Pro bike: Arnaud De Lie’s Orbea Orca Aero

Arnaud De Lie is one of the most hotly-spoken about talents of Belgium cycling. At 22 years old he already has some podiums at some of the biggest one-day races on the calendar along with 15 pro wins including Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec. As a star of Belgium cycling it is fitting for him to find himself on a Belgium team in Lotto Dstny where he will remain until at least the end of the 2026 season.

• Read more: Arnaud De Lie diagnosed with Lyme disease

As a man for the classics, De Lie opts to use the aero version of Orbea’s Orca road bike. Where the standard Orca is aimed purely at being as light as possible, the Orca Aero looks to be as fast through the wind as it can be.

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The Orca Aero is one of two bikes available to Lotto Dstny riders

The current version of the Orca Aero was released in 2021 and looked to take a great deal of inspiration from the brand's TT bike the Ordu. Considering the time of this bikes release it was ahead of the curve in being designed around the use of 28mm tyres.

Vision Metron 5D-Evo cockpit

De Lie’s bike is fitted with the new Metron 5D-Evo aero-integrated cockpit from Vision. This is the latest development from the brand with the bar available in two depths to allow riders to tune the ergonomics of the bar to their hands. The profile of the bar itself is relatively novel in the peloton featuring a forward sweep across the tops that is aimed to improve breathing by opening up the chest more whilst climbing.

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The one-piece bar and stem from vision has a forward sweep aimed to help with breathing by opening up the chest

Shimano Dura-Ace/FSA groupset

As a team sponsored by both Shimano and FSA (who also provide Vision components), it makes sense to see De Lie using a hybrid groupset. The majority of the groupset is Shimano’s flagship Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 with one omission.

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The majority of De Lie's drivetrain comes from Shimano in the shape of its Dura-Ace R9200 groupset with the only omission being the FSA crankset

The crankset used by De Lie comes from FSA’s K-Force range with the addition of the Power Box power meter. Paired to the crankset is the now typical 54/40 tooth chainrings. Something we don’t see a lot of these days is the use of Shimano’s satellite sprint shifters that sit on the drops and give De Lie a second position to shift from whilst riding over the cobbles.

Wheels and tyres

Lotto Dstny are using a combination of both Zipp and Orbea’s own brand Oquo wheels for the 2024 season. When we got our hands on De Lie’s bike it was fitted with Oquo’s deepest wheelset the RP57 which as the name suggests sport a 57mm rim depth. The wheels themselves use Zipps Cognition VS2 hubs and tip the scales at a respectable 1520 grams for a pair.

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De Lie is using Orbea's own in-house wheel brand Oquo's RP57 wheelset

Mounted to the rims are Vittoria’s Corsa Pro tyres. Interestingly De Lie is running a 28mm tyre at the front and a 30mm at the back. There are a number of benefits from running a wider tyre at the rear as it has less of an effect on the aero efficiency of the bike. Running a 28mm tyre presents a smaller frontal area whilst the 30mm tyre at the rear will increase comfort and vibrating damping.

Bike Specification