Welcome to part two of our Opening Weekend tech gallery. The dust from Omloop Het Niewusblad had settled overnight, and Sunday dawned cold, but bright and sunny in Kortrijk for Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne.
The early morning cloud cleared, and by the time the team buses and cars were pulling into their designated start zone, the sun was out in earnest, and the warm blue skies seemed to welcome the start of the European spring classics period after a long, cold winter.
The field for Kuurne was largely the same as Omloop apart from one addition, the Wagner Bazin WB squad, a UCI Pro Team, who had secured an invitation to the race. You can see their bikes and equipment down below.
Some key standouts for me from the start were some very specific rider-fueling strategies. The interesting stem notes on some bikes really hit home how much fuel the pros need to take on now to be competitive. The second was a spate of aftermarket brake rotors, pads and rotor lockrings, which I saw at a few teams. Stopping is important, and you can understand teams looking for every advantage possible.
I paid another visit to Bora and Lidl to check out their new Roval tyres and wheels and SRAM XPLR groupsets, and had a good look at Intermache-Wanty's hidden tubeless valves.
Enjoy the gallery. The spring classics are finally here, the weather is getting warmer, and we can look forward to all the exciting racing to come over the next few months.
Opening weekend tech gallery part 1.
First, I was back at Bora-Hansgrohe to get a better look at their wheels and tyres. I believe this is a new Roval wheel and tyre from Specialized. The rim lacks any model branding and has a black hub. Spot the contrast with the rear wheel behind it which has the team issue silver one. It was also deeper than the rear wheel, so to our eyes it's the first 'road mullet' wheelset we've seen in use.
Next, I headed to Pro Team Wagner Bazin WB to check out their De Rosa 70 bikes, fitted with Shimano Dura-Ace and Ursus wheels. The grey, green and white looked good together in the morning sun, and it certainly was refreshing to see something other than the standard WorldTour gear for a change.
The wheels are from the Italian brand Ursus, and 30mm Goodyear Eagle F1 R tyres are fitted for Kuurne.
The team was running SwissStop disc rotors, pads and lockrings, the first aftermarket brake parts of the day.
Most teams fit a piece of inner tube over their race transponders for an aero gain, but there were some uncovered units at Wagner Bazin WB.
Rotor Aldhu chainsets with INspider power meters for the team. A lot is going on in this shot. Spot the protective film over the crank arm and the bearing sponsor sticker from Cema, a bearing manufacturer from Taiwan. Finally, the chain is actually the M1800 unit from Shimano, an Ultegra spec, not Dura-Ace.
The Israel Premier Tech Factor bike's paint has a deep lustre that draws you in. This is Jake Stewart's bike; no tall spacer stack is needed for the British racer.
Another neat race number holder here. Stewart finished the race 14 seconds down in 70th place.
Here is Stewart's fuelling strategy. I'm not sure what a 'Krispy' is, but it sounds like it might be tasty.
Carbon-Ti thru axles on the Colnago frames. This one's seen some action, potentially with some frantic wheel changes.
This mechanic at Q36.5 was torquing these shifter clamp bolts off before the start, maybe after a last-minute position change for a rider.
Lidl Trek's 1x SRAM aero chainrings were paired with RED XPLR gravel derailleurs and cassettes. This is a 54T front ring.
Red XPLR uses a 13-speed cassette that can be run with a regular 12-speed SRAM chain. The derailleur is burly and strong and has firmer clutch spring tension than the standard Red rear mech, which should be advantageous over the cobbles.
Spot the carb mix written on the Lidl-Trek aero bottles, which need to be used with the most recent version of the Madone to ensure the maximum aero benefit.
More external cabling on this standard Zipp stem. The brake hoses are heat shrunk together. I think they could be run shorter, but the mechanics have left a little extra length to make future adjustments and work easier.
Continental Conti Coach tubeless radials for the Lidl bus. I'm not sure how much sealant they were running in these, but they were spotless.
Wout van Aert is king in Belgium. The Visma-Lease a bike bus was swarmed as soon as it arrived, and fans happily waited to catch a glimpse of their hero.
The team's Cervelo bikes had Wolf Tooth disc rotor lockrings fitted.
Visma and Quick Step were by far the most popular teams, and I had to get my elbows out here, too. The team were running standard Roval CLX Team wheels as far as I could see, not the prototype wheels and tyres Bora are using.
Pro bikes are tools and pick up battle scars here and there. This was Yves Lampaerts' second bike on the team car roof rack.
The Di2 electrical wire is kept in place on this Quick Step bike, but spot the additional piece of clear tape keeping it tidily attached to the chainstay, I assume to minimise the risk of it getting snagged and to prevent it catching the wind in any way.
There seems to be a serious focus on aero gains at Intermache Wanty. More than one team bike had a handlebar setup like this; they were comfortably the most aggressive around.
Spot the tubeless valves. Intermache use Hutchinson tyres and this is a new, 'Race' model of the Blackbird, presumably now the top of that brand's performance line. They also take advantage of the Newmen Streem tubeless valve system, which means the shorter valves stay hidden inside the rim for an aero gain. The sticker you can see covers the rim's valve hole.
A team mechanic was happy to show me the team's pump extension tool to reach the recessed valves.
This Astana mechanic looked despairing when I asked what was going on here. The mechanics were trying to troubleshoot some kind of time-trial handlebar angle issue using a digital angle tool.
The Astana X-Lab AD9 bikes appear to be fairly stock as far as I can tell. They were hidden away between this wall and the team bus, which made getting at them tricky.
There is no mistaking the Lapierre frame design of team Picnic PostNL. The white paint pen marker indicates Van den Berg's seatpost height.
This intimidating fuelling schedule was the most impressive I saw on the day. It was from Steffen de Schuyeneer's bike over at Lotto.
Lotto were another team using aftermarket brake components. The team were using Galfer disc pads, rotors and lockrings instead of Shimano. Galfer are a Spanish brand with origins in motorbike products.
A floating Galfer rotor at the rear and burly lockring. Spot the 'open' Orbea dropout on the non-drive side, which I assume makes wheel swaps a touch faster.
If in doubt, get the electrical tape out. I assume this is to minimise any computer rattles on the cobbles.
Another healthy spacer stack over at Jayco AlUla and a 10mm spacer on top, the team's purple and chrome Giant Propel race bikes just seem to glow in the bright sunshine.
A slightly more DIY stem note had been deployed here; I have no idea what this means, but it's probably where all the big hills arrive.
The team's Cadex Aero tubeless tyre info is very easy to spot. I think this could be a new, unreleased model from Cadex
A stall near the team's setup area had a wide range of cycling memorabilia for sale, a lot of it spanning several decades. I resisted the temptation and kept walking.
Decathlon AG2R were riding the RCR-F aero bike, this is Belgian classics star Oli Naesen's. The team told me they used slightly shallower wheels for Omloop's more unforgiving parcours. The RCR-F hasn't officially been released yet, but we've seen it in testing as far back as summer 2024.
The Deda handlebar has a deep top section profile and looks very aggressive.
More than one squad were running the Continental Aero 111 tyre. It was originally developed in conjunction with SwissSide, the AG2R wheel sponsor.
The Bahrain Merida bikes always look dialled. Spot the Elite Ice Fly 500 thermal bottles, which can help keep drinks cool.
I was admiring this neat carbon fibre number holder at Bahrain, which looks handmade to me.
Finally all the riders had zipped through to the start, and the team cars loaded up and rolled out. The classics are officially underway.
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