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The 2022 Tour de France has been one for the ages. Exciting racing, fantastic performances, nail-biting edge-of-your-seat moments on almost every stage, and a host of new tech. It’s been a busy month with no shortage of content for CyclingTips to cover.
As such, some things slipped through the net, but now on the eve of the final stage, we sat down to scroll through our tech-filled camera SD cards and pick out some of the tech that didn’t make it into a standalone article. Not because it isn’t interesting, but because either it was intended to be part of a dedicated standalone that, for one reason or another, didn’t materialise, or held off while waiting for more details that never arrived.
The good news is the contents of this tech savings piggy bank make for a great wrap-up gallery. Enjoy
KTM Revelator Prototype
T-3 days to Le Grand Depart, and we already spotted Cyril Lemoine’s new KTM Revelator. Expecting KTM to reveal the Revelator at either the Tour or Eurobike, we kept these shots back for the big reveal. KTM still hasn’t revealed that Revelator revelation.
Unfortunately, even when KTM does fully reveal the Revelator, it’s unlikely this zebra-like paint job will be available to you and me. One can hope, though, and in the meantime here’s some close-up shots of the new bike.
The new Revelator looks light, aero, and fast. It is certainly a bike we are keen to hear more about. Dropped stays and hidden seat post clamps, these are a few of my favourite things… when done right. That seat post clamp bolt looks pretty accessible, good start. The bike looks very neat up front with internal cable routing taken care of by FSA with its ACR system.Ah Cyril, your man has only gone and scuffed that paint job. Truncated tubing – tick. The new frame seemingly balances the aero and stiffness gains of a deeper head tube with the weight saving of a smaller design.Flat back seat post – tick. The new Revelator features many of the design cues almost standard on today’s light and aero bikes, but does so in a way that gives the frame a unique identity. Pierre Rolland also had the new Revelator but in a much more low key paint job. The Revelator Alto Team to give it its full name.
Campagnolo climbing wheels
Campagnolo rolled out its new climbing wheels for Team UAE. The Italian manufacturer is yet to make any official announcement on the new wheels, and again this is something we had hoped to hear during July, but these close-up photos do at least give us some more details to speculate from. One thing the Campagnolo staff on Tour did confirm is the development of both a tubeless compatible and tubular version of the new climbing wheels. Oh, Campagnolo did also confirm these are new lightweight Campagnolo climbing specific wheels, but that much we already knew. The new wheels seemingly feature new rims and the G3 lacing pattern has been ditched. New hubs also.
The three wheeled scooter was not some form of modern take on an Ancient Roman chariot but rather the custom rig upfront fitted is with pitot tubes and other instruments to gather aero data, wind, ambient weather, and other information in Reserve’s bid to better understand the turbulent conditions riders face in the real world. The pitot tubes out front are highly technical, extremely pointy, and apparently $13,000 each. Not the average bike shop floor display. The Pitot tubes were out in the open when I shot these photos, behind black and yellow warning tape when I was leaving, and gone later that day. Better safe than sorry. All that data was collected with this laptop and software housed in the hard box at the rear of the scooter. Reserve later used the data in designing the new 52/63 wheelset.
New shoes, old shoes, wrong shoes
Magnus Cort had these polka dot themed Northwave shoes for his stint in the King of the Mountains jersey. While Adam Yates had butchered the rear of these Sidi Shot 2 shoes. Yates has removed the adjustable heel retention device entirely, either for even less retention or perhaps just to save a few grams. Geraint Thomas is now racing in the Giro Imperial road shoes. Perhaps influenced by the same shoes breaking the Everesting record? Another British former Tour de France champion is seemingly also racing with Giro Imperials under Sidi overshoes on at least one mountainous stage…While Chris Froome was racing with these eye catching Sidis on other stages. Speaking of overshoes, Alexandre Kristoff is pushing the UCI sock height limit with these DMT overshoes and really pushing his stallion nickname with this stance. Winner of the Shoes de France 2022 has to be Wout van Aert, painted by Caitlin Fielder.. Jonas Vingegaard looks set to win the Tour de France, but he arguably loses much more now we have exposed his post stage socks, sandals, and tracksuit look.
Merida bars
Bahrain-Victorious race with Vision components on their Merida bikes. But some riders seem to prefer the stock Merida Team SL bars either for weight savings or perhaps personal fit preferences. The Merida bars mostly went unnoticed partly because of the Vision stickers, but mostly because apart from the excellent Fred Wright, the rest of the team has been mostly Bahrain-Invisible in this Tour. Some riders also still prefer the good old-fashioned adjustability and drop shape of a classic two piece stem and classic drop bar.
Time trial headaches
It never ceases to amaze me how much work mechanics have to do in the lead up to and during time trial days. You might think the WorldTour riders have their time trial bikes setup and prepared well in advance, but regularly we see mechanics rebuilding and adjusting time trial bikes even as close as the morning of time trial stages. Here the Alpecin-Deceuninck mechanic was preparing Mathieu van der Poel’s Canyon Speedmax on the eve of the stage 1 time trial. Gary Blem of Team Israel-Premier Tech was building a fresh Factor Hanzo for Chris Froome, also on the eve of stage 1. Caption this…With so many riders on every team and each having vastly different positions and setup preferences, many teams now use online software and spreadsheets to keep track of every setup right down to the exact function for each shift button. Most take time trial day seriously, some take it exceptionally seriously.
Random
The Jumbo mechanics came prepared for Wout’s jersey-swapping antics. His days in yellow meant the green forked Cervelo’s were relegated to the spares van.Amidst all the Speedmax and Aeroads at the Alpecin truck was this Ultimate. Was MVDP hoping for a Wout style stint in green and yellow? Team Movistar stuck largely to tubular tyres for many stages. Ditching the trend towards tubeless, which they kept for the spare bikes. There is great anticipation for the new Giant Propel, and Team BikeExchange-Jayco’s loyalty to the Propel for the high mountain stages only increased the hype. With many taking this as a sign the new bike is truly at the circa 7kg mark Giant suggested to us when we got up close with the new Propel in Copenhagen. The high mountain weight saving hacks are not quite what they once were, but they do still exist if you know where to look. Jonas Vingegaard raced with a Cervelo S5 for many stages but, along with Wout van Aert, switches to a Cervelo R5 for climbing stages.Vingegaard also races with a Garmin 530, lighter than the larger display units like the new 1040, but more interestingly, he seemingly has use of a stripped-back paint version of the Metron 5D ACR integrated bar stem. As did Primož Roglič with this slightly different but still far from the standard design cockpit. Jumbo seemed happy to race with tubeless tyres on the flatter stages also but largely switched to tubular tyres on Shimano’s lighter C36 wheelset for the mountainous stages. Interestingly, one team mechanic told us that the filling between the tyre and rim is actually a new prototype tubular cement which must be applied all the way to the rim wall and not an aero hack. Some of the Ineos Grenadiers also opted for the C36 for hillier stages but preferred the tubeless version. Super Planche needs super gearing. Geraint Thomas climbed to fifth on the monstrously steep gravel road with a 40 chainring and what looks like a 32 sprocket on the rear. We hear so much about how the riders stay fueled for 21 days of racing, yet so little about how the directors feed… Read More
