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.
00:12But 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
00:27and 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
00:41and 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 do a
00:51bit of crystal ball gazing.
00:56Let'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
01:13to fit decent sized tyres.
01:15So, 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 of
01:33seven wins in the hell of the north.
01:35Now, endurance bikes are a category all of their own, generally with more upright geometry and
01:41better comfort to suit everyday riders.
01:44The Cannondale Synapse and the Trek de Mane are two of the most prominent ones out there
01:48today, though the former has never won Paris-Roubaix.
01:52Pretty much every major manufacturer now has an endurance bike in its line-up.
01:58If 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 as
02:10the preferred size.
02:12More recently, tubeless and hookless tyres have been winning and now that disc brakes have
02:17freed up the extra space needed for oversized rubber, they're getting even fatter.
02:21In 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 Contes 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.
02:46Better rolling resistance, grip and comfort and puncture protection are all of the benefits.
02:53The tubeless versus tubular debate still rages on in the pro ranks and interestingly, we're
02:58still seeing plenty of pros' bikes with tubs.
03:01But it's fair to say that the industry as a whole has accepted that wider is better and
03:0628mm 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 a
03:17few years before any type of bounce dared stick its head above the cobbled parapet.
03:21The original Specialized Roubaix had Zertz inserts.
03:25These were elastometer inserts, a bit like running shoe soles, that were supposed to dampen the
03:30vibrations of the chainstays.
03:32Trek also experimented with a dampener embedded into the rear wishbone of Discovery Channel's
03:38bikes in 2005.
03:39But in 2012, Specialized introduced Future Shock, a spring underneath the stem which provided
03:4520mm of travel.
03:47The same year, Trek also introduced its iso-speed decoupler, a system that allowed the seatpost
03:53to flex independently of the rest of the frame.
03:56Later, it evolved into front iso-speed, which allowed the steerer tube to pivot a small amount.
04:02Pinarello's K8S with rear suspension was launched in 2015, and the later K10S even had electronically
04:10controlled rear suspension.
04:12While Specialized has developed a rear future shock for its Diverge STR gravel bike in addition
04:18to the front suspension for the Groupe A, Trek has been facing out iso-speed.
04:23The new Madone doesn't feature it, while the latest De Mane no longer has it at the front
04:28end and has a simpler, lighter, non-adjustable version at the rear.
04:33And Dylan Van Baer won last year's Power Roubaix on a standard Pinarello Dogma F.
04:39So although we're still seeing plenty of suspension around, it's starting to gravitate towards
04:44gravel bikes.
04:45Road bikes are using the cushioning of bigger tyres as their suspension.
04:50Clearly now, Power Roubaix can be won on an aero bike.
04:54As long as it has the right rubber.
04:57It might sound strange to claim that carbon fibre came from the classics, but if we're
05:02saying that Power 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.
05:13Before that, carbon had been regarded as exotic, expensive and so fragile that it was only suitable
05:20for lightweight climbing bikes.
05:22It was some time before carbon wheels were even considered safe and comfortable enough
05:27for Power Roubaix.
05:29But carbon frames had arrived and we've never looked back.
05:34The early 1990s was the golden era for suspension innovation at Power Roubaix and it all started
05:41when RockShox developed the Power 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.
05:55And remember, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, the Power Roubaix was one with the RockShox fork.
06:04And the joke was on the teams that weren't using it.
06:07But this preceded the era of Mapei's domination at Power Roubaix.
06:11And Ernesto Carl Nago was one of those who famously refused to fit a RockShox fork to one
06:17of his bikes.
06:18Although by the beginning of the noughties, the classics peloton had moved on.
06:22In 2021, RockShox, which now owned by SRAM, launched the Rudy Ultimate Explore, a lightweight
06:29suspension fork for gravel bikes, which provided 30 or 40mm of travel for 700c wheels.
06:37Sound familiar?
06:43In some ways, Canadian Steve Bauer was ahead of his time with the radical bike that he rode
06:48at the 1993 Power Roubaix.
06:50It'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.
07:15It might have floated over the cobbles, but it wasn't quite so effective for the other
07:22200km of the race, which isn't Parve.
07:24And Bauer finished in 23rd place.
07:27Really?
07:28It's not too bad when you think about it.
07:30The 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 swing arm, rocker link and
07:44coil shock with the now legendary RockShox Paris-Roubaix SL fork up front, the future superstar
07:50snapped his chainstay with 24km to go, then changed to a standard bike and then finished
07:56in 13th.
07:57The Bianchi was the absolute high point of outrageous suspension designs.
08:02In 1995, Franco Ballerini won on the carbon Colnago C40 and the cycling world changed forever.
08:10And anyway, with the UCI now having much stricter rules on bike design, we'll never see anything
08:16like the Bianchi again.
08:21So what tech on the current crop of classics bikes are we likely to see on standard production
08:27road bikes in the future?
08:29Well, we're currently in an era where tyre choice and tyre size is absolutely everything,
08:34and suspension is no longer really needed, but the most interesting and possibly influential
08:40bike to win Paris-Roubaix this decade is Lizzy Dignan's 2021 Trek Dermane.
08:46Yes, this was the old Dermane that had the iso-speed front and rear, but Dignan used a 1x12
08:53drivetrain.
08:54It's completely sensible to use one chainring rather than risk dropping a chain, and there
08:59aren't really that many hills in Paris-Roubaix that require the little ring anyway.
09:04She also used the chain guide to make sure that the chain really wasn't going anywhere.
09:09The Bontrager Aeolus RSL37TLR wheels she ran, which have an internal width of 21mm and an
09:17external width of 28mm aren't the widest.
09:20spot...
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