The 2022 Tour de France was one for the ages. Exciting racing, fantastic performances, nail-biting edge-of-the-seat moments on all platforms, and lots of new technology. It’s been a busy month with no shortage of content to cover cycling tips.
As such, some things have slipped through the net, but now, on the eve of the final stage, we scrolled through our tech-filled camera SD cards and picked out some of the technologies that didn’t make it into an independent article. . Not because it wasn’t fun, but because it was meant to be a standalone entity that, for one reason or another, didn’t happen, or was put on hold awaiting more details.
The good news is that this tech savings piggy bank makes for a great wrap gallery. Enjoy
KTM Revelator Prototype
T-3 days to Le Grand Depart, and we’ve already seen Cyril Lemoine’s new KTM Revelator. In anticipation of KTM showing off the reveal at the Tour or Eurobike, we’ve been holding back these shots for the big reveal. KTM still hasn’t revealed that Revelator.
Unfortunately, even when KTM fully reveals the vision, it’s unlikely that this zebra-like paint job will be available to you and me. One can hope though, and in the meantime here are some close-up shots of the new bike.
The new Revelator looks light, aero and fast. It’s definitely a bike we’re eager to hear more about. Dropped armrests and hidden seat clamps, these are just a few of my favorite things… when it’s done right. That seatpost bolt looks very accessible, a good start. The bike looks great from the front with internal cable routing maintained by the FSA with an ACR system.Ah Cyril, your man just went and joked about that paint job. Cut pipes – mark. The new frame seems to balance the aero and strength gains of a deeper head tube with the weight savings of a smaller design.Flat Back Seat Post – Check. The new Revelator features a number of design cues that are almost standard on today’s lightweight and aero bikes, but it does so in a way that gives the frame a unique identity. Pierre Roland had the new illustrator but with a much more subdued paint job. Vision Alto Group to give it its full name.
Campagnolo tires
Campagnolo rolled out his new climbing tires for Team UAE. The Italian manufacturer has not yet made any official announcement on the new wheels, and this is something we hope to hear in July, but these close-up photos give us at least some more details to speculate on. One thing Campagnolo’s crew confirmed on the tour was the development of both tubeless-compatible and tubular versions of the new climbing wheels. Oh, Campagnolo has confirmed that these new lightweight Campagnolo will be climbing some tires, but that’s all we know. The new wheels appear to include new rims and the G3’s tire pattern has been cut. New hubs too.
Reserve speed engine
Cervello and Reserve take over the Santa Cruz warehouse in Morzine on their first real day off. Reserve has launched its new 52/63 aero road wheel, and this scooter just makes sense.
The three-wheeled scooter wasn’t some modern take on an ancient Roman chariot, but a custom front-end rig with pitot tubes and other equipment to collect aero data, wind, local weather and other data to better understand the turbulent conditions riders face in the real world. The front pitot tubes are highly technical, very pointed, and $13,000 each. Not your average bike shop floor display. The pitot tubes were open when I took these photos, behind black and yellow caution tape when I left, and I left later that day. Better than sorry. All that information is collected by this laptop and software in a hard box on the back of the scooter. Reserve used the data to design the new 52/63 wheelset.
New shoes, old shoes, wrong shoes
Magnus Kort had these polka dot themed Northwave shoes for his time in the King of the Mountain jersey. Adam Yates killed the back of these CD Shot 2 shoes. Yates has done away with the adjustable heel counter altogether, just for a bit of retention, or perhaps to save a few grams. Gerent Thomas now races in Giro Imperial road shoes. Maybe the same shoes influenced them to break the Everesting record? Another British former Tour de France champion looks set to race at least one mountain stage with the Giro Imperiale under CD’s shoes.Chris Froome competes by pulling CDs on other levels. Speaking of overshoes, Alexander Kristoff is pushing the UCI sock height limit with these DMT overshoes and his Stallion nickname in this stance. The winner of the 2022 Shoe de France should be Wout van Aert, painted by Caitlin Fielder. Jonas Wingegaard looks set to win the Tour de France, but he’s almost lost, and now we’ve revealed his post stage socks, shoes and track suit look.
Merida bars
Bahrain-winning race on their Merida bike with visual components. But some riders seem to opt for the Merida Team SL bar for weight savings or perhaps personal preference. Merida’s bars have gone unnoticed in part because of the Vision stickers, but for the most part, with the exception of the excellent Fred Wright, the rest of the team is largely Bahrain-invisible on this tour. Some riders still prefer the good old fashioned setup and classic two-piece stem and classic drop bar shape.
Time trial headache
It never ceases to amaze me how much work the frontline mechanics have to do leading up to the test days. You might think that World Tour riders set up time trial bikes and are already well prepared, but we regularly see mechanics rebuilding and tuning time trial bikes even before the morning of the time trial stages. Here the Alpesin-Desseunc mechanic was setting up Mathieu van der Poel’s Canyon Speedmax on the eve of the Stage 1 time trial. Gary Blaim of Israel’s Premier Tech team was building a new Factor Hanzo for Chris Froome, also on the eve of Stage 1. Give this statement…With so many riders in each team and each with very different positions and set-up preferences, many teams now use online software and spreadsheets to track each set-up down to the exact function of each shift knob. Most take test day seriously, some take it exceptionally seriously.
At random
The jumbo mechanics came ready for a Wout jersey swap. His days meant that the yellow-tinted green fork Cervello was relegated to a spare van.Among the Speedmax and Aeroads on the Alpine truck, this was the Ultimate. Was MVDP hoping for a Wout style in green and yellow? Team Movistar has mostly stuck to tubular tires for many stages. Bucking the tubeless trend you’ve come to expect from premium bikes. There’s a lot of excitement for the new Giant Propel, and Team BikeExchange-Jayco’s commitment to the Propel for the high mountain stages adds to the hype. Many will take this as a sign that the new bike is close to the 7kg mark as we approach the new Propel in Copenhagen. Top mountain weight-saving hacks aren’t what they used to be, but they still exist if you know where to look. Jonas Vingegaard raced with a Cervelo S5 for most of the stages but switched to a Cervelo R5 to climb the stages alongside Wout van Aert.The VineGuard competes with the Garmin 530, which is lighter than larger display units like the new 1040, but what’s more interesting is that it uses a stripped back color-coded version of the Metron 5D ACR’s integrated bar stem. A bit different from this, but still far from a standard design cockpit, as Primoz Roglich did. The Jumbo seems happy to run with tubeless tires on the flat stage, but mostly switches to tubular tires on Shimano’s lightweight C36 wheels for the mountain stages. Interestingly, a team mechanic said the filler between the tire and the rim is actually a new prototype tubular cement that should be applied all the way to the rim wall, not an aero hack. Some of the Ineos Grenadiers chose the C36 for hill climbs but opted for the tubeless version. Super planche needs super gear. Geraint Thomas climbed to fifth on the super-steep gravel road with a 40 chainring and a 32 sprocket on the rear. We hear a lot about how the riders stay fueled for the 21-day race, but very little about how the riders are fed…
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