Aero bikes with gravel wheels?: Six tech insights from Paris-Roubaix Femmes

For the layperson, Christmas Day falls on 25th December. But for bike nerds like us at Cycling Weekly, it comes in April, stretched over a weekend in northern France.

With its unique and unrelenting cobbled sectors, Paris-Roubaix always promises to bring a sleigh full of interesting tech. This year is proving no different.

Ahead of the fifth edition of the women's race, Cycling Weekly wandered from team bus to team bus, armed with a camera and an inquisitive mind. Here's what we found, from gravel wheels and differing tyre widths, to aero bikes and adjustable pressure systems.

Aero bikes with gravel wheels

Ridley's Noah Fast 3.0 aero bike, ridden by Uno-X this season, is one of the most aggressively designed bikes we've seen in the peloton.

Its futuristic geometry boasts longer tube shapes in the forks, dropped seat stays, and an eye-catchingly deep headtube (pictured below). According to Ridley, it's 8.5 watts faster than the previous model.

And yet, while aero is key in a flat race like Paris-Roubaix, it has to be balanced with comfort over the cobbles.

Uno-X set out to achieve this by pairing the Noah Fast with gravel wheels – DT Swiss's GRC 1100. Made from lightweight carbon, the wheels are designed to absorb shocks, and are said to be the "ultimate off-road" companion by their makers.

30-35mm tyres

Tyre width choice has long been a point of contention in the cobbled Classics, and nowhere more so than at Paris-Roubaix. Racing over fiercely jagged cobbles, riders prefer a wider surface area than they do on the road, hoping to roll safely over the more dangerous stretches.

At Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift on Saturday, Cycling Weekly saw riders choosing widths from 30mm to 35mm – compared to the more common 28mm seen on the flat.

The widest tyres we spotted belonged to SD Worx-Protime, including the defending champion Lotte Kopecky, whose front wheel is pictured above. The team ran 35mm S-Works Mondo endurance tyres.

The next widest tyres belonged to the Cofidis team, who ran the grippy Vittoria Corsa Pro Control in 34mm.

Ceratizit also ran Vittoria Corsa Pro Control tyres, but in 32mm. This was the most common width among the starters on the day.

The narrowest tyres we saw were fitted to the bikes of Human Powered Health's riders, and measured 30mm. We also saw this width on bikes from St Michel - Preference Home - Auber93 and Liv AlUla Jayco, with half the Australian squad on 30mm and the other half on 32mm.

Tyre inflation system

Adjustable tyre pressure systems first surfaced at Paris-Roubaix two years ago, used by a handful of riders testing the then-new technology.

This time round, Visma-Lease a Bike's riders were unanimous in running the systems, made by Netherlands-based Gravaa.

The company's system is controlled wirelessly via Bluetooth with buttons installed on the handlebars, and allows riders to drop and increase tyre pressure as they please. Pauline Ferrand Prévot rode the technology to victory on her debut.

"I changed every sector," the Frenchwoman said afterwards. "It was super good to be able to put lower pressure on the cobbles. We were much more comfortable, less jumping."

After she dropped the pressure down, Ferrand-Prévot said the system took "some minutes" to get up to 4-bar (58psi), but gave her an advantage on the road sections.

"To be able to pump again on the tarmac was super good, because there was a lot at the end on the tarmac," she said.

Unreleased wheels

This year, riders have been using unreleased 'smart wheels' from brand Zipp. The first to be seen using them was Q36.5's Tom Pidcock at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and they were commonplace at Paris-Roubaix among Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto and Movistar, two teams supplied with Zipp wheels.

Although there is no spec available at the moment, patent information suggests the wheels give live feedback to riders about tyre pressure, rim health, and road surfaces. They do not, however, allow live pressure adjustments like Gravaa's system.

The wheels come as a combination of Zipp wheels and in-sensor accessories from TyreWiz, two brands owned by components maker SRAM.

Single chainrings

Another thing that has become a more common sight at Paris-Roubaix is single chainring groupsets, also known as 1x.

Every team supplied with SRAM components – including Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Movistar, and Visma-Lease a Bike – used 1x set-ups on Saturday.

A single chainring is normally sufficient for a flat race like Roubaix, and vastly reduces the risk of the chain falling off. In the picture of Chloé Dygert's (Canyon-SRAM) bike above, you can see she used a chain guide hold it in place. This was standard across those running 1x.

Satellite shifters

Satellite shifters are nothing new at Paris-Roubaix, but it's always interesting to see how different riders choose to place them.

Above, note how Emma Norsgaard (Lidl-Trek) has one shifter under the tops of her bars, and another inside the drops. This enables her to shift while handling the bike in different places.

Norsgaard's shifters were also reinforced with extra bar tape.

The above picture is of Kopecky's handlebars. The world champion opted for single shifters, located either side of her bike's stem.

This is because Kopecky prefers grip the tops of her bars while riding over cobbles, shifting with her thumbs.

Another noticeable thing we spotted on Kopecky's bike was this rainbow-coloured metallic cassette. This bit of bling was on her spare bike, and gives no discernible advantage, other than looking cool.

We were also big fans of this special-edition cobble paint job over at Winspace Orange Seal's team bus.

The bike didn't have a number attached to it, so we're not sure if it was used in the race. Either way, it looks the part, doesn't it?