Just like that, Opening Weekend is behind us, and the spring classics are now officially underway. Mathieu van der Poel and Demi Vollering emerged victorious in the men’s and women’s editions of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, whilst Matthew Brennan took a fine win at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne after crashing the day before.
Certain classics place greater demands on bikes and equipment, and though the days of the dedicated classics machines for races like Roubaix are over, it’s still always interesting see what is being used for the these hallowed races, and speculate on what trends are informing team equipment choices.
Slammed front ends are becoming scarce
I looked at tonnes of pro bikes at Opening Weekend, and I saw a lot of bikes with 10, 20, even 30 millimetres and more of headset spacers fitted under the handlebars.
This isn’t something that has just happened overnight, and I commented on one or two bikes like this last year, Stefan Kung’s being one in particular, but I was struck by just how many bikes had a healthy spacer stack.
If pro bikes ten years ago had been fitted with this many round spacers with a traditional non-integrated stem, we would have lost our minds. You never saw it. Lance Armstrong was perhaps the one consistent exception to the slammed style of the peloton.
Looks-wise, the integrated non-round headset spacers we now see on nearly all modern bikes just look a little better and seem to fly a bit more than the standard round spacers of old.
I don’t think race bikes have gotten dramatically lower and more aggressive; I think it’s more to do with riders finding comfort, being able to hold an aero position and the ability to make power…
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