aeroad, just a small update.

This is Mathieu van der Poel’s race bike. The team arrived last, so it was tough to get near the bikes. Van der Poel was riding prototype Shimano wheels, and has been for some time on and off, which we look at next.

The wheel hubs are stamped ‘Prototype’, the wheels have carbon spokes, and given the pro rider use, I assume this is how the next generation Dura-Ace wheels may well look.

I also found a Shimano product code that doesn’t currently exist. Current Dura-Ace wheels are listed as WH-R9270; this WH-R9370 code could well be for the new Dura-Ace.

The Total Energies Cube Litening bikes really pop this year, but the colour scheme is dangerously close to rainbow stripes territory.

They look aggressive and fast, and do stand out from the rest of the bikes in the peloton, which is what it’s all about.

The bikes had a mix of chainrings; some had these aftermarket Carbon-Ti chainrings, which are popular right now.

While others had these non-series 44-56 tooth Dura Ace chainrings.

There was a mix of stems on show again at Jayco-AIUla, bikes had separate bars and stems and integrated setups fitted.

The Cofidis look bikes had unusual looking 3D-printed rear mech hangers fitted that one could tell me much about, my guess is they are quite stiff and aid shifting.

It’s nice bling, that goes well with the exotic Campagnolo Super Record equipment.

Cofidis are the only team on Campagnolo, using the brand's wheels and groupsets. A fan asked me if any bikes had Campagnolo this year. Note the tall spacer stack again.

I spotted what looked like more sidewall sealant on these Visma-Lease a Bike Vittoria wheels. This wasn’t bubbling away, and looked like some sort of sealing product to me.

Cervélo updated the S5, including the handlebars, last year, which makes for a very aggressive-looking front end.

This isn’t a saddle bag but a Velon data tracking unit; all the Visma race bikes had them fitted today.

The Cervélo S5 uses a bayonet-style fork and is widely regarded as one of the very fastest race bikes in the bunch.

This Cervélo Soloist stuck out and looked almost dated against the S5 bikes; this was Visma development team rider Matisse Van Kerckhove's bike, who was riding up today.

Ineos Grenadiers' Pinarello Dogma’s have a new paint job, but looked largely the same as ever, bar the upgraded Scope Artech wheels.

Ben Swift uses the rarely seen Shimano axle extenders for a wider stance. Swift sadly crashed out of Omloop.

Ineos mount their race transponders to the bottom Dogma fork leg, most teams fit them mid-fork leg and cover them with a section of cut inner tube.

The Uno-X Ridleys look as fast as ever; the team switched from Shimano to SRAM equipment in the winter.

They were also the only team using the Continental Aero 111 tyres; they must have believed them to be the fastest option, and there was a lot of wind at Omloop.

The team also had some neat 3D-printed computer mounts.

As well as setpost-mounted number holders.

I’ll say it, these might just be the best-looking bikes in the peloton, that blue and gold works very well for Pinarello-Q36.5.

This is Tom Pidcock’s bike, who didn’t have quite the day he wanted at Omloop.

Pidcock ran 30mm tyres and 165mm cranks; he also experimented with his bar setup this winter after experiencing wrist pain at times.

Blue and gold, it just works.

The Wolfpack were hunting this weekend. It didn’t quite work out, but their S-Works Tarmac SL8 bikes always look good.

This mechanic was using a Makita pump to inflate the teams Specialized Turbo Cotton tyres.

This was a spare bike, but I spotted more sealant bubble or sidewall sealer; it was tricky to tell.

The Tudor bikes always look smart, very neat bar tape wrapping here, the same thing I thought last year about Matteo Trentin’s bike.

Mechanics like putting their names on things, to keep them safe, often. This mechanic has stickered up his Makita inflation pump.

Modern Adventure were riding the insane looking Factor ONE race bike, though they could also choose the OSTRO as well.

I spotted a single pair of these Michelin prototypes at Modern Adventure. They were marked ‘work in progress’ and not for sale. There could be a new road tyre on the way from Michelin; the tread itself looked very slick.

Bahrain switched from Merida to Bianchi bikes for this season. The Oltre RC aero bikes are striking. This gaping computer mount ‘mouth’ on the bars caught my eye.

The team are also using Chinese Elilee chainsets with Dura-Ace chainrings.

These neat carbon fibre number holders were very neat.

Spanish squad Burgos-Burpellet are a UCI Pro Team, it’s nice to cover non-WorldTour machines that are less familiar, the team were using inner tubes.

Team NSN had some extra tape in place to quiet any computer rattle; the old tricks are the best sometimes.

They were also using 1X SRAM chainsets with chain catcher devices. I think we will see a lot more 1X during the Classics this year, most SRAM teams seem to be using them.

We’ll finish with these big Biniam Girmay fans at the start of Kuurne, one of whom was wearing a commemorative green jersey, and they were blasting music from their speaker outside the NSN team bus.

Let’s start on day one of the race series, in the rain, with Remco Evenepoel’s new gold bike… or at least partially gold.

He still gets his gold K-Edge computer mount.

And a gold ‘Remco’ signature on the top tube.

But the overall feel of his bike is much more in line with the rest of the team's machines. Maybe I’m reading too much into some paint, but it’s certainly different to his Soudal-QuickStep machine and how that stood out from the pack.

I can't lie, in the rain the paint looked fantastic.

The EF riders were about an unreleased new version of the Cannondale SuperSix Evo, though it is extremely similar at first glance.

These Continental Archetype tyres came out for the Tour de France last year, for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, but now they're being seen elsewhere, like on this Movistar bike.

The UAE team bikes, meanwhile, were sporting the Enve Pro wheels, with silver spokes and hubs.

Clemént Venturini of Unibet Rose Rockets was sporting a different rain jacket from his teammates to deal with the deluge. It looks to be an old Shakedry, still in use despite the fraying pockets.

These Kern Pharma shorts look to have Dyneema threads for abrasion resistance on the sides and hips.

The Unibet paint is certainly going to turn heads.

Don’t be fooled by the Rose logo on the downtube, this is a Ridley Dean Fast. Rose, bike supplier to the team this year, has a licensing agreement with the Belgian brand, and Unibet aren't the only squad on Deans at this race.

You’ve got to love the attention to detail in the branding.

Not content with riding an unreleased bike in the mass start races, EF were also aboard what appeared to be an unreleased prototype version of the Cannondale SuperSlice.

The form is similar to the old version, but this headtube-top tube sweep is more organic, and dare I say Dean-esque.

EF is sponsored by Muc-Off, which supplies pink valves for the team's wheels (along with tyre goop). I admire the commitment to sponsor correctness in fitting a pink valve that’ll be covered up completely. I guess it paid off, as here it is in the gallery…

Gold pen makes sure the saddle position is just so after transport and servicing.

Shorter cranks are a growing trend, but there are still plenty of 172.5mm sets on show here at EF.

These Elite Leggero Carbon superlight bottle cages are becoming the new standard for Elite-sponsored teams - which is a lot of them.

The new SuperSlice cockpits were finished with Leap grips.

Here are those pink valves again, fitted to monstrously deep Vision front wheels.

Or at least, they’re stickered up with Vision logos. The hubs look like Visions, but I can’t find a Metron this deep with these logos online. Astana were rocking some badged ‘SL91’, so I suspect it’s these; a new model if so.

The bottom bracket isn’t crazy high like some TT bikes nowadays.

Some team bikes had old-school SRAM blip setups clamped onto their tri bar extensions.

While others had them mounted on these neat, aero Leap Blip covers.

While black is undoubtedly lighter, it does strike me as a shame for such a large canvas to go unpainted.

A central strut holds up the Vision TT extension bars.

The Cannondale fork blades make the super deep wheels look somewhat proportional.

How does it feel sitting behind Remco in a TT, Nico?

Given that Evenepoel is the current Belgian, European, World, and Olympic TT champion, it’s a minor miracle his TT bike is so toned down.

Unlike on the road, his bike stands out from the plain black Shiv TT machines of his teammates.

Sixty eight teeth. Count them if you like.

The rainbow stripes are confined to the seat tube and inside the fork legs.

A gold K-Edge chain keeper matches his road computer mount.

His bike was also sporting these Leap grips for a very smooth transition from brakes to base bar.

The riders, presumably for better vision in the wheels, had more upright positions in the TTT, but some still sported the cutout visors, allowing them to get even lower when their turn on the front came.

Custom branded Puma trainers. Respect the drip.

The commissaires were out in force, armed with callipers. Given this tyre was a 25mm tubular (I think), I’m not sure it's likely to be troubling the maximum wheel-tyre diameter rule anytime soon…

Yes, that’s right, those are rim brakes. One stone and it’s all over though… talk about tight clearances!

Not only were the Petrolike team sporting rim brakes, but tubular tyres; a delightful throwback.

I don’t think they were ever going to challenge for the win, so one can forgive this distinctly un-aero computer mounting.

The ‘tunnel of team bikes’ photo is a terrible cliché, so for that I apologise, but one of the X-Labs is not like the others.

This black bike is the same as the others in form, and given the parcours was totally flat for the race, there’s no real advantage in spending hours sanding paint down to raw carbon, so I suspect this is a different layup, given XDS is the team sponsor and direct manufacturer of a great many bike frames for other brands too.

Here are those whopping Metron 91SL wheels again. It was a windy day to be rolling with such a deep front wheel.

This Vision rear disc, as with most of the team bikes, is an old rim brake disc with a disc brake hub rebuilt into it.

Other bikes were seen sporting this newer model, which is effectively a 40mm deep Vision rim with a skin over the top. It’s wider, but I was told the riders preferred the all-carbon monocoque option as it’s stiffer.

The Prologo Predator TT saddle will set you back (no, this isn’t a joke) €1,250.

I’m unsure who manufactures this chainring. It has no distinctive markings on it that I could see.

Right, let’s play 'What bike is this?'... I’ve not seen a port on the rear side of the head tube before.

Aero pulley wheel covers were on it, but that doesn’t narrow things down much.

I also can’t recall seeing a junction box up here, in the wind, before.

It’s an Aurum, and not a prototype either… but Aurum doesn’t make a time trial bike. According to the UCI codes, it’s an ‘Aurum Chrono Disco’. Whether it’ll be released or not remains to be seen, but Aurum is a small brand and developing a time trial bike is quite the undertaking financially.

It’s quite an unassuming machine, but it bears a passing resemblance to the SuperSlice in some ways.

When stock risers aren’t enough, aluminium comes into play.

The Polti - Visit Malta squad are also rolling on Scope wheels on the road, though it looks like it's using Enve discs and an unbadged front for the TT.

The Artech wheels have an unmistakable fish scale texture, and test very fast in our own wind tunnel testing.

Enric Mas’ extensions had full-length towelling lining them.

I know it’s not the drive side, but this De Rosa was a looker.

I know you’ve got to keep the sponsors happy, but keeping this dangly thing on the Selle SMP saddle is silly for a time trial.

Shorter cranks - 170mm - but nothing crazy at Uno-X.

The team was using the Ridley Dean, but badged up properly this time.

It’s mad how fast time trial tech has moved. The Overton window of crazy helmets has shifted so much that these Sweet Protection lids, previously extremely outlandish, look normal now. -

Two screws in these Deda base bars allow plenty of angle adjustment within the available range.

Curiously the team was using the Continental Aero 111 front tyre on their road bikes….

…but not on their TT bikes. My suspicion is that the benefit of it is in better crosswind stability, which is somewhat overpowered by the much greater side area of a TT bike, meaning they may as well fit a lower rolling resistance model.

Another Ridley Dean, rebadged. Eddy Merckx is owned by the same parent company though.

This Fast Forward wheel was the shallowest front I saw all day. Safety first!

Most teams were using either tubeless, or latex tubes, but the Baloise squad was on TPU tubes.

Another new bike! What is this, the Dauphiné?!

We are now officially in the era of W I D E B I K E S. This new BMC was hiding in the Tudor paddock.

These extensions are so tall and really rather graceful. A far cry from the ‘lower is faster’ mantra of old.

The outward curve of the struts must be to allow more air to pass cleanly underneath the rider’s body.

I respect the fact the mechanics gave the race chip holder a black innertube to match the bike.

We also appear to be entering an era of fully integrated front ends. No adjustable base bars, just fully moulded carbon.

The SRAM controls flow well into the base bar, but I could see the junction being smoothed with tape in time.

The rear stays are hugely wide-set.

The front end tubing, like the rear, is blade-like.

It’s a mad looking bike, but my favourite detail was this cover over what I assume is the seat wedge bolt. It’s 3D printed, and I assume smoothes the flow of air at the near-right angle junction between top tube and seat post.

The Cubes of Total Energies had a strut to the rear of the head tube.

All the bikes appeared to have their saddles slammed very far back.

Quite unusual to see a double chainset for a flat TT nowadays. 170mm cranks, too.

As Shimano doesn’t make giant 1x chainrings, teams appear to be at liberty now to go aftermarket.

The seat cluster is a whopping piece of carbon.

The Cube is a dual-purpose bike, also catering to triathlon riders who often run snack pouches on the top tube. Here, the bosses are blanked out for a small gain.

The team’s Newmen wheels also feature hidden valves for an aero boost up front.

Unused bosses on the seat tubes were also taped over.

With so many bikes now using proprietary TT bottles, it’s novel to see round ones in use still.

UAE have an aero bottom bracket with a smooth non-driveside shell as part of their sponsorship equipment (no, really), but it seems they opted to not fit it to a single bike, road or TT, that I could see.

These larger CarbonTi chainrings are skeletal, with an outer carbon facade.

Very deep - 80mm or so - Enve Pro front wheels.

Lotto - Intermarché had 3D printed titanium handholds on their TT extensions.

The team is sponsored by OQUO wheels, so used its wheels up front…-

… but not at the back, as OQUO doesn’t make a disc.

The Euskatel squad had road bikes atop the cars kitted out with No Limited wheels, a relatively new brand from Poland.

Merida neutral service bikes weren't fitted with dropper posts, but just had an allen key jammed in the seat clamp of every bike. I hope they stayed in…

Mechanical Ultegra… now there’s a blast from the past.

This may be lost on some of our European readers, but to a great many of us, this bike will simply make us think of getting vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella.

Some of the Giant Trinity bikes of Jayco - AlUla had patches of carbon weave applied behind the seat tube, but not all of them.

Most riders opted for a standard, deep front wheel, but one was brave enough for the quad-spoke.

Nothing techy here really, just some really lovely paintwork to finish on.