Exclusive: Stefan Küng’s Lapierre Aerostorm DRS TT bike
Exclusive: Stefan Küng's Lapierre Aerostorm DRS TT bike
Stefan Küng was agonisingly close to a Tour de France stage win with second place in the stage 5 time trial. He followed that up with fourth on stage 12 into Nîmes and again in the final time trial.
We teased an exclusive look at Küng’s Lapierre Aerostorm DRS time trial bike in our first time trial tech gallery, now we can show you those photos taken minutes after his second-placed ride on stage 5. As a European time trial champion and a rider who takes a methodical approach to time trialling, Küng gets a custom paint scheme on his Lapierre and some enviable components.
The European flag design extends onto the forks 
Groupama-FDJ are one of the few fully sponsored Shimano teams, so it’s no surprise to see the Dura-Ace TT groupset adorn Küng’s bike. 
Team sponsors adorn the top tube to seat tube interface. 
The Aerostorm DRS has swooping lines and shapes that look fast sitting still. 
The rider is Swiss 
With a French bike and team 
The Lapierre has dropped and flared seat stays, but very little tyre clearance 
The front end is also quite narrow 
Lapierre’s Aerostorm DRS has a horizontal top tube that flows back to an aero shape seat tube. 
A smoothish transition from stem to top tube. 
A rusty seat bolt, my guess is Kung spends a lot of time on the indoor trainer with his TT bike. 
172.5 cranks 
Mohorič: “I ride a 55”, Küng: “hold my beer” 
Küng was one of the surprisingly few riders with a waxed chain. 
Küng sticks with the standard Shimano jockey wheels, no oversize systems here. 
The front wheel has what appears to be a small weight taped to the rim. It is exactly opposite the valve stem so it is most likely to balance the wheels. 
But I have no ideas as to what could be below this tape just below the bottle cage. 
Küng has custom made extensions. 
The padding on the extensions gives an indication to just how much of Küng’s arms are supported. 
Like two swans’ necks 
Very aero swans’ necks. 
Prologo provide the saddles for Groupama-FDJ 
A cut inner tube provides a smoother option for mounting the mandatory race timing chip. 
The Lapierre Aerostorm DRS is disc brake. Shimano and Pro don’t yet have a disc brake option for TT wheels. So Küng is riding what appears to be a Roval 321 disc. 
And a Corima front trispoke. 
Küng has those Continental prototype tyres we’ve seen in the time trial gallery linked above. 
This one has seen its fair share of testing 
The 111 seems to be Continental’s code for the new tyre. 
A closer look at that tread pattern 
and the width, at least for this wheel. 
Küng’s bike seems very aero and extremely optimised. 
But it is not lightweight 
About to put the bike to use. 
Not bad having a national champion’s bike as your spare.