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.
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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.