- We're at the Vuelta this year starting
with a team time trial.
Lots of these speed weapons have been on display
outside the team hotels on the run-up to the race.
So, we've been scouting around,
trying to find little modifications and new tech
on these bikes.
But we might throw in a couple of road bits as well.
(upbeat music)
One of the problems that you have with time trial bikes
is that if you're running a rear-wheeled speed sensor
such as this one from SRM, then you've got no spokes
for the disc wheel to mount the magnet onto.
However here at Team BMC,
they seem to have found some miniature magnets,
which are actually glued onto the disc wheel.
It's incredibly neat looking.
In fact, it's hard to even spot it, but I'm pretty sure
there will not be any wheel balancing problems with that.
Not something necessarily unique to time trial bikes,
but something fairly interesting
in the modern day nonetheless,
how they increase the amount of things on bikes,
which are electronic,
from the gears to the power meters, etcetera.
Team Dimension Data here are using a power bank to charge,
so that it happens to take things off,
or put the bike inside the team trial.
So this thing is here is charging
both the Rotor In Power power meter
and also, the Di2 up here at the front.
Something which is pretty unique to the time trial bikes
here at Team Dimension Data though, are the pedals.
They are sponsored by Speed Play,
which are normally double-sided,
something I've always recommended Matt Stephens to try.
But here, they've got some time trial specific ones.
So as you can see, on one side, the dimpled effect
and the other side is the bit that you clip into.
Much more aero-dynamic.
And actually, when you see the shoes on top of them,
it does give a very nice, smooth profile
with the aerodynamic cleats as well.
As you will very well know,
the trend with tyres over the last few years
has been to get slightly wider
than they were in previous decades.
However, here at Astana they're still using Corima wheels,
which are quite narrow still.
And to keep aerodynamic,
they've also opted for narrow tyres here at the front.
22 millimetres to be precise, from their sponsor Schwalbe,
in the tubular version.
And they are pumped up, pretty hard as well.
If you hit a pothole with one of them,
I think you're gonna know about it.
Very small modification to the brakes here
of the Merida Warp bike of Valerio Agnoli
of Team Bahrain-Merida.
He apparently prefers a slightly stronger click back
from his braking action.
So he's got his extra spring mounted here
to aid in the return of the brakes afterwards.
And you can definitely feel the difference.
Whilst the rest of the team are using the standard
Dura Ace callipers on the front forks.
Team leader Vincenzo Nibali
is getting a bit of special treatment
as some team leaders still do.
He's got this special aerodynamic TRP brake at the front
which should help him get a little bit of time.
This is the all-important biking measuring rig,
which most of the team of the grand tours will have.
Here, Pat from ORICA-SCOTT is working
on Sam Bewley's spare TT bike,
but the measuring rig is super important,
not only to make sure
that the bike is in exactly the same position
from the spare bike to the race bike,
but also to make sure they're well within
the UCI's regulations.
So of course, the stipulation is that
from the bottom bracket to the tip of the bar extensions,
it can be no more than 80 centimetres,
unless you're super tall like Sam Bewley.
I presume he's got permission from the UCI
to go up to 85 centimetres.
But in general though,
the teams will be slightly within those measurements,
just in case the accuracy of the measuring rig
from the commissaires is not quite as good as these ones.
Spotted here on one of the AG2R Factor O2 road bikes,
are these new EE brakes.
This is the bike of Axel Domont,
he appears to be the only rider testing them out
here at the Vuelta.
A very light weight, they say they've improved
the aerodynamics of them as well,
but they come in at under 200 grammes each including the pads.
This is the Bianchi Aquila CV time trial bike
of Bert-Jan Lindeman of Team Lotto NL-Jumbo.
As you can see, and as is the same
with quite a few time trial bars at the moment,
is a reasonable stack height for bar
here at the time trial bars at the front.
Now once it gets to a certain point,
I've just been speaking to their mechanic, Tim,
he says there's quite a bit of flex
in the top of the bars here with that stacked.
So what they do, is place this little metal piece here
to make sure there's no flex between the bars themselves.
And a couple of the bikes,
including this one have got what look like
special chain rings.
Now Tim was saying that they are supplied
by the team sponsor Shimano,
but they certainly look different
to what you see on a standard Shimano Dura Ace group set.
And it doesn't even say what size the chain rings are.
Big, I think is the answer.
This is the Pinarello Bolide time trial bike
of Italian champion, Gianni Moscon.
Plenty of custom stuff on here.
The most obvious of course being the paint job.
The tricolore colours of Italy,
the red, white, and green there.
But I do like these custom bars here at the front.
We understand that 10 of Team Skyriders
have got 3D printed bars,
Gianni Moscon being one of those.
They really do look space-age, don't they, those things?
His hands rest perfectly there
after they modelled him previously.
But I also like the Garmin mount here.
A lot of the teams are putting them
just in between the tri-bars,
but he has to look a bit further down.
Again, I do think that looks very neat.
Also custom are the small carbon covers
to those Di2 shifters here on the base bar.
And the base bars are incredibly narrow.
I haven't actually measured them.
And finally, we found out
why these chain rings look different.
They are supplied by Shimano,
but they're not standard size.
So they're 58, which you can't normally buy.
And that's why they look slightly different
to your standard Dura Ace chain rings.
Well, if you've liked this video,
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and I've got a couple more videos for you.
And if you'd like a much closer look at Chris Froome's
time trial bike from back at the Tour de France,
you can click just up there.
Or, if you want to look at some lightweight tech,
from that same race,
that is just down here.