00:00Paris-Roubaix is the most brutal bike race on the World Tour calendar.
00:04The long sectors of jagged cobbles totalling 55km in the men's race are enough to shatter
00:10any bike that's not up to the job.
00:13But those cobbles are also the perfect proving ground for new bike tech.
00:17Basically, if it can survive Paris-Roubaix, then it can survive anything.
00:22In the 127 years since the bike race was first run, we've seen all sorts of modifications
00:28and innovations from the biggest bike brands, some logical and some completely outlandish.
00:35But what tech has survived and become commonplace on modern bikes, and what has failed spectacularly
00:42and then disappeared without a trace?
00:44And what can we expect from the future?
00:46Well, we're going to take a look at some of the hits, some of the misses, and then
00:50do a bit of crystal ball gazing.
00:55Let's go with the most obvious first, the specialised Roubaix.
01:00The Roubaix was invented as an antidote to the race bikes of the 1990s that were wholly
01:06unsuited to the cobbled classics.
01:09Steep angles and short chainstays and very tight clearances made it virtually impossible
01:14to fit decent sized tyres.
01:16So the Roubaix unveiled in 2004 fixed all of that.
01:20The harshness was gone and the handling was still sharp and the results were incredible.
01:26Tom Boonen won back-to-back on the Roubaix in 2008 and 2009, and the bike has a total
01:33of seven wins in the hell of the north.
01:36Now, endurance bikes are a category all of their own, generally with more upright geometry
01:41and better comfort to suit everyday riders.
01:44The Cannondale Synapse and the Trek de Marnay are two of the most prominent ones out there
01:49today, though the former has never won Paris-Roubaix.
01:52Pretty much every major manufacturer now has an endurance bike in its line-up.
01:59If you do try to ride the cobbles on 23mm road tyres, you won't get very far.
02:04That's why, for Paris-Roubaix, the teams would glue on fat tubulars, settling on 28mm
02:10as the preferred size.
02:12More recently, tubeless and hookless tyres have been winning, and now that disc brakes
02:17have freed up the extra space needed for oversized rubber, they're getting even fatter.
02:22In 2021, the Continental GP5000 STR in a 30mm wide size won Paris-Roubaix for the first
02:29time with Sonny Colbrelli.
02:31In 2022, winner Dylan van Baal gave the Contis their second win.
02:36The wheel brands and tyre manufacturers have spent a lot of time and energy proving that
02:41wider tyres at lower pressures are faster in most scenarios.
02:47Better rolling resistance, grip and comfort, and puncture protection are all of the benefits.
02:53The tubeless vs tubular debate still rages on in the pro ranks, and interestingly, we're
02:58still seeing plenty of pros bikes with tubs.
03:02But it's fair to say that the industry as a whole has accepted that wider is better,
03:06and 28mm wide rubber is the new normal for the road.
03:11After the doomed attempts at full suspension classics bikes in the early 1990s, it was
03:16a few years before any type of bounce dared stick its head above the cobbled parapet.
03:22The original Specialized Roubaix had Zertz inserts.
03:25These were elastometer inserts, a bit like running shoe soles, that were supposed to
03:29dampen the vibrations of the chainstays.
03:33Trek also experimented with a dampener embedded into the rear wishbone of Discovery Channel's
03:38bikes in 2005, but in 2012, Specialized introduced FutureShock, a spring underneath the stem
03:45which provided 20mm of travel.
03:47The same year, Trek also introduced its IsoSpeed decoupler, a system that allowed the seatpost
03:53to flex independently of the rest of the frame.
03:56Later, it evolved into FrontIsoSpeed, which allowed the steerer tube to pivot a small
04:01amount.
04:02Pinarello's K8S with rear suspension was launched in 2015, and the later K10S even
04:09had electronically controlled rear suspension.
04:13While Specialized has developed a rear FutureShock for its Diverge STR gravel bike in addition
04:18to the front suspension for the Roubaix, Trek has been facing out IsoSpeed.
04:24The new Madone doesn't feature it, while the latest Damane no longer has it at the
04:28front end and has a simpler, lighter, non-adjustable version at the rear.
04:34And Dylan van Baar won last year's Paris-Roubaix on a standard Pinarello Dogma F.
04:39So although we're still seeing plenty of suspension around, it's starting to gravitate
04:44towards gravel bikes.
04:46Road bikes are using the cushioning of bigger tyres as their suspension.
04:50Clearly now, Paris-Roubaix can be won on an aero bike… as long as it has the right rubber.
04:58It might sound strange to claim that carbon fibre came from the classics, but if we're
05:02saying that Paris-Roubaix is the ultimate proving ground for bikes, then Franco Ballerini's
05:071995 win on the Colnago C40 definitely gave carbon the cobbled seal of approval.
05:14Before that, carbon had been regarded as exotic, expensive and so fragile that it was only
05:20suitable for lightweight climbing bikes.
05:23It was some time before carbon wheels were even considered safe, and comfortable enough
05:28for Paris-Roubaix, but carbon frames had arrived and we've never looked back.
05:34The early 1990s was the golden era for suspension innovation at Paris-Roubaix, and it all started
05:41when Rockshox developed the Paris-Roubaix SL fork.
05:45Offering 30mm of travel, Greg LeMond first used it in 1991.
05:50Although he was laughed out of the Arenberg Forest, pro road teams are notoriously conservative
05:56and remember, in 1992, 1993 and 1994 the Paris-Roubaix was won with the Rockshox fork, and the joke
06:04was on the teams that weren't using it.
06:07But this preceded the era of Mappe's domination at Paris-Roubaix, and Ernesto Colnago was
06:13one of those who famously refused to fit a Rockshox fork to one of his bikes.
06:19Although, by the beginning of the noughties, the classics peloton had moved on.
06:23In 2021, Rockshox, which now owned by SRAM, launched the Rudy Ultimate Explore, a lightweight
06:30suspension fork for gravel bikes which provided 30 or 40mm of travel for 700c wheels.
06:38Sound familiar?
06:43In some ways, Canadian Steve Bauer was ahead of his time with the radical bike that he
06:47rode at the 1993 Paris-Roubaix.
06:51It's a fact that a longer wheelbase supplies extra stability and superior handling over
06:56cobbles.
06:57So, to achieve this, he had a bike designed for him that had a 60 degree seat tube angle,
07:03giving a wheelbase of 109cm and a comfortable, yet bizarre, armchair-like position.
07:10Up front, the bike was fitted with that famous Rockshox Paris-Roubaix SL suspension fork.
07:16It might have floated over the cobbles, but it wasn't quite so effective for the other
07:21200km of the race, which isn't pavé, and Bauer finished in 23rd place.
07:28Really?
07:29It's not too bad when you think about it.
07:31The most famous fail at Paris-Roubaix has to be Johan Mizeo's full suspension Bianchi.
07:37Allegedly costing £1500 to design and produce, equipped with a swingarm, rocker link and
07:44coil shock, with the now-legendary Rockshox Paris-Roubaix SL fork up front, the future
07:49superstar snapped his chainstay with 24km to go, then changed to a standard bike, and
07:56then finished in 13th.
07:58The Bianchi was the absolute high point of outrageous suspension designs.
08:03In 1995, Franco Ballerini won on the carbon Colnago C40, and the cycling world changed
08:09forever.
08:10Anyway, with the UCI now having much stricter rules on bike design, we'll never see anything
08:16like the Bianchi again.
08:22So what tech on the current crop of classics bikes are we likely to see on standard production
08:27road bikes in the future?
08:28Well, we're currently in an era where tyre choice and tyre size is absolutely everything,
08:35and suspension is no longer really needed, but the most interesting and possibly influential
08:40bike to win Paris-Roubaix this decade is Lizzie Deignan's 2021 Trek Du Marnais.
08:46Yes, this was the old Du Marnais that had the IsoSpeed front and rear, but Deignan used
08:52a 1x12 drivetrain.
08:54It's completely sensible to use one chainring rather than risk dropping a chain, and there
09:00aren't really that many hills in Paris-Roubaix that require the little ring anyway.
09:04He also used the chain guide to make sure that the chain really wasn't going anywhere.
09:10The Bontrager Aeolus RSL 37 TLR wheels she ran, which have an internal width of 21mm
09:17and an external width of 28mm, aren't the widest.
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