- We are about one hour away from the start
of the 2019 Tour of Flanders and Antwerp.
Yesterday, though, we took the opportunity
to go around a few of the teams' hotels
to find out what some of the top riders are using
for the Cobbled classics this year.
(futuristic music)
And what better bike to start with
than the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX
of the current World Champion,
Alejandro Valverde of Movistar?
As we record this, they've just finished prepping his bike
for tomorrow's Tour of Flanders,
where at the ripe old age of 38, coming up to 39,
he's making his debut.
Hasn't made much in the way of modifications
for the cobbles, I have to say.
He's got the Continental Pro Limited
25 millimeter tubular tires,
no satellite shifters to be seen.
But as you would expect from the World Champion,
there are plenty of rainbow bands on display,
from the wheels to the frame, even to the handlebar tape,
and the power meter.
How cool does this bike look?
This is of course the Canyon Arrow CF SLX,
of Dutch National Road Champion, Mathieu Van Der Poel.
As well as being a Dutch road champion,
he's also the champion of the Netherlands
in cyclo-cross and mountain biking,
as well as being the current world cyclo-cross champion.
So he's used to the roster, but there are very little
in the way of modifications to his bike.
No satellite shifters to be seen on the bars there,
fairly standard throughout.
The tires that he's using are Vittoria Corsa Graphene,
28 millimeter front and back.
But I love the customization of the frame,
and indeed, the Selle Italia saddle here at the top.
This is the bike of Oliver Naesan,
just before the Tour of Flanders,
so this is the set up for that particular race.
Now what I found interesting is
that he's got a 28 mm Vredesten branded tire here
at the back; the last time I came
over to Flanders to do a tech piece was really a couple
of years ago, and they're pretty much
throughout all on 26 millimeter tires, and they go up to 28,
perhaps 30 the Paris-Roubaix.
But a lot of teams now are going for 28,
if not front and back, at least at the rear.
As I said, they are Vredesten branded,
but they do look very similar to the F&B tires
that you find on lots of other bikes.
Apart from that, there's not too much different
between this bike here at the moment
and what you would use at the standard road races
throughout the year, that will change
again for Paris-Roubaix.
As you can see, he's about as slammed
as you can get there at the front,
that is a negative 17 degree-day to stem there,
very narrow bars too, they say 420 millimeters on them,
but they look more like 38 to me.
One of the other things that they've changed,
that the mechanic has just been doing recently,
are the bottle cages, which as you can see,
look reasonably old, but these are far better
for retaining the bottle, which is a major problem
of course, over the cobblestone races.
So all the team and the riders have gone over
to this older elite model.
The bike of three-time World Cyclo-cross Champion
Wout Van Aert, this, of course, his Bianchi Ultra XR4.
No major modifications versus what he would normally use.
I have noticed that he's got shifters just
underneath the tops there,
so he's able to change gears here
at the back when he's going over the cobblestones
when he's riding on the tops.
Apart from that, though, it's all fairly standard
in what you would see in a normal road bike
that he's using during the year.
Rim brakes, he's got 11 up through to 30 cassette
here at the rear, they say 28 millimeters
on these Vittoria Corsa tires,
at the moment pumped up reasonably hard,
but I'm not sure exactly what he's running
over the cobblestones.
Come to Hotel Lepelbed here in Belgium,
which is where I used to stay
when I was doing the classics,
Mitchelton-Scott staying here now, very little in the way
of modifications here for their particular bikes,
which I guess is understandable,
given Matt Hayman a couple of years ago
won Paris-Roubaix on an almost completely standard
Arrow road bike, just with bigger tires.
They're running Pirellis this year,
they are 28, but apparently measuring up a little bit more
like 27; this is Jack Bauer's bike,
one of the only riders actually here
who's running double bar tape for some extra comfort
and they've almost modified the bottle cages
ever so slightly, so they've got these cannibal ones here.
And you'll notice there's a couple of extra zip ties,
just to give some extra purchase on the bidon.
Looked who we bumped into, it's 2016 Paris-Roubaix winner
Matt Hayman, who of course won that race
on a completely standard Scottfoil Arrow bike.
And as such, there aren't many modifications
to the Mitchelton-Scott bikes this year.
- No, not a lot, I don't know if I changed that,
but, hey look, there's a lot of clearance,
we can get the big tires in,
and I've always said, a lot can be done
with the tire pressure rather than changing the frame,
so I've been a big advocate of working on your tire pressure
rather than changing the bike.
What have you changed since you were first pro
with Rabo in the early 2000s, was it late 90s?
- Uh, 2000, 2000, yeah, look, we--
- I aged him a little bit too much there.
(laughter)
- I'm not that old!
Ah, look, we, you know, my first Roubaix
I was on, I think we got longer tips
on the forks and a slightly longer wheelbase seemed
to be the first few years,
that's what we were going for,
and yeah we were riding on open Ambrosio rims.
- What size tires?
- Oh, I can't really remember, I think we were going bigger,
but nowhere near as big as we're going now.
- Yeah.
- So maybe those were just 25s.
Because we're racing on 21 mil tires.
People were really worried about carbon fiber
when it first came out--
- Yeah.
- If it would, you know, absorb the cobbles,
and now more and more components are made out
of carbon, and they seem to getting through Roubaix.
- So the only modification now,
we still haven't got quite far enough with bottle cages
(laughter)
to stop them slipping out, so you've got a few zip ties.
We've seen it in a lot of teams,
actually, that we've been to already.
- Yeah, look, it's just not worth the effort
to lose bins, it's important to have your feet,
and you know, the bottle will stay in there,
so, every now and again one will come out,
but you want to make sure you stay hydrated, so.
(door opening and shutting)
- Old photo, used to take pride of place
in the dining room, now it's in this sort of back corridor
on the way to the toilet.
This is the BMC SLR 01 of Michel Valgren,
the Danish rider from Team Dimension Data,
who of course, won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as well
as Amstel Gold, twelve months ago.
I've just been speaking to Kenny,
their chief mechanic here,
who's got an enormous amount of experience here
in the classics, being with Quick Step before,
and now with Dimension Data.
And he has pointed out that there are different tires
front and back, reason being,
they were gonna have the low rolling resistance one only
on the front, because there's less chance
of puncturing the front wheel
than where you've got the weight
of your body here at the back, so here at the back,
it is the Vittoria Corsa Control,
should I say, which has a slightly thicker rubber,
and therefore less chance of puncturing
over the cobblestones, et cetera.
And the wheels that they are using are slightly different
to the standard NVs, these are the 4.5 ARs,
so they're slightly wider than normal.
Both tires are 28 millimeters wide.
Apart from that, his bike is pretty standard.
He's also gone for the shifters there
on the tops of the bike,
so he can change gears over the cobblestones.
He has got a 54-tooth Rotor chain-ring here,
but that is apparently what he chooses all of the time.
This is the bike of French sprinter
and classics rider Arnaud Demare.
They are the La Pierre Xelius SL bikes
for the Cobbled Classics at Groupama FDJ.
Now one of the interesting things of note
on this bike is that the tires, by modern standards,
are reasonably narrow for the cobbled races.
Continental Competition Pro Ltd tubulars,
25 millimeter is the width.
As we've seen, other teams are at least 26,
and most of the running 28 on Flanders these days.
Apart from that, he's running a fairly standard set up
for him, a slammed 14 centimeter stem.
He always, apparently, runs a straight-up seat post,
so no lay back on here,
and you'll notice there's also some grip tape
to keep that saddle firmly in place.
Beyond that, and behind me though,
you'll see that the other mechanics
are currently preparing the wheels to Paris-Roubaix.
And it's quite a laborious process doing tubular tires.
They do three layers, which they have to have a gap
of 24 hours to dry on each one when they put it on the rim.
At the end of that, after three days,
they then put one layer on the rim, one layer on the tire,
leave it 10 minutes to slightly dry and become tacky
before they mount the tubulars.
And that is something that you need
to get right the first time, because with that process,
they are glued and stuck on
and immediately are able to ride on them,
so if they get it wrong, and it's not quite perfect
on the rim, they've got to start all over again.
Bit of bling for you now.
This is of course Olympic Champion Greg Van Avermaet's bike,
the giant TCL, which he'll be using
at the Tour of Flanders this year.
Not much difference versus his standard set up,
I have to say; the tires are reasonably narrow.
I think they are 26 millimeters,
but they look even slightly narrower
than that; he doesn't have the shifters there on the tops,
but he does have satellite shifters there
on the drops, which presumably where he prefers
to sit when he's riding over the cobblestones.
Beyond that, not much difference,
but there is, as is just pointed out to me,
some really neat gold detailing on the Dura-Ace calipers.
And now we're over at Trek-Segafredo's hotel.
We're taking a look at John Degenkolb's spare bike
for the Tour of Flanders.
Now they, of course, are running Sram this year,
and he is on the Sram Red AXS Group Set.
Very different chain-ring sizes,
as you all know, if you watch the first look video
that Sy did about the Group Set.
Now 37 x 50 teeth here at the front,
and then a 10 up to 33, 12 speed cassette here at the rear.
He is using the Corsa Control from Vittoria,
both the front and rear, those of you who remember
from Valdgren's bike, are the ones
with slightly more casing, so more puncture-proof,
and he's running Sram's Blip shifters there,
on the tops at the front.
Well, that just about wraps up this Cobble-tech feature
for 2019, hope you enjoyed it.
If you have, please give it the thumbs-up
just down below this video.
We're off to have dinner before we watch the Tour
of Flanders tomorrow; I'm gonna make a very bold prediction,
you at home will know where Alejandro Valverde came
at his first Tour of Flanders,
I'm gonna predict he came 18th.
Anyway, if you would like to see some more tech
and Ollie over at the Taipei show, what you're gonna do is:
- Click down low!