The HOTTEST Bikes Of The Tour De France 2024

This video contains paid product placement for Motul. The Tour de France is the world’s biggest cycling event and the media attention it attracts means that brands often save their fanciest new kit for the opening days of the race.

Thankfully, our very own Simon von Bromley is like a bloodhound with a taste for new tech. He put in the hard yards, scouring the team trucks before the race began to bring you a collection of this year’s hottest tech.

Image Credits
IMAGO / Belga
JASPER JACOBS / Contributor
Luc Claessen / Stringer
Simon von Bromley / Our Media

00:00 Intro
00:27 Mark Cavendish’s Wilier Filante SLR
05:27 Remco Evenepoel’s Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8
09:30 Neilson Powless’ Cannondale SuperSix LAB71
14:16 Paul Lapeira’s Van Rysel RCR Pro
18:16 Stevie Williams’ Factor Ostro VAM
22:45 Automatic Chain Waxing Machine

Crucial Tour De France Bikes: Pogačar Vs Vingegaard
→ https://youtu.be/qQFXArSDO5I

NEWEST Bikes Of The Tour de France 2024
→ https://youtu.be/viMABR1fvgg

A ‘Value’ Tour de France Bike? AG2R’s Van Rysel RCR
→ https://youtu.be/zGuZF9mjyMk

The BEST Pro-Level Groupset Is… Shimano Dura-Ace Vs SRAM RED
→ https://youtu.be/srTalI9T6sE

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the tour to France is the biggest and most important Bike Race on the calendar and we’re here in Florence at the 2024 Grand depart touring the team hotels looking for the hottest pro bikes and we’ve got custom paint jobs Pro mechanic hacks and loads of key measurements these are the most in-depth bike checks you’re going to find anywhere on the internet but before we get to any of that a big thanks to motor for sponsoring this part of the video and if you enjoy it don’t forget to give it a like And subscribe to our channel for more videos like this this is the Vila fante SLR of Mark Cavendish his last H to France the bike he’s going to try and break the stage win record on this year now it is the same frame that we saw last year at the Tour of France but it’s got a brand new paint job for this year this paint job is using different colors to sort of signify and commemorate achievements from Cav’s illustrious career most prominently the yellow kind of signifies his time spent wearing the yellow Jersey we’ve got green for his two wins of the green jersey at the qu of France then the rest of the kind of rainbow colors signify his Road World Race Championship win in Copenhagen in 2011 now the fante SLR frame set is really as kind of all round AO road bike frame set it’s not as aggressive as some of the other AO road bikes on the market but it’s kind of more in the vein of the specialized tarmac SLA or the kind of brand new Trek Mone SLR now beyond that A lot’s changed since last year in terms of Wheels Cavendish last year was running head Vanquish Wheels but this year year the team has switched to Vision Metron 60l Wheels conceptually it’s a similar overall wheel set but perhaps the kind of team feels this is a kind of stronger performing option or maybe they just got a better sponsorship Arrangement Cavendish is still using 28c front and rear Victoria corser Pro tlr Tires now we’ve been looking around the uh aana mechanics trucks this morning and a lot of riders are kind of some of them are using 30C tires front and rear some of them are using a 30C on the rear and a 28c on the front but Cavendish is stuck with 28s front and rear perhaps that’s the most Arrow option and as a smaller Rider he maybe doesn’t need as much Tire volume as some of the bigger Riders on the team now in terms of measurements those are coming up a little bit larger than last year Cavendish was running 28s last year as well but on the head rims they came up slightly under around 27 A2 millim this year they’re coming up a little bit bigger just over 28 mm on the back and actually a little bit wider on the front so maybe this rear tire just needs a little top up of air cavish has also changed his handlebar last year he had a really lovely Vila integrated classic Bend handlebar which I like waxed lyrical about in our Tor of France video last year which you can watch up there if you haven’t seen it this year though he switched to a kind of much more modern looking thing it’s a vision Metron bar and also the dimensions has changed as well so last year he was running a 40 cm wide handlebar with a 130 mm stem and he had his levers quite far down the drops for a lot of extra reach whereas this year he seems to be running a bar that’s around 385 mm Center to Center at the hoods and then the stem’s 120 mm and as you can see the brake hoods are much farther up so he’s not getting quite as much reach so he’s obviously had a couple of positional changes there as well Elsewhere on the bike cish is running Shimano dur ace1 12 speed but it’s interesting cuz he and some of his teammates are not actually running the latest 12-speed chain Rings instead they’ve got these 11speed Dura Ace r9100 chain Rings up front which are you know technically 11speed and Shimano says they’re not actually compatible now we did see a few years ago when the 12-speed group sets launched we saw a few Riders running the kind of old 11-speed Power meters and chain rings with the new 12-speed group sets when kind of availability of the new Power meters wasn’t so good and that was an ERA when we saw quite a few dropped chains now I asked the mechanic about it and he said that the Riders simply feel that these chain Rings offer better shifting than the uh 12-speed ones now in terms of chain ring size Cav’s running some pretty beefy 55 42 chain Rings up front he does have an 11 to 34 tus out front but obviously 42 34 is still a pretty spicy gear even for a rider as fit as Mark Cavendish last year Cavendish also had a slf motion oversized pulley wheel system this year they don’t have that so I don’t know if that’s simply the you know the Riders don’t want to use them anymore or you know perhaps more likely just a sponsorship Arrangement that came to an end last year cadish was also running a single Sprint shifter on the right trigger just behind the brake lever but that’s not there this year so I’m guessing either it just doesn’t simply doesn’t work as well with this kind of shape of bar or he just feels that he’s just just going to use the normal di2 buttons instead and that’ll be fine they also switched over from look Kio blade pedals to Shimano Jas pedals this year again I don’t know if that’s a kind of sponsorship thing they’ve changed over from look pedals to Shimano it might just be that a lot of the Riders prefer Shimano dur pedals we know that this is like a perennially popular choice ofin the pro pelaton and it could just be that they prefer this system now Vila says this paint JW will be available to buy until the end of this year we don’t have pricing information but I can kind of assume probably won’t be cheap but if you fancy yourself a special edition C paint job to celebrate his career then that will be available but the most important thing is how much does it weigh now at last year’s tour we weighed cavendish’s bike and it weighed 7.76 kilos is this one any lighter let’s find out okay 7.65 4 so about 100 G lighter than last year not a huge amount still a relatively heavy bike but obviously they do have the new Vila vertical SLR like weight bike which they can switch to on the mountain stages if they want to well look at this this is a Remco eventa poles bike of sudar quickstep obviously be fitting of a rider of his caliper it is a custom paint job now apparently he’s been using this since the Criterium the doofan but this is the first time I’ve had a look at it up close what’s kind of really interesting about the paint job is it has the kind of purple flip colors around the bottom bracket that kind of mirror his teammate’s bikes but then up here you’ve got this real kind of silver chrome paint job covering the end of the top tube down onto the seat tube and the seat stays and it looks Wicked in the Sun up front it’s kind of more black presumably maybe just even a kind of like a really light clear coat over the carbon also has a really cool little detail on top with his little Remco name and the Little Wolf Pack symbol which is the kind of team symbol of sudar quickstep now in terms of the tarmac sl8 not a brand new bike seen it around since I think the World Championships last year however very cool 685 G claimed frame weight in a size medium I think this might be a size smaller than that 52 so possibly even lighter that’s a really interesting bike it kind of has the front end of the old venge with the kind of middle section of the tarmac and then kind of the bottom bracket area is apparently inspired by the apos which is kind of specialized Ultra lightweight bike the most notable aspect and the kind of thing that kind of Drew the most comments when it first launched is the kind of head tube section and this little extended nose which specialized calls the the speed sniffer I don’t really like that name but I think it looks much better in person especially with the kind of cockpit slammed right down I think with the if you have a kind of few spaces above it it tends to look a bit more awkward but with the new roal raped handlebar slammed right on top of it actually looks really good so while we’re on the handlebar just had the tape measure out and Remco is running a 36 CM bar Center to center with a 120 mil stem now he’s not the biggest rider in the bunch but that’s still a pretty aggressive position kind of one interesting details that Remco Veno used to run his levers tilted in quite aggressively but um because of the new UCI rules that basically ban that it looks like he’s not really doing that anymore now the kind of latest Shimano levers have a kind of natural inward tilt but he isn’t tilting them into the kind of extremes that he was before he’s also running a kind of zero offset seat post it almost looks like it’s been flipped forward as well to give him a kind of really slamed forward position top of that he’s got a specialized 3D printed uh looks like a 3D printed specialized power saddle looking at the rest of the bike Remco vendol is running the uh standard kind of dur Ace 12sp speeed group set that all of the Shimano sponsor teams are running these days this particular bike doesn’t actually have a power meter on it so I wonder if this might be his spare bike because I would assume that Remco does race with a power meter in terms of gearing rco is running the 54 42 front chain rings with an 11 to 34 Cass set out back that’s kind of becoming pretty standard in the Pro Teleton in terms of Wheels uh he’s running the latest roval rapid CLX team Wheels now these just been released they Ed the same uh same rims as the previous roal rapid clx2 Wheels but they’ got updated hubs they’re kind of similar AO performance if not the same a performance but just a little bit lighter overall so don’t know if he’s going to run these on the first stage cuz it’s very very hilly I did wonder if he might run the alpinist wheels for a little bit lower weight now the tires are really interesting these are uh an old model the specialized turbo cotton that were originally released in 2014 so like a decade ago and I can’t really think of anything else in the prop pelaton from a decade ago that’s still being used today but they must have a great ride quality CU they’ve got that open tubular cotton construction I think they’re still pretty competitive in terms of rolling resistance you I don’t know if specializer has updated the rubber compound for the pro team since they were first released but it looks really cool as well I really like the tan wheels and I think they go really really nicely with this bike in terms of weight it’s coming in at bang on 7 kilos which isn’t too bad considering this is a pretty AER bike it’s got the arrow wheels on doesn’t have a Garin but there is a little chain catcher down there I imagine with the alpinist wheels they probably get that down to about 6.8 6.9 pretty good all right so we’re here at the EF education easy post this is the American Rider neelson palace’s canadel Super 6 Evo lab 71 now this isn’t new bike and it’s not a paint job for the tour to France but obviously couldn’t resist it look at this paint job it’s really really lovely obviously he got the pink of EF education easy post kind of team colors and then mixed in with that yellow as well like it’s a perfect paint job for the Tour of France and I think this has got to be one of the best paint jobs I’ve seen so far at this year’s tour now the lab 71 frame set is the kind of top tier model that canondale makes and that means it’s the lightest and most expensive version of the Super 6 Evo and the Super 6 Evo used to top out the high mod level this one’s even higher than that and what did you get for your extra money you get about 40 G of weight saving in total and that cost you an extra $1,500 or dollar so this super 6 Evo lab 71 Fram set cost €6,000 or $6,000 compared to to 4 and a half for the high mod version now last year when we saw the EF team we checked out Rich kaz’s bike you can watch that video by clicking up there but this bike differs in quite a few ways now obviously this doesn’t have a kind of Olympic Champions paint job like carapaz his bike did it’s got the standard team issue paint job and obviously palus has a couple of personal choices that make his bike stand out versus carazas as well so most notably palus has opted for the Momo design integrated bar up front rather than the vision Metron bar that some of the other team Riders are using although if you see the bike from front on you will still see a little vision sticker up here just cuz obviously you got to keep those sponsors happy so in terms of the claim frame weight canondale says that a super six Evo lab 71 frame weighs 770 G in a size 56 which is pretty light in terms of the aerodynamic features on this bike obviously you’ve got this kind of deep section carbon fork and the truncated Aero foil tube sections here but at the back end of the bike it’s been dramatically slim down so this seat tube in particular in this seat post super super thin sort of side to side so it’s so thin in fact that there’s no room anymore for a di2 battery in the seat post which is the kind of traditional location and instead canelle puts it up inside the uh bottom bracket so just that also you know canondale says I don’t really know how much difference this made but canondale says that helps put the kind of weight balance of the bike a little bit lower now you know we’re only talking 50 g or so but I guess at the top level every little helps in terms of Wheels Palace is running the vision Metron 60 SL tubless Wheels with Victoria corser Pro tubeless tires in a size 28c we’ve also got these quite cool little pink anodized valves from mof which look very nice go very nicely with the frame set so in terms of other little details as well they’ve got a nice little cut of inner tube here now basically I think this is for where the the bike race transponder goes they just pop that bit over it so it just kind of Smooths in out a little bit and what I really like is that EF education have gone for the kind of pink latex tube to match the rest of their bike which is quite cool little bit more expensive to cut up a latex tube for this kind of thing but it does look a little bit better now turns of drivetrain Palace is running a Shimano Dura Ace uh 12-speed group set but up front he’s got an FSA power box power meter paired with a 5440 to FSA chain Rings now this kind of combination of uh big cette out back and Big Chain Rings up front is becoming increasingly common in the Pro pelaton you know we’re not seeing so many tighter 11 to 32 cassette options in fact I haven’t seen a single one at this year’s tour in terms of final details powerless is running this uh Wahoo Speed play AO pedals which have a kind of you know the CL the classic speed pay entry point on one side and then a lovely little dimpled golf Wars type Arrow profile on the rear then also they’re not running standard Shimano brake pads they’ve got these little uh green brake pads in here which I think are made by swiftside although I can’t tell without taking them out and I don’t think they’ be too happy if I took them out then up top Neilon Palace is running a PR logo nargo Evo saddle with carbon rails there’s also got this nice little 3D printed race number holder on his uh seat post as well and so last but not least uh neelson Palace is running a wahoo element roam up front as his bike computer but let’s get on to things like measuring the tires we’ll measure his cockpit and then we’ll tell you the most important detail how much it weighs all right as promised let’s measure those tires like I said these are 28c tires on these rims and they’re coming in at just slightly wider 28.8 all right so in terms of cockpit measurements we have o so that is like 37 CM Center to Cent Center on the bar and a relatively long stem of oh maybe 120 M all right then let’s get this thing on the scales and see how much it weighs oh okay 7.74 kilos so obviously this quite a big bike it’s got the uh Arrow wheels on there wonder if they might switch to something slightly shallower for that first stage with lots of climbing but you know that’s not too bad so we’re here with the van rol RCR Pro now it’s my first time seeing this bike in person pretty cool as it’s to be one of the most affordable bikes in the Pro Pelon now obviously most affordable take that of a pinch of so it still costs around 9,000 but I guess in the context of torto France bikes that’s not too bad the new Pell Dogma F launch prices for that start at 125,000 so I guess relative to that this is pretty good value the van R is a brand owned by dafflon dafflon being one of the main sponsors of the team now the bike itself is a brand new frame completely developed by Van rol in collaboration with a French AOS space brand called honora I think overall the most striking thing about it is it looks very similar to the specialized tarmac sl7 but you know that’s probably not a bad thing that was a very popular bike won a lot of races usually Renown to be pretty fast so I expect the pros be pretty happy with that in terms of weight van rle claims that a painted size medium frame weighs 790 G which is pretty light that’s a little bit heavier than the S Works version of specialized Tac sl8 but it’s still very competitive you that with a 380 G Fork so van rle claims that a complete bike should come in around 6.8 kilos in terms of Wheels the team is using these uh swissside Wheels I believe these are kind of very similar to DT Swiss Wheels I know that swissside and DT Swiss have a very close relationship so these might actually basically be DT Swiss Wheels with the Swiss side branding on them on this bike we’ve got Continentals GP 5000 Str Str tires now last year’s tour we did see quite a lot of Continental sponsor teams running the time trial version which is the Continental gp5000 tttr and I do wonder if for some stages where the roads are good quality Riders might switch to those on this team but we’ll have to wait and see for that the da caflon team is sponsored by Shimano and they are running the latest 12-speed Shimano Jura Ace di2 r9200 this bike belongs to Paul apier and he’s running the 54 4 to chain Rings up front paired with an 11 to 34 to cassette out back in terms of pedals he’s got the new look Kio blade pedals now these are kind of interesting because they’ve got a a flat underbody which is said to be very aerodynamic up front we’ve got this really cool integrated handlebar which is bespoke for this bike been developed between van rle and daa which is an Italian components manufacturer and it’s really cool it’s got this like nice flat top on the stem the bars have a kind of little Aero foil profile I think there might be a little bit of flare to it as well the Bop specifically for this bike like I said I guess it integrates really cleanly with the head tube a couple of spacers under there on this bike but I think overall it looks really good finishing off we’ve got a physique Argo carbon saddle up there and they’re running Elite learo carbon bottle cages now this particular bik belongs to Paul lapier but keep an eye out for Felix gou of the same team came eighth overall at last year’s tour and I think he’s got a good shot of making a top 10 Again potentially going for the king of the mountains this year so you might see a polka dot version of this bike later on in the race right so in terms of measurements Maier is running a it’s like a 36 CM handlebar pair with a 120 mil stem pretty narrow pretty long stem as well like again I think we’re seeing more Pros using narrow hander bars these days it’s just more Arrow overall on our scales it weighs 7.45 five kilos so obviously that is a little bit different to the uh claimed weight that we gave you earlier but there are a couple of things that explain that I mean first obviously the claimed weight that van rice would give is without pedals and pedals alone are going to add a a couple of hundred GRS but then you’ve also got things like bottle cages an outfront Mount maybe slightly deeper Wheels slightly bigger tires you know all of these things just kind of add a few grams here and there and obviously you know claimed weights are optimistic anyway some bikes come in a little bit under the claimed weight some might come in a little bit over so it be very rare that we hit a bike that’s exactly the claimed weight so here at the Israel Premier Tech Team Hotel we’ve got the new Factor ostram now this particular bike belongs to Stevie Williams the young Welshman now this is the second generation Factor ostra bam the first one was released a a few years ago now uh but this one came out earlier this year after we saw it first that the kind of tore down under I believe now in terms of the overall silhouette it’s kind of pretty similar overall but there have been some subtle changes now first of all Factor says it’s 7 Watts faster at 48 km/ hour and it’s very very very precise that it’s 267.8 G Li overall but I think that’s just in terms of the the frame set in the kit rather than as a complete bike the main changes to the frame set though are the kind of more hourglass shaped head tube so it’s significantly thinner at the front and Slimmer just in between the headset bearings the length of the fork cord length a kind of air a foil cord length has got a little bit deeper as well but then over the rest of the bike it’s kind of similar but Factor has just redesign the tube shape so instead of being kind of wide ctail truncated a foil tubes they’re kind of all a little bit thinner and a little bit longer as well if you look at the bike from the rear end the seat tube and seat stays in particular extremely thin now the other thing that’s new for this particular bike is this new paint job this kind of splattered red and blue that’s all over the bike is essentially meant to represent the kind of cultural history of France so it’s a Tor to France specific paint job and most of the Riders on the team are running it obviously as I said Factor does say it’s faster than the old bike perhaps more significantly it also claims that it’s actually more aerodynamic than both the specialized tarmac sl8 and the S5 which is pretty significant as having spoken to a lot of Brands about aerob bikes bikes like those are pretty well respected and generally the sell S5 in particular is supposed to be very fast so if that’s true that’s a pretty impressive claim so in terms of drivetrain Stevie Williams is running a Shimano 12s speed Duro asd2 r9200 group set but they’re using the FSA power boox power chain set up front with the FSA carbon cranks and Fs chain Rings Stevie Williams is running a 5442 chain ring set paired with an 11 to 30 4 to cassette out back and he’s also running the Shimano Dura Ace pedals so these wheels are also new these are the black a 4858 now the 48 and 58 refers to the rim depth so you’ve got a 48 Rim up front and a 58 mm deep rim out the back the kind of main selling point with these is the kind of ceramic speed bearings in the hub and then these carbon spokes that keep the weight really low so black in conf Factor are claiming a a total weight for the wheel set of 1,270 G which is pretty impressive for a kind of wheel set rims this deep on those Wheels Stevie is running the Continental gp5000 Str tires they look to be a size 28 but we’re going to measure those up front he’s got the uh Factor integrated handlebar that we saw last year on Simon Clark’s bike at the to of France have the uh reposition seat post clamp on this new bike too which is kind of useful I tested the old one and it had a kind of kind of an annoying seat post clamp was under there required a special little tool if just moved that to the back and it looks like you can just use a standard Allen key which is really good also got a nice little 3D printed racer holder here which is quite cool finishing off we got a cell Italia SLR carbon saddle up top and some Elite legero carbon bottle cages now in fact to launch this bike they actually said it had some specifically designed AOW bottle cages for this bike but I guess Elite have a sponsorship arrangement with Israel Premier Tech and therefore they’re going to run these ones even though maybe the uh Factor ones are a little bit faster because you got to keep the sponsors happy so as mentioned Factor says it’s 267.8 G lighter let’s see how much it actually weighs on the scales overall all right so on our scales of Truth 7535 kg now that’s not super light I think I have seen lighter builds of this bike but I reckon you obviously with pedals the uh FSA power box power meter and I think you can get a lighter saddle than this as well probably shallower Wheels I reck you can get it a little bit lighter but likely pretty fast in this setup so I don’t think Stevie Williams will be too held back so one thing I’ve just realized while we’re kind of up close with these tires is that last year when we saw the factor bikes from Israel Premier Tech they were running these Continental gp5000 D Tires but they were actually blacking out the logos because they had a tire sponsor that was Maxis this year they’re not doing that so obviously either change sponsor maybe Maxis had had enough or simply they maybe buying tires from Continental so we’re just over by the little Tre mechanics trucks and we just had a little briefing on a really cool new product from cyclax now what this is it’s a kind of onike chain waxing device it’s kind of big Contraption but it is in Prototype phase so you kind of have to forgive the kind of Rough and Ready situation so the whole idea of it is you don’t have to take the chain off the bike because I think cyclax thinks that’s a kind of big barrier to people they want to burn through you know quick links or like kind of pins all that often so basically this is like I say you just waxes the chain while it’s on the bike and it just draws it through ever so gently it takes around half an hour but obviously by the time you’ve like heated up a slow cooker you know melted the wax put the chain in you know this the kind of similar amount of time overall and the idea is that you can just kind of leave this to do its thing and it’s nice and safe now cyc wax they said they already sell Ready wax chains so I know that degasing a factory grease chain can be a bit of a barrier for people they also sell their own kind of wax Blends as well so they’re kind of trying to make it kind of like One-Stop shop for getting a wax chain like I said we’ve just had a briefing and now the little track mechanics are getting their briefing now this is Julio kone’s B behind us the cycl wax tells us that the little Trek team is going all in on wax chains for the tour to France now obviously you know kind of the difference between chain waxing and a you know regular drip lube for your chain is kind of marginal but the Tor France is the place for marginal gains so in addition to the kind of on bike uh chain waxer they also have a couple of ultrasonic cleaners filled with molten wax that are going to clean little TX chains and then rewax them throughout the tour now cyc wax tells me they’re using a two-stage process we got one with a kind of just normal wax in it helps kind of rid the chain of any dirt and kind of gives it a first wax coating then it goes into the second one where that kind of clean wax coating melts off but then that second one has uh friction modifiers and additives in there to just give it a really fast wax finish as well as the ultrasonic cleaners they also have a really cool little chain breaking device it looks like a kind of chain ring and a couple of pulley wheels and what that does is when the chain comes out of the second wax bath obviously it dries and then it goes really really stiff so you have to break up the links before you can reinstall it on the bike and start shifting again when I’m at home waxing my own chains I just run them around a post or know piece of uh piping or something but I guess you know when you’re working for a world tour team you need a Slicker solution than a piece of PVC piping now you might be thinking that this is actually going to end up in bike shops you know pretty pretty sizable Contraption but actually cyclax says they’re going to bring this to Consumers and everyday Riders so that means you if you want one of these you will be able to buy one at some point we don’t have pricing at this point though it is in Prototype phas so we’ll forgive them that but let me know in the comments would you be interested in an on bike chain waxing machine all right those were the hottest bikes from the grandapa of the 2024 tour to France but which one was the hottest the spiciest too hot to handle let us know in the comments below and of course if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Channel and if you want more from the 2024 tour to France why not watch this video on all the new bikes we saw