Tour de France tech: new bikes, hidden shifters and custom paint jobs

The best riders in pro cycling have all flocked to Spain for the start of the sport’s biggest race, the Tour de France. Following closely behind them is a raft of the newest and hottest cycling tech. From new bikes to unique paint jobs, we sent Simon Richardson over to the Basque Country ahead of the Grand Départ to unearth all of the hottest tech at this year’s race.

BMC's new 'Red Bull' bike breaks cover

Starting with a prototype BMC which has officially broken cover having previously made an outing at the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June. Back then it was unbranded with a ‘#CREATESPEED’ logo emblazoned on the downtube, but it’s made a return adorned with the BMC logo for the first time and will be raced by AG2R Citroën Team.

This time ‘#CREATESPEED’ is wrapped around the whole frame, covering every tube on the bike in an eye-catching design. It’s joined by a ‘Red Bull Advanced Technology’ logo, a nod to the continued collaboration between BMC and the F1 team.

F1 is very aerodynamically focussed so we’ll be interested to see what knowledge has been taken from the sport and applied to the bike. Simon got his hands on Ben O’Connor’s bike and the frame is noticeably unique with a deep head tube and wider forks than you’d usually see on a race bike. 

As you may expect, all of the bikes we saw were specced with disc brakes.

Mads Pedersen's bling custom paint job

Moving on from AG2R Citroën Team to the newly renamed Lidl-Trek who are racing a very eye-catching bike. That’s if your gaze isn’t too distracted by their new kit which is sure to divide opinion.

If the team’s kit may be debatable, the Trek Madone SLR 7 Gen 7 they’re riding isn’t. As a part of Trek’s Project One, each rider had the opportunity to customise their bike’s colourway. The ones Simon encountered all looked stunning but Mads Pedersen’s iridescent design stole the show and surely wins the award for the most eye-catching bike at the Tour de France.

Topping off the look, the bike is adorned with SRAM’s gold chain and cassette which is reserved for current and former World Champions, the Dane having won the rainbow jersey back in 2019.

Richard Carapaz’s hidden shifters

Not content with regular shifters, Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) has opted for extra sprint shifters on the inside of his hoods on his Cannondale SuperSix EVO LAB71. The Ecuadorian is using Shimano Dura-Ace which already has additional shifters at the top of the hoods. It’s unique and not something we’ve seen very often, if at all!

Unfortunately Carapaz didn’t get much time to use them, having to withdraw from the race after a crash on stage 1.

Debuts for Uno-X and Dare

After years of knocking on the door, Uno-X finally made their Tour de France debut along with their bike sponsors, Dare. The Taiwanese direct-to-consumer brand offers two bikes, their aero VSRu model or the lightweight MA. The brand claims that the MA weighs in at 6.9kg and we can confirm that it felt featherweight, although Simon didn’t test it on the scales.

The bikes are paired with DT Swiss wheels and they’ve chosen to stick to the traditional Schwalbe Pro One tyres over the prototype Pro One Aerothan which the brand recently teased. Shimano’s Dura-Ace groupset completes the builds.

Mysterious Factor VAM

After a little teasing by the Factor team at Eurobike, the new Factor O2 VAM also broke cover in the Basque Country. At Eurobike, Factor hid the bike in a box with only the front wheel poking out but there was no more teasing at the Tour de France where the bike will be ridden by the Israel-Premier Tech team.

No details about the bike have been revealed as it hasn’t yet been released but it was noticeably light upon inspection. Part of that may be down to the wafer-thin top tube near the junction with the seat tube, one of the narrowest we’ve seen.

The bike’s were specced with currently unreleased Black Inc wheels. Using shallow rim depths of 28mm on the front and 33mm on the rear, we’re presuming these are pure climbing wheels and they should see plenty of action over a climbing-heavy three weeks at the Tour de France.

Has Tadej Pogačar changed position on his bike?

Mads Pedersen may win the award for the most eye-catching bike, but the most customised bike Simon found fittingly belongs to two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates). The Slovenian is one of the big favourites at this year’s race and he’ll be relying partly on a highly customised Colnago V4RS for assistance.

The bike is decked out with Carbon-Ti chainrings and disc rotors, 3D-printed chain bolt covers, a custom-made Darimo seatpost, a 3D-printed number holder, and even a 3D-printed headset cover. All of these additions help to keep the bike’s weight down to what UAE Team Emirates says is 6.9kg.

Beyond all the customisations, our friend Sebas Haedo from GCN en Español has noticed that Pogačar’s position on his bike has changed dramatically. The Slovenian previously used 172.5mm cranks but his Tour de France bike has gone down to 170mm. The seat on the bike has also been moved as far forward as possible. We don’t know exactly how much of a difference it is from last year, but Sebas thinks it’s around 2cm further forward than previously.

Jonas Vingegaard chooses a 1x chainset

Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) caught everyone’s attention when he used a 1x setup on certain stages of the Giro d’Italia. It proved to be a successful decision as he won the race for the first time, and now teammate and defending Tour de France champion, Jonas Vingegaard, is following his lead.

The Dane’s Cervélo S5 aero bike that Simon encountered had SRAM’s RED eTap AXS groupset with a 52t chainring and a 10-36t cassette. The cassette is slightly smaller than the 10-44t gravel model used by Roglič at the Giro and, interestingly, SRAM don’t actually sell a cassette of that size.

We’ll keep an eye out throughout the race to try and spot any changes to the setup.