The bikes and tech of Paris-Roubaix 2015

April 13, 2015
4 minute read

The pavé of Paris-Roubaix demands something a little different of riders and bikes than any other race on the calendar. Mechanics and bike and component manufactures can work weeks, months or even years to get new equipment ready for Paris-Roubaix. CyclingTips’ roving reporter Dave Everett headed to the start of this year’s race in Compiègne to check out the tech on display for the 2015 ‘Hell of the North’.

Thanks to the UCI’s very strict rules with regards to custom, prototype and once-off equipment, it’s becoming less and less likely that you’ll see crazy and unusual bike set-ups at the start area of Paris-Roubaix.

Now, with the explosion of comfort/sportive road bikes, we are seeing these sorts of frames being piloted by the professionals more and more. The carbon layups may be different or the wheel bases of the “sportive” bikes may be longer for special team issue frames. But all this is impossible to spot just by looking at bikes with the naked eye. Tape measures and scales are needed.

The only new bikes at the race this year were the black stealth Ridley that Lotto Soudal was using — a bike we got a good look at it earlier in the week — and the much-hyped Pinarello Dogma K8-S, with its rear suspension — a bike we also got to check out before the Tour of Flanders.

The other big brands — Specialized, BMC, Trek, Cannondale and Scott — all had bikes that have seen cobbles duty in other races.

BMC had its very red GF model bike as team standard kit, the only difference was the colour scheme and the addition of RBX on the top tube next to the letters GF.

BMC had no real change to its GF bike, just a new red paint scheme and the word Roubaix added to it.

One interesting point of note was that several riders were using normal road bikes up until the first pavé section, at which point they changed to a machine set up for the cobbles.

Peter Sagan was one such rider; he used his custom Specialized Tarmac and then swapped to a Roubaix model with wider FMB/Specialized tubulars — 30mm out back and 27mm up front.

Sagan was using a Tarmac until the first cobbled section where he'd swap to a Roubaix model. — Sagan was using a Tarmac until the first cobbled section where he swapped to a Roubaix model.

One noticeable trend within the peloton this year was the increased use of a secondary brake lever on the top of the bars. The majority of riders who used these only had the back brake adapted. BMC rider Greg Van Avermaet had a flash looking carbon lever on his.

BMC were the only team to have carbon brake levers on the tops.

The reason for this trend is that it makes braking easier on the cobbles. Having only the rear brake also eliminates the danger of grabbing too much front brake and sliding your front wheel out. Oddly though, quite a few riders on Cofidis and Europcar had both a front and rear brake, and in some crazy steep angles to the bars.

It's hard to tell from this angle but Adrien Petit had his brake levers pointed vertical. — It’s hard to tell from this angle but Adrien Petit had his brake levers pointed vertical.

More brake levers at Giant-Alpecin. — It’s hard to tell from this angle but Adrien Petit had his brake levers pointed vertical.

Cofidis also had a selection of Di2 remote shifters in positions on the bars that seemed odd at times, including one that was facing forward so the user had to change gear using his middle and pointing finger as apposed to his thumb. Our guess is that this may have been due to the way he holds the bars.

Another odd Cofidis set up with brake levers and a Di2 satellite shifter mounted on top.

As always, bar tape came multilayered for many riders at this race. The French squads were leaders in this department — the bar tape on several Cofidis riders’ bikes was three rolls of tape thick.

How many layers of bartape doe's one man need, three by the looks of things.

French company FMB was yet again the tubular of choice for many teams. Lampre-Merida seemed to have the smallest widths for the entire inventory of their wheels with just 25mm tubulars. Most other teams were running a combination of 30mm or 27mm tubulars.

The Lampre-Merida bikes had an odd set up, with the widest tubulars spotted being only 25mm.

Lampre-Merida had a mixed bag of tubulars. Some riders were on team-issue Vredestein Fortezza Senso T where others had FMB. — The Lampre-Merida bikes had an odd set up, with the widest tubulars spotted being only 25mm.

Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo were using Specialized’s new tubulars, made of a new FMB carcass and the compound from their Turbo tyre on top. Quick-Step on the other hand were using a similar setup but without the newer compound. The tubulars the team were using had been stored away and cured for a year.

Astana was using Specialized's new rubber compound and FMB carcass tubulars. They had 28mm on the front and 30mm on the rear. — Astana was using Specialized’s new rubber compound and FMB carcass tubulars. They had 28mm on the front and 30mm on the rear.

Many riders were on products that diverted from their team’s regular sponsored product. Many riders used the FSA K-Edge pro edition stem which is longer and has a greater negative drop. One rider on Europcar had swapped out his team issue Deda stem for a K-Edge stem. Even taped up it’s a pretty obvious item.

Julien Morice of Europcar clearly can't find a Deda stem to suit, so he has a tapped up FSA stem instead. — Julien Morice of Europcar clearly can’t find a Deda stem to suit, so he has a taped up FSA stem instead.

Shimano had a non-standard brake caliper being used by many of the teams, designed to allow wider tyres to be used. Giant-Alpecin also modified it with a secondary quick release lever on the cable above the brake so they could use the brake with a 30mm tyre and a wide rim and still not have to struggle getting the wheel out.

Due to the width of the tyres used by Giant-Alpecin and the width of the rim, the mechanics had to add a secondary quick release lever to the cable to give them enough room to get the wheels in and out.

All in all it was quite an uneventful start line when it came to new kit, there was even a lack of custom paint schemes too. In previous editions we’ve seen riders take to the cobbles on cross bikes, but this year, as far as we could see, there were none. This, we guess, is again down to many manufactures having relaxed geometry bikes in their line up.

Photo gallery

[ct_caption_style width=’1024px’]

: Cofidis had some interesting setups including this FSA-equipped SRM with a Vision aero chainring.

: American Classic is the wheel sponsor of Bretagne. The owner of the wheel manufacturer told me the team didn’t demand anything new for the race.

: Cannondale-Garmin had their bottles held in place by Arundle’s Stainless cage, a tubular steel design.

: Movistar were on a selection of Canyon bikes, including the Ultimate DF SLX.

: A brave or foolish rider at Europcar was still using carbon cages.

: Cervelo had an R5 Mud for the cobbled classic. Like the Trek the wheelbase is longer, and the forks are slightly more raked than the standard team forks.

: John Degenkolb had his son’s footprint on his top tube.

: Look had produced a slightly different version of their team bike for Roubaix. It had wider clearance on the forks and stays to accommodate wider tubulars. The wheelbase was also slightly longer.

: Old Mavic Open Pro tubular rims with a Mavic SSC tubular. Old school but it saw the LottoNL-Jumbo rider across the line in Roubaix.

: Orica-GreenEdge had their standard Addicts with slight modifications to tyres and bartape. Check out the drop on the stem of Magnus Cort Nielsen.

: Florian Senechal’s team issue Orbea Orca is a slightly different paint scheme to the standard version Cofidis uses throughout the year. His bar tape looked to be wrapped three times.

: Plastic filler in the holes where mechanical cables would route through on the Orica-GreenEdge Scott Addicts.

: Power2max is the official powermeter sponsor for Movistar. This is their new Campagnolo four-arm design.

: Many of the mechanics had these hand-held pumps.

: Lotto Soudal had some of last year’s bikes as spare machines for the riders. This bike is from the 2014 Tour de France.

: No one will mistake Peter Sagan’s bike for theirs.

: Old school San Marco Concor Light saddles were seen on two of the Lotto Soudal team bikes.

: Bretagne-Seche had several different Polar computers on their team bikes. This one was on a makeshift mount on the stem, sideways.

: Bora-Argon 18 rode with the Speedplay Zero Pavé pedals.

: A tapped PC8 SRM head unit wasn’t going to bounce off on the cobbles.

: Sandpaper stuck to bottle cages stops the bottles from jumping out of the cage when hitting the rough stuff.

: You may have seen many riders with tape on their hands and wrists for added protection and support. We noticed that several of the Tinkoff-Saxo team were using wrist compression bands at this year’s Roubaix as well.

: Trek’s team issue Domane is in its third year of racing the cobbles. It is slightly different from the standard Domane frame as it’s 2cm longer in the wheelbase and the bottom bracket is higher.