Damien Touzé’s Timemachine TT: A rare WorldTour sighting of BMC and Campagnolo

AG2R Citroën is the only WorldTour team to use BMC bikes and Campagnolo components, but that could be about to change

13:30, Thursday 28th September 2023

Tom Hallam-Gravells

Online Production Editor

Damien Touzé’s Timemachine TT

AG2R Citroën Team
- Nationality France
- Founded 1992
- Team Principal Vincent Lavenu
- UCI Code ACT
- Bike Sponsor BMC
Damien Touzé
- Team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team
- Nationality France
- Age 27
- UCI Wins 4
- Height 1.74m
Vuelta a España
- Dates 26 Aug - 17 Sept
- Race Length 3,133 kms
- Race Category Elite Men
BMC
BMC is a bike manufacturer based in Grenchen, Switzerland. The company manufactures bikes for a wide range of disciplines, from road and gravel to mountain bikes and commuting.
Campagnolo
Campagnolo is one of the world’s leading components manufacturers. The company specialises in groupsets, both mechanical and electrical, as well as wheels for road, gravel, triathlon and track bikes.
Fizik
Founded in 1996, Fizik has established itself as a leading manufacturer of saddles and other cycling accessories.
Elite
Elite is a cycling accessories manufacturer based in Fontaniva, Italy, just 60km from Venice. The company started out producing bottles and has since expanded out into cages and trainers - innovating and finding marginal gains wherever it can along the way.

In the Shimano-dominated landscape of the men’s WorldTour, Campagnolo groupsets are a rare sight. It wasn’t always that way. For long stretches of pro cycling’s history, the Italian brand’s name was synonymous with glory, used by the sport’s biggest stars, including the great Eddy Merckx and Fausto Coppi.

Now, only one team at WorldTour level uses Campagnolo components, AG2R Citroën for its BMC bikes. We got our hands on Damien Touzé’s BMC Timemachine time trial bike at the recent Vuelta a España, a bike that will soon be rarer than Campagnolo’s components in the WorldTour.

Timemachine out, Speedmachine in

After three years of using Eddy Merckx bikes, AG2R Citroën made the switch to BMC for the 2021 season, joining fellow WorldTour incumbents Team Qhubeka NextHash. By the end of the season, with the demise of the latter, the number of BMC-sponsored teams at cycling’s highest level dropped to one, and it could soon be zero with road.cc recently confirming long-standing rumours that the French team would change to Van Rysel for the 2024 season.

BMC recently released its new Speedmachine time trial bike

It would spell the end of BMC’s tenure at WorldTour level, unless the brand joins forces with another team. Even if it does, we won’t be seeing the Timemachine TT bike used for much longer. Since the Vuelta, it’s been superseded by BMC’s latest release, the Speedmachine, a bike the Swiss brands claims is “the fastest time trial and triathlon bike in the world”.

Designed in collaboration with Formula One experts Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT), the engineering wing of Red Bull, the bike is the product of five years of design, research and testing. That’s led to many changes from the Timemachine. Both the seatstays and top tube are noticeably different, with the Speechmachine adopting the now-popular dropped seastay design. That’s compared to the more unique design on Touzé’s Timemachine on which the seatstays connected to the top tube.

While the steeper angles also catch the eye, it’s the fork that’s undergone the most changes. Following modern trends, it’s much wider, although it doesn’t reach the same levels as the Team GB’s Hope Lotus track bike - check that out here. BMC has also hidden its innovative ‘SharkFin’ airflow spoiler under the fork crown, one of the areas of the bikes that has benefitted from BMC’s Red Bull partnership.

BMC's SharkFin technology

Campagnolo out too?

If AG2R Citroën does end its partnership with BMC, it could also spell the end of Campagnolo’s current stay at WorldTour level. Currently, Van Rysel doesn’t spec Campagnolo components on its high-end RCR PRO bike, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that it wouldn’t for a WorldTour team.

Should Campagnolo also make the switch, AG2R Citroën would likely use the Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupset. For a long time the Italian brand fell behind its rivals in the wireless arms race, partly explaining why few teams use its components, but it responded this year with the release of Super Record EPS, its first fully wireless electronic groupset.

Touzé didn't use Campagnolo's latest Super Record groupset

Interestingly, Touzé didn’t have the latest wireless version for his Vuelta time trial bike, instead using the older Super Record. When we encountered the bike the day before the opening team time trial, the bike had a 56-44t crankset. That’s not too big for a time trial bike, and we saw a few riders using the same size on their regular road bikes, like Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers.

Read more: Filippo Ganna's Pinarello Dogma F

Touzé's time trial set-up

Completing the time trial set-up, Touzé’s bike had a deep-section Campagnolo Bora Ultra WTO 80 front wheel along with the standard disc rear. These were paired with Pirelli’s P Zero Race TT tyres which were only released earlier this year, becoming the “the smoothest and lightest clincher tyre of the entire P ZERO race range”.

Campagnolo's deep-section wheels

As is usual, the bike had tri bars to help get Touzé into a more aerodynamic position, in this case from Profile Design. In principle, tri bars are designed to get riders into a low-down position to reduce drag, however it’s evolved into the regularly used head-down position which shot into the limelight recently after Stefan Küng crashed at the European Championships.