10 Things to Copy From Tour de France Pros to Ride Faster and More Comfortably

10 things to copy that help the Tour de France pros to ride faster and more comfortably that might work for you, but also some things that might be best to avoid

Content
00:00 Intro
00:25 The perfect tyre pressure
1:51 Wide tyres are standard
2:36 No more slammed stems?
3:51 Deep section carbon wheels
4:57 Big gears!
6:20 Short crank arms
8:20 3d printed saddles for max comfort
9:30 Fancy bottom brackets
10:22 Chain catcher
11:07 Aero vs lightweight frame choice

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I’ve been up close and personal with some of the fastest taller France race bikes over the last few weeks and in the last 20 years as a bike journal covering the sport too. And in today’s video, I want to share 10 tech tricks and setup tips to hopefully help us all ride faster and in more comfort. Because if it works for the pros, it should work for us immortal too, right? The easiest and free way to optimize your bike setup is make sure you have the best tire pressure setup. All the pros obsess about tire pressure and the mechanics will spend all morning before the stage of the tour of France. Make sure each bike, each tire has the right tire pressure setup for the rider based on their rider weight and the conditions of the course, whether it’s dry or wet and the size of tire they’re riding. In the old days, tire pressure was a dark art, a top secret for the pro mechanics and the pro riders. But these days, getting the right tire pressure is much easier than ever before. There are a lot of good apps available and are all free. I’ll put a link to some down below where you punch in your body weight, your bike weight, the size of the tires, the road conditions, whe dry, wet, bumpy, and so on. And it gives you a really good starting point for a tire pressure that will give you more performance because we now know the old days of inflating your tire to max pressure are long behind us. And we now understand the benefits of lower tire pressures for maximum rolling resistance. And if you’re still on the fence about low pressures, just give it a try. It’s an easy thing to try. There’s no investment in new equipment. Just try a lower tire pressure than you would have tried in the past and go out for a ride, do some control testing and you will feel the benefits straight away. One of the biggest trends in the past few years in the Pro Platon has been a move to wide tires. The days of 23 and 25 mil wide tires are long gone. And now based on this year’s taller fronts, a 28 and a 30 mil wide tire are the standard choice for all the pro riders, whether they’re a sprinter or a climber like Taliba. A wide tire coupled with a lower pressure than ever before, is the key to unlocking more performance and reducing the engine you lose through the vibration losses on a tire deforming and deflecting on a rough road. Unless you ride a silky smooth tarmac, which is very rare these days, a lower tire pressure will give you more speed and more comfort, too. The other tech train that definitely worth copying from the pros is to not slam your stem. I know, controversial, right? In the old days, all pros and amateur wannabe pros would slam the stem. Remove all spaces between a stem and a frame. But those days are increasingly behind us as more pros at this year’s Tour of France based on my evidence are running a few spaces below the stem. And the idea is to offer a more comfortable position and more aerodynamic efficiency as well. Because by raising the stem, you bring the handlebars up. And what you do when you’re riding crouch on the hoods, you have that nice 90° angle at the elbow. And that is more arrow than a lower stem which straightens out your arm because when your arm is like that there’s less surface area to catch a wind which is counterintuitive I know because lower was thought to be more arrow but now the latest testing shows that a higher handlebar position is actually more arrow than a slam position. It can also put your back and head and helmet into a more aerodynamically efficient position as well. So, it’s a win-win for arrow and a win for comfort as well. If you do want to ride fast, and who doesn’t? Riding fast is a lot of fun, then you definitely need some deep section carbon fiber arrow wheels. They’ve been standard in the Pro Peron for the last 10 plus years. And even when the road points up in the mountains, the Pros are still sticking with a deep section wheel. In the old days, they had the deep section wheel for the flat stages, the sprint, and a shallow wheel for the climbing mountain stages to save weight. But these days, even top riders like Talipaga are using the same deep section wheel on the flat stages and in the mountains as well. Because while you might have some more weight when climbing, there is still descending and the flat valley roads as well. though over the the length of the course and the science that show over the length of a course with the climbing, descending and flat stuff in between that the area benefits can outweigh the weight penalty of a deeper section wheel. And these days deep section wheels can be really light down to,200 g for a top end carbon fiber wheel set. So maximum arrow and no real weight penalty. The pros are racing at ever higher speeds, eye watering speeds in the opening stages of this year’s tour of France. Just crazy fast. And to match those high speeds, they’re fitting big chain rings to their bikes. The old days where 53, 39 being a standard setup are long gone. 54, 55, 56 are fairly common these days with a bigger inner chamber ring as well. So bigger chain rings allow you to go faster, but you still have to have the muscle to turn the big chain rings at a reasonable cadence. And one of the reasons the pros have been able to go to big chain rings is a big cassettes they also use. In the old days, 1123 was fairly common. Maybe 1125 if you’re climbing, but these days 1130 is very common and often 1134 might be used as well. And the other reason behind a bigger chain rings as well is efficiency. There’s less chain articulation with a bigger chain ring. The chain isn’t being bent as much as on a smaller chain ring and you can optimize the chain line in the middle of the cassette as well. So, there are a few reasons why the pros are going to big chain rings. And that probably one I wouldn’t copy at home unless you are racing, you are doing criterion racing and you want the bigger chain rings and you can actually turn those cranks at the high speeds they would allow. So, one I would leave the pros, but if you want to copy the pros, emulated pros that put the big chain rings on your bike. Now, to the most intriguing and most popular trend in the pro pelaton in the last two or three years, it’s a move to short cranks. Crank lengths do vary a lot from 180 175 to a fairly standard 172.5 but a lot of pros like Talibia and Remco Evelyn pole and now down to 165 and 160 mil cranks. So much shorter than before. And there are a few reasons why they’re going to short cranks. But if worth bearing in mind it’s definitely not a magic bullet. If you put short cranks on your bike hoping to go faster that may not be the case. It may do, but just fitting short cranks alone won’t help you go faster than before. So, why are they using short cranks? There are numerous reasons, but the main one is about that aggressive position the riders like to adopt on the bike. Really getting crouched low over the handlebars, moving the saddle forward in the rails, getting as far over the bottom bracket as possible, really adopting a time trial position on the bike. And the short cranks open up the hip angle and remove any restriction around the top of the legs and the hip when in that very extreme compact position on the bike. And studies have shown that despite the the short cranks and high cadence, there’s no loss of power either. There’s also possibly improved aerodynamics and ground clearance when cornering as well. But it’s really about that opening up the hip angle and just allowing that ride to adopt a very aggressive position on the bike. But one that has to be factored in with your bike fit, your saddle height, the saddle for aft and your handlebar position as well. And one that would take probably a lot of time in training and riding to get used to that position and really dial it in for you. So one I would if you are keen to copy the pros and go short cranks, I would do with input from a professional bike fitter to make sure you’re not going to run into any other issues or complications from going to short cranks. A lot of these tips are focused on speed, but some are also based on comfort as well. Wide tires, that high handlebar position, and a very popular train right now is a 3D printed saddle. And loads of companies are now offering them as well. And there’s loads more choice on the market than ever before from Specialized, Physique, Celotalia, and others. Some cost a fortune, but as we know here on just ride bikes, there are cheaper alternatives if you shop around. And in my experience, in my testing, they offer way more comfort than any of the best old-fashioned foam saddles. The comfort is the same at the end as it is at the beginning. There’s no diminishing comfort throughout a long ride. The way the 3D structure supports you, the way you float on a saddle is just far better than any foam saddle where the foam gets compressed over time as your sitbones and your body digs in to that foam padding. Doesn’t happen with 3D printing at all. Support can be tuned around the nose, the sitbones and the middle of the saddle much more than foam saddles as well. And there’s even a possibility get a custommade saddle which physique are offering now and which typicatcha are using on his bike. How about some marginal gains for your bike? All the pro bikes will have a fancy high-end bottom bracket for the marginal gains. Like these ones here from Bick One, a Spanish company which supplies bottom brackets for Tally Batcher. These are some of the nicest bottom brackets I’ve ever seen. Made to a really high standard, super precision, lovely high quality bearings, available with ceramic bearings as well, and just a really nice high-end bottom bracket. There are loads of options on the market these days as well. So, a good bottom bracket is an easy upgrade on your bike. And a bottom bracket is an easy item to overlook on your bike. You spend more time on the tires, the wheels, the handlebar. It’s easy to forget the bottom bracket. But very important to not overlook the components on the bike. So, invest in a high quality bottom bracket and your bike will thank you. One other detail that really stands out on a tour of France Pro Race bike is an easy one to copy. It won’t win you a race. It won’t guarantee you any more speed or comfort, but it will stop you dropping your chain. And that’s a chain catcher. Pretty much most of the bikes have a chain catcher. It’s a small metal arm that connects to the front derailer and essentially acts as a safety guard, a nice safety measure to stop the chain dropping off the chain ring on bumpy ground or a bad shift into the bottom bracket shell and getting stuck between the frame and the chain ring. Because if that happens, your race is over. you’re being dropped from the Pelaton, it’s game over. So, really easy and cheap and effective way to stop your chain dropping off the bike and ruining your day and your ride and your race. And finally, there’s a bike, the frame, the most expensive part of the whole bike package. And it essentially come down to what you choose come down to aerodynamics or lightweight or somewhere in the middle. And the taller front pelon is full of choice and dilemma. And we are seeing some teams using one bike across the entire tour of France like a tarmac or a dogma. But we are seeing some riders switch from an air bike like a Konago Y1 RS or Cello S5 to a lighter weight bike for the climbing stages like a Giant TCR advanced pro for example. So a choice of arrow versus lightweight comes down to your personal preference and the ride you’re doing whether it’s hilly or flat and how fast you plan to ride. But pros while they have the choice of arrow and lightweight and they have the user weight limit of 6.8 8 kilos. We are seeing the arrow is really becoming the main factor in what bike they choose. Whereas an all rounder like a tremone or the specialized tarmac SL8 or just going for the aero bike in the company’s range like a giant propel the canyon air road which Matthew Vanderpole like to use all the time or even the S5 as used by Yoni Fineard in all stages of tour so far. So there’s still a choice between arrow lightweight or arrow and lightweight. But increasingly riders are going for a lightweight. So if you really want to go faster and copy the pros and ride with more speed, then get yourself an aerobic and aer frame and enjoy the air benefits of such a frame. So, those are some of my tech observations of the things the pros are doing to ride faster and in more comfort and some that us mortals should copy and maybe should avoid. But let me know what you think by dropping a comment down below. What have you copied so far? What do you plan to copy? Or do you think copying the pros is a stupid daft idea? And if you want to see some of the best, most iconic tour of France race bikes of the last century, then watch the video right here.