Evolution Of Bike Technology Designed Around The Durability Of Riding Paris-Roubaix

Cycling Weekly explores the evolution of bike technology at the classics and most notably, at Paris-Roubaix, the most brutal race on the WorldTour calendar. With 55 km of cobbles in the men’s race, the race is the perfect testing ground for new bike tech. We take a look at the bike innovations that have succeeded, failed, and what we can expect for the future. Some of the successful innovations we cover were originally found on the Specialized Roubaix, a bike designed for cobbled classics with more upright geometry and better comfort, bigger tires, which are now the new normal for road bikes. Suspension which was first introduced with Specialized's Zertz inserts and later with Trek's IsoSpeed decoupler, and carbon-fiber frames, which were once regarded as exotic and expensive but now dominate the bike industry. We also cover innovations that failed to catch on, including full-suspension Classics bikes, and the outlandish ideas of the early 1990s. Finally, we look at what the future holds for bike technology, including new materials, new tire designs, and even smarter suspension.