The Tour Down Under got underway today with a prologue, marking the start of the 2023 WorldTour season.
However, far from a typical prologue, the Adelaide-based 5.5km sprint was awash with highly-modified road bikes to take advantage of the race's unique ban on time trial bikes.
Due to the logistical difficulty of getting time trial bikes to Australia alongside the team's fleet of road bikes, the race organisers, UCI, and teams agreed that the stage would be contested on standard road bikes.
Time trial bikes and aerobars of any kind were not permitted, but importantly, disc wheels, trispokes, and aero helmets were. The result was a mechanical masterclass in aero-optimisation from riders and their team mechanics.
Many bikes were given time trial wheelsets, shifters were turned in, time trial helmets were almost ubiquitous, skinsuits were used by all but a select few, and aero overshoes were a regular sight.
Bettiol left very few stones unturned in the pursuit of aero performance. He's removed his bottles from his bike, fitted a disc time trial wheel from Vision and what looks like an 80mm deep front time trial wheel.
He's wearing Rapha's time trial speed suit, aero overshoes and aerodynamic mitts too. Up top, he's wearing the POC Cerebel time trial helmet, and at the front he's using a Vision Metron aero handlebar, with turned-in Shimano Dura-Ace shifters.
Luke Plapp also took the turned-in hoods approach, alongside various other aero optimisations. However, interestingly, the newly-crowned Australian road champion has double-wrapped the tops of his bars to offer a little extra padding when riding in the 'puppy paws' position, which was permitted for the race thanks to a loophole.
Like the rest of the Ineos Grenadiers team, Plapp's bike was running a Princeton Carbonworks time trial wheelset worth USD $5700. The wheelset can be seen here - albeit slightly blurred through movement - on the bike of young Briton Leo Hayter.
Early favourite Rohan Dennis added one extra aero optimisation to the list. In addition to riding the Cervelo S5 aero bike, with a time trial disc rear and 80mm deep front wheel, a TT helmet, skinsuit, overshoes and mitts, he also swapped from the traditional double chainset to a single chainring. The removal of the front derailleur and inner chainring is beneficial in terms of both weight and aerodynamics, and helped the two-time world TT champion to 15th place, a ride that was hampered by wet conditions.
Of all the riders, however, we think Pello Bilbao wins the most aggressively aero-optimised setup award.
We've already discussed turned-in shifters with Bettiol and Plapp above, but Bahrain Merida's Bilbao has taken this to the extreme, making them almost horizontal. What's more, if you look closely, you'll see that while the tops are taped, the drops on his bars are left without.
Bilbao also took the same approach as Rohan Dennis, removing his front derailleur and committing to one chainring. Unlike Dennis he hasn't opted for a chain keeper, relying on the clutch of the Dura-Ace rear derailleur to keep the chain on. More of an aero win, but a greater risk of chain drop over the urban course.
That's all in addition to the largely ubiquitous TT wheels and helmet, speed suit, mitts and overshoes.
Bilbao was also one of the only riders on the course followed by a team car. Much has been discussed about the aerodynamic benefit to the rider of a following team car. So much so that the UCI introduced rules for 2023 limiting the distance at which it can follow.
Bilbao was also hampered by the weather, and finished in 25th place at 20 seconds behind Bettiol.
