Pro-Level Bike Upgrades From The Tour de France for Everyday Riders

Cycling Weekly

Bike Upgrades From The Tour de France We'd Actually Buy...  The Tour de France tech that we'd actually buy. The 2025 Tour de France is full of some of the best road bikes, carbon fibre bike wheels and road bike upgrades in the world but it's also got plenty of road bike equipment that's only being used because of sponsorships...

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00:00The Tour de France is absolutely filled to the brim with very cool, but very expensive

00:05tech.

00:06There's also a lot of kit out there that teams are definitely only using because they're

00:10getting paid to do so.

00:12So after a few days scouring the team's setups, here's 7 Tour de France products that I'd

00:17actually spend my own money on.

00:22When it comes to bikes, there's some absolute stunners in the World Tour Peloton, but for

00:26my riding I think I'd have to choose an all-rounder bike, rather than one of the pure climbing

00:31or aero steeds.

00:33Having used bikes such as the S-Works Tarmac SL8 and the Trek Madone, you might think that

00:38I'd go for one of those.

00:40But when you take value for money into account, I think I'd have to go for Intermarche 1T's

00:46Cube C68X Lightning Air.

00:54It is a brilliant bike, and it's almost half the price of some of its World Tour competition.

01:00For example, this Dura-Ace build with Newman carbon-spoke wheels, and a very similar setup

01:05to the ones being used by the pros, has an RRP of £7,499 or $8,500, that makes it the

01:13cheapest bike in the Pro Peloton.

01:15I've used one, and it is very good, and it can also be built up easily under the 6.8kg

01:22UCI weight limit.

01:23However, I'm a bit of a bike nerd, and so I probably wouldn't keep the wheels that

01:27come on the bike, on the bike, and instead try and make it my own by switching out the

01:32wheel sets.

01:33So which wheels from the Tour de France Peloton would I go for?

01:37Well, probably none of them to be honest, but I have sat down and kicked some ideas around

01:41with Andy, Cycling Weekly's tech editor, and we've come up with some sort of conclusions.

01:46We were in agreement that when spending our own money we want something around 50mm deep,

01:52fairly wide, and preferably with hooked rims.

01:56That discounts quite a lot of the options, especially as we then decided that for UK riding,

02:01we'd probably forgo carbon spokes due to their increased price for only a small weight

02:06advantage.

02:07The only wheelset that we could agree on, that weren't ridiculous money, are the reserves

02:12that adorn team Visma Lisa Weich steeds.

02:15The 52-63 wheelset can be specced with multiple sets of DT Swiss hubs, we'd probably go for

02:21the 240 option for the best mix of reliability, weight and price, and yes, the team do use

02:27those, not just the 180s.

02:29We found them to be properly stable, and at £1,999, they're about half the price of

02:35Pogaccia's new NVs.

02:38Not everything that the pros use is financially out of reach, and one of the products that

02:42I absolutely swear by features on many of the team's bikes.

02:46These Superleggera bottle cages have an RRP of £23.99, and in my opinion outperform most

02:53of the much more expensive options.

02:55We'll pop the link to some deals on all of the products featured here down in the description

02:59below, and make sure you're subscribed to the channel if you want to see lots more of

03:03the latest bike tech.

03:04It also helps get me out to the Tour de France, so please do.

03:09There is loads of nice tyres being used here at the 2025 Tour de France.

03:13There's the new 30mm only Continental Archetype, there's Hutchinson's Blackbirds, and even

03:19funky Aero tyres.

03:21The pick of the bunch for me, though, is probably the Pirelli P0 Race TLRS, pictured here on Matteo

03:28van der Poel's Canyon Aeroad CFR.

03:31For me, they just narrowly edge out Continental's GP5000 STRs and Vittorio Coursers because, despite

03:39their name, they're actually slightly harder-wearing than many of the tyres here at the Tour, thanks

03:43to a slightly deeper tread.

03:45And trust me, if I'm spending Tour de France level money on tyres, I want them to last more

03:50than 1000k.

03:52When thinking of which Tour de France helmet I'd buy with my own money, it was probably the

03:57easiest decision of the lot.

03:59I like the look of plenty of the helmets.

04:01The UVX lid on Bini & Gamay is tempting, as is the Specialized Evade III, but only one

04:07helmet makes commercial sense to me, the Van Riesel RCRF.

04:11This is a helmet being raced at the highest level, being worn by some of the world's fastest,

04:17and yet it costs a third of the price of nearly everything else at the Tour de France.

04:22This also received some great reviews, so it's pretty easy to recommend.

04:27To complete the look, there are a few other things being used in the 2025 Tour de France,

04:32which I'd be tempted to purchase.

04:34A set of funky tubeless valves from Muckoff, for example.

04:38The same ones that EF Education first used on their Vision wheels.

04:42You can get them in all kinds of colours, and I think it's one of the classier ways of

04:47adding a bit of bling to your bike.

04:50One product that we would spend our own money on, though, is the Spatz Overshoes, as worn

04:54by Mathieu van der Poel.

04:56They're fast, they stay up, and they're not ludicrously expensive.

05:00In fact, for the aero advantage that they'll give you, they're probably one of the better

05:04value upgrades that you can make to your bike and clothing as a whole.

05:09When it comes to most bike components, I'd usually recommend not going for Shimano's

05:13top-tier option, Dura-Ace.

05:15For the simple reason that it rarely offers much more than a few grams saving for quite

05:20a lot more money over the Ultegra or, for example, 105 Di2.

05:25Don't get me wrong, Shimano's Dura-Ace pedals don't come cheap, but it is actually something

05:30that I would spend my money on.

05:32Maybe.

05:33You see, Dura-Ace pedals do actually have some advantages over the lower-tier options.

05:38They've got a really low stack height, they've got a really low weight, they last for ages,

05:44and have an additional set of needle bearings when compared to the Ultegra ones.

05:48For once, this isn't just a few expensive materials with no noticeable gain.

05:54If I had to choose one set of pedals from the Tour de France, then it would undoubtedly

05:58be these.

05:59So if you want the ultimate pedals for your bike, then this pro-level option is well

06:03worth a look.

06:05Let us know if there's any that you think we've missed in the comments below.

06:08As always, make sure you're subscribed to the channel for lots more bike tech and Tour

06:12de France stuff, and check out some deals in the description below.

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