You won't see any interesting bikes at Strade Bianche this year - here's why

Strade Bianche has quickly risen from a novelty race to one of the most anticipated events on the cycling calendar. Many now call it the sport’s “sixth Monument,” a testament to its prestige and the spectacle it provides. With its winding Tuscan roads, steep punchy climbs, and long stretches of white gravel, Strade Bianche is a brutal test of bike handling, endurance, and tactical nous - or, in Pogacar’s case, sheer brute force.

A few years ago, races like these were the perfect hunting ground for us tech journalists to see teams experiment with equipment. Modified road bikes with wider tyres, gravel-specific setups, unique wheel choices - there was always something different to spot. However, over the last few years, the landscape has changed, and for a number of reasons, bikes at the classics are becoming more boring than ever - and that’s both a good and a bad thing.

In 2025, the WorldTour has settled into a state of uniformity. The days of radical bike modifications for specific races are pretty much over. This year, I believe that almost every team will roll up to the start line on a stock aero or lightweight road bike, which, in my opinion, is both a blessing and a curse depending on who you are.

In its earlier editions, Strade Bianche was a race where teams experimented with diverse bike setups to gain an advantage on the challenging Tuscan gravel roads. Unlike the smooth tarmac of the Tour de France, the white roads demand a whole new range of rider skills and equipment challenges. Comfort becomes more important over the five hours of racing, and even putting down power can be challenging at times, especially if the weather changes.

You don’t have to turn the clock back far to find images of strange setups being used across the spring classics. Teams experimented with everything from wider tubular tyres to bikes engineered specifically for the spring classics. Team Sky famously used the Pinarello Dogma K8-S, a bike featuring an actual rear suspension system designed to smooth out the cobbles. Specialized introduced the Roubaix with Future Shock, a front-end suspension system that provides additional compliance. BMC, Trek, and others incorporated integrated seatpost flex, decouplers, and elastomers to absorb vibrations. Of course, many of these systems still exist today, but the pros aren’t necessarily choosing them anymore. The one exception to this we have seen this year of course, is the Sram AXS XPLR groupset being used by Trek in this years' classics. That said, one-by groupsets have been winning Tour de France stages for a good couple of years now, so I am reluctant to describe using wide gear rances as true bike fettling.

Others, unable to switch to specialist frames, turned to climbing bikes like the Trek Émonda or Cannondale SuperSix Evo, purely because they allowed for slightly wider tyres than their aero-focused counterparts. Of course, when I say wider tyres, I generally mean 28mm rubber as opposed to 25mm - which, in today’s world, is incredibly stingy.

Back then, the classics, and by extension Strade Bianche, felt like a mechanic’s playground. However, today, those quirks and innovations are less prevalent - not because the race has changed, but because modern road bikes have evolved to the point where specialised setups are no longer as necessary.

There are both positives and negatives to this shift. As a true tech nerd, I must confess that the lack of variety in bike setup does take away an element of excitement from the racing. Watching the different bikes play out their strengths and weaknesses was almost like enjoying the strategic side of a Formula One race—after all, who could forget Peter Sagan’s mid-race stem adjustments at Paris-Roubaix, as he fine-tuned his handling on the brutal pavé?

But what if you’re a casual fan, or perhaps just a normal rider who doesn’t fancy coughing up the cash for a TNT subscription this year?

The reason we no longer see radically modified bikes at Strade Bianche is simple - modern road bikes are, for a whole host of reasons, much better pieces of equipment. And I am saying that as someone whose main road bike is a 1994 steel machine - even I can’t avoid the facts.

And to the dismay of my beloved Massi, the vast improvements really stem from the universal adoption of disc brakes. A decade ago, rim brakes severely restricted tyre clearance, allowing most performance bikes to fit no more than 28mm tyres. Of course, the general school of thought at that time was that 25c, or even 23c tyres, were faster too - an ideology that seems far-fetched today. In a race like Strade, the combination of greatly improved braking power and modulation, along with 32mm tyres, is nothing short of a trump card, and with most modern race bikes clearing above 30mm rubber, there really isn’t a reason to opt for anything different. Not to mention that wider tyres also mean tubeless systems work more effectively.

The other obvious improvement over the last decade or so is material science advancements in carbon frames. For a given frame stiffness, the comfort of a modern-day frame compared to an older model is stark. Dropped seat stays, more slender seatposts, and better engineering have all led to a world where clunky, sometimes temperamental vibration-dampening systems just aren’t needed anymore, and as a result, the lightweight technology can be engineered straight onto an aero race bike platform.

Ultimately, today’s all-round race bikes are more versatile than ever. The once-clear distinction between a Strade Bianche bike and a standard race bike has disappeared—because now, they’re one and the same.

Or at least they are for the pros.

The other key point is just how skilled professional riders are - an obvious statement, perhaps, but one worth emphasising. I don’t think anyone forgets how fit, strong, and mentally tough the sport’s best riders are today, but it’s much easier to overlook the precision with which they can handle a bike, particularly over tricky terrain.

Spending a thousand hours a year on a road bike puts these riders in a position where they are so comfortable on a standard road bike that they simply don’t need the slacker head angle or longer chainstays that you or I might rely on when the going gets technical.

The real winners, however, are us - the consumers. Innovations like disc brakes and better carbon tech have led to a situation where brands have been able to develop far more versatile bikes that are more things to more people. Ultimately, this shift has made road bikes more versatile for everyday riders - a win for all of us.