Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 1 day ago
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...
Transcript
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.
00:21When 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 Wanty's
00:46Cube C68X Lightning Air.
00:49That is a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?
00:52There's just too many words in that sentence.
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 Neumann 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
01:13the cheapest
01:14bike in the Pro Peloton.
01:15I've used one, and it is very good, and it can also be built up easily under the 6.8
01:21kilo
01:21UCI weight limit.
01:23However, I'm a bit of a bike nerd, and so I probably wouldn't keep the wheels that come
01:27on the bike, on the bike, and instead try and make it my own by switching out the wheelsets.
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, we'd
02:01probably forgo carbon spokes due to their increased price for only a small weight advantage.
02:06The only wheelset that we could agree on, that weren't ridiculous money, are the reserves
02:12that adorned 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.
02:25And yes, the team do use those, not just the 180s.
02:29We found them to be properly stable, and at £1,999 they're about half the price of Pogaccia's
02:35new envies.
02:37Not 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.
03:08There 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
03:38their 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 than
03:501000k.
03:52When thinking of which Tour de France helmet I'd buy with my own money, it was probably
03:57the easiest decision of the lot.
03:59I like the look of plenty of the helmets.
04:01The Juvex lid on Bini & Gamay is tempting, as is the Specialized Evade III, but only one
04:07helmet makes commercial sense to me.
04:09The Van Riesel RCRF.
04:11This is a helmet being raced at the highest level, being worn by some of the world's fastest,
04:16and yet it costs a third of the price of nearly everything else at the Tour de France.
04:22It's 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
04:46of adding a bit of bling to your bike.
04:49One 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.
05:00And in 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, for the simple reason that it rarely offers much more than
05:18a few grams saving for quite a 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.
05:34You 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,
05:43and 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.
05:53If I had to choose one set of pedals from the Tour de France, then it would undoubtedly
05:58be these, so if you want the ultimate pedals for your bike, then this pro level option is
06:03well worth a look.
06:04Let 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 de
06:12France stuff, and check out some deals in the description below.
06:16Bye-bye.
Comments

Recommended