Cycling is back. The spring Classics got underway over the weekend with Opening Weekend at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne /Omloop van het Hageland for the women. Visma-Lease a Bike was dominant with wins by Jan Tratnik and Marianne Vos at Omloop and Wout van Aert at Kuurne, but EF’s Kristen Faulkner took the win at Omloop van het Hageland.
A new season, and especially the start of the Classics season, always brings new bikes, tech and a few quirks as teams aim to optimise their set-ups for the big cobbled Monuments to come in just over a month. We sent photographer James York behind the scenes at Omloop to get a look at the men’s WorldTour team bikes.
Jayco-AlUla’s new colour scheme is truly excellent.
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Luke Durbridge was the first of many riders spotted on 30mm tyres.
Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale’s new Van Rysel RCR bikes look the part, and seem to be working so far this season. Unlike the retail version’s inline seatpost, these bikes are running a set-forward TT-style option.
Their integrated Deda cockpit is rather lovely too.
EF are another team with new paintjobs.
And they were also on 30mm Vittoria tyres, this time the Corsa Pro Control, which is made specifically for riding on rougher surfaces.
Some of the team – seen here on Michael Valgren's bike – had fancy new Prologo bar tape, which matched with section on the riders' gloves like Velcro to be extra sticky.
And as you'd expect the one-piece bar-stem doesn't fit every rider so there were a few setups like this one, with a super long FSA stem (150mm?) and a conventional separate bar.
Tom Pidcock's Pinarello Dogma F didn't look to have much crazy about it, apart from the Continental GP5000 tyres, which look even chunkier than the 30mm Vittorias many riders are on.
You know what they say about people with big tyres.
Jasper Philipsen's newly painted Canyon Aeroad is also very fetching – simple but effective.
It seemed to be normal gearing set-ups on the whole, with Philipsen running a 54/40 up front.
He was also using Canyon's 3D printed carbon fibre computer mount.
Alpecin-Deceuninck also went with 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pro Control tyres.
Soudal-QuickStep didn't have much luck in the race, but it certainly wasn't because of their bikes. Alaphilippe was also running a 54/40 crankset.
Their Specialized sponsorship extends beyond the bike to pretty much everywhere Specialized or its sister brands produce components, tyres included.
Fred Wright and Bahrain Victorious went to town on ensuring his Merida was decked out in British colours for the British champ. Note his satellite shifter on the inside of his bars, he wasn't the only one preparing for changing gear in the drops.
Shoutout Fred Wright.
Dušan Rajović also had a red, white and blue bike for his Serbian national championship win.
Bora-Hansgrohe moved to SRAM for 2024.
But it's mostly the same as last year with Specialized components dominating.
One point of difference to the other teams is that they use Hammerhead bike computers, hence the adapter on the mount.
Probably the most interesting thing spotted was Wout van Aert's bike. He was seemingly riding a Cervélo Soloist, which is sold these days as a step below the aero S5 and lightweight R5, only available with second or third-tier groupsets However its all-rounder design means it's lighter than the S5 and more aero than the R5, so it makes sense. He was back on the S5 for his Kuurne win, but this may have been a test for the Tour of Flanders, which he has previously ridden (and not won) on an S5.
30mm Vittorias for Van Aert also, but just the standard Corsa Pros.
And a 54/41 crankset.
Movistar haven't changed much, if anything, for this season, so this will be the Canyon Aeroad that Iván Garcia Cortina wins big on.
Movistar's SRAM sponsorship extends to using Time pedals.
New for 2024 is Groupama-FDJ on Wilier bikes, and they're pretty nice.
Not as nice as DSM-Firmenich-PostNL's new Scott Foil paintjobs though.
More Vittoria for them.
UAE Team Emirates' Colnago V4Rs bikes have had a few small tweaks for this year, with added white on the frame the most visible. This one helped Nils Politt to a nice second place.
They're using the peloton's second-choice tyre, the Continental GP 5000 S TR.
And they have the very fancy and expensive Enve integrated cockpit too.
Lidl-Trek's Jasper Stuyven was back on the funky Madone – which may be joined by a similarly funky Émonda at some point.
But while the bike looks futuristic, he looked to be running tubular Pirelli tyres, rather than tubeless.
Stuyven was also hiding a SRAM Blip shifter under his bar tape.
Women's Omloop winner Marianne Vos didn't need to do any experimenting like Van Aert, she stuck to the S5, and it clearly worked.
She stuck to 28mm tyres.
The S5's handlebar gives ample room for sticking the line-up of cobbled climbs on.
