Tour de France pro bike: Jonas Vingegaard’s 1x Cervélo S5

Reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) is following in the footsteps of teammate Primož Roglič by using a 1x setup on his aero Cervélo S5 bike at the 2023 Tour de France.

Roglič used a similar setup at the Giro d’Italia, including on the penultimate stage time trial when he overthrew Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) from the top of the overall standings to win the race.

While they’re still fairly unique in pro cycling, Jumbo-Visma are currently embracing 1x chainsets and Vingegaard tested the setup at the Critérium du Dauphiné back in early June. It clearly impressed the Dane as it's returned on his aero bike at the Tour de France.

GCN

Vingegaard's Cervélo S5 has a 1x setup with a 50-tooth chainring.

The we found in Spain is SRAM’s RED eTap AXS with a 50-tooth chainring and a 10-36 cassette. SRAM doesn’t sell a 10-36 cassette at their highest Red level. They have a Force version which is the tier below, but using that would come with not-insignificant additional weight, so we suspect it’s not a normal Force cassette.

The S5 itself is Cervélo’s aero offering and Vingegaard’s version has a claimed weight of only 7.12kg. That’s for a relatively small size of 51cm but is still incredibly lightweight for an aero bike.

Vingegaard has also opted for 40cm wide bars. Narrow bars have become common as teams and riders pursue aerodynamic gains and some riders have started angling their shifters inwards. There’s neither of these on Vingegaard’s bike with the Dane sticking to a fairly standard 40cm width.

GCN

Many pro riders are using narrow bars but Vingegaard isn't one of them.

It’s also the only bike we've encountered at the Tour de France specced with tubular tyres. Until fairly recently, tubulars were almost unanimously used but not anymore, so this was an interesting find.

Will we see more teams following Jumbo-Visma’s 1x lead? Aqua Blue Sport - who had GCN presenter Conor Dunne on their roster at the time - became the first notable team to go 1x back in 2018 and it never really caught on. Jumbo-Visma are one of the leading teams in the world, though, and their choice to go 1x for certain races is sure to catch the attention of other teams.

Bike Specification