There was a definite chill in the air as fans hurriedly made their way through the streets of Gent on the first cold but bright Saturday of March. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad marks the start of the European Classics season, one of the most exciting periods in the WorldTour race calendar. The men's race kicked off first just after 11 am, followed later on by the women's race.
Omloop begins next to the famous 't Kuipke Velodrome in Gent and takes place in an old aircraft hangar-style building next door. The vast curved ceiling lets in light, but it's still a little dingy in the far corners. Before long, the team buses and cars are pulling in, racking up the team bikes and making their final preparations as the riders sign on and prepare for the race.
The WorldTour season kicked off in January, and we are at this point familiar with the majority of new bikes and component permutations; however, the classics create their own special demands, and bigger tyres and a few tweaks here and there are still the order of the day.
I toured the pits before the first race of Opening Weekend and spotted as much interesting tech as I could. First up, I'll say it now: I think riders are starting to run more headset spacers to help them maintain aero positions for longer. There were a lot of healthy spacer stacks in the pits. I also learned there are new tubeless tyres from Specialized in the works, which were being used at Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe, as well as some mystery Roval wheels that the team remained tight-lipped over.
There's plenty of interesting tech to pore over in here, I have my eyes on a few more interesting bits of tech for the second installment, which will come after Kuurne- Brussel-Kuurne tomorrow.
The majority of teams pull into this vast hangar-style building next to the velodrome. Before long, the building was filled with excited fans, busy team staff and various media outlets.
First, I visited Cofidis, the only WorldTour squad running Campagnolo Super Record WR equipment this year. The team was using 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres, and thanks to the sealed rim bed, their Bora wheels do not require tubeless tape.
Spot the protective tape on the rear of the Look fork, it looks like it escaped the mechanics last wash, though...
The Groupama-FDJ Wilier Triestina paint jobs look fantastic. The team welcomed new wheel and component sponsor Miche onboard at the start of the year.
A nice custom touch here on Luxembourg national champion Kevin Geniets' machine
Stefan Küng had around 30mm of spacers underneath his stem, he wasn't the only rider with a healthy spacer stack either. Slammed front ends may be less popular than they once were.
The Unibet Tietema Rockets Cannondale Supersix bikes stand out, the colour co-ordinate Vision wheel logo's match perfectly.
Perfect Pirelli / Vision coordination.
EF Education-Easypost Cannondale's with 54/40T FSA K Force chain-rings.
A little extra branding never hurts, right? This is an extra sticker on the EF MOMO carbon fibre handlebar.
3D printed saddles are very popular now; this could well be a new Fizik Adaptive model.
An Intermarché-Wanty rider drew the short straw and seemed to have been selected to run this camera for onboard footage during the team presentation. This is certainly not aero.
These fans were also looking bemused at the strange edition on the Cube Litening Aero's handlebars before the race rolled out.
A neat Effetto Mariposa sicker helping the Intermarché-Wanty mechanics to track sealant changes and levels.
Here's a quick shoutout to Matteo Trentin for having possibly the classiest handlebar setup at the race for Tudor. Spot the beautifully even handlebar tape wraps, too.
This seems to be a pretty specific fueling strategy. Get yourself over the Muur, and you're on the home straight.
The UAE mechanics told me they are still receiving Y1RS bikes and that not every rider has one yet. They also said the first few bike builds were tricky, but that they are getting used to the new machines now.
I think this is a custom aero transponder attachment for the UAE Colnago Y1Rs fork legs.
The neat UAE aero computer mount was manufactured by Hinloopen Design.
Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe are currently using some new, as yet unannounced Roval wheels and Specialized Turbo tyres. They wouldn't tell me much, but we will learn more as the season goes on. Spot the contrasting tyre colours here.
Short cranks may be all the rage at the moment, but it seems there are still some 175mm crank arms in the peloton.
The Red Bull mechanics were not giving much away, but there's a new Turbo TLR tubeless tyre in the works, and this is it.
The tread still seems fairly fine, and the mechanics would not say anything about the tyres' main purpose. I suspect this is a new race tyre.
The Lidl Trek bike also had a standard Zipp stem and another healthy spacer stack.
I headed outside at this point to try and find the teams who hadn't had room to fit in the hangar. First up was Uno-X Mobility, who are racing on the new Ridley Noah Fast this year. The new Noah must have the deepest head tube around at the moment, it truly is a sight to behold.
A freshly waxed chain and CeramicSpeed OSPW for Uno-X. The setup helped Søren Wærenskjold take an unexpected victory in the men's race.
This is the new Ridley Nimbus cockpit, which pairs nicely with the dropped headtube. It seems not all of the team riders have them yet.
Some bikes had standard stems and more than a few spacers, which probably isn't quite as fast. Though it didn't slow the men's winner down.
Belgian bikes, Swiss wheels, Norweigan power.
The Ineos Grenadiers Pinarello Dogma's looked as clean as ever, spot the carbohydrate mix amount written on the bottles.
Ineos bikes use a neat integrated race transponder mount on the frame's drive side fork leg.
The Ineos tubeless valves were by far the shortest around. A slight marginal aero gain, perhaps...
This is Josh Tarling's bike. At well over six feet tall, he, as you might imagine, has quite a long stem and an aggressive position.
Astana's X-Lab bikes are the newest entry to the peloton, replacing Wilier at the start of the year.
The X-Lab AD9 has a deep aero-profiled fork dropout.
Astana are running Dura-Ace cranks with Miche chainrings with electrical tape over the logos to stay sponsor correct. Spot the tape on the top left of the chainring.
The Team Flanders-Baloise team race on Eddy Merckx branded bikes...
But they are actually Ridley Falcn RS frames. A new Merckx frame is in development for the team at the moment. Ridley and Merckx are owned by the same parent company.
Finally, I don't know what this means, but a happy tyre must surely be a fast tyre.
