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Sprinter Hugo Hofstetter had his chances of a strong performance at the GP Denain scuppered on Thursday after the Frenchman suffered two pairs of snapped handlebars within the final 50km of the cobbled race.
A multi-rider pileup on one of the race’s narrow roads at around 48km to go saw multiple riders go down in the peloton, including the Arkéa-Samsic rider.
Among them, Hofstetter was quick to his feet on the right-hand side of the road and remounted his bike with shorts muddied and critically the left-hand side of his Bianchi Oltre RC’s handlebars dangling after snapping above the shifter clamp as the bars start to curve toward the shifters.
The failure looked very similar to the mechanical Mathieu Van der Poel suffered at Le Saym in 2021. Where the Dutchman, like Hofstetter, was forced to ride on with broken handlebars.
After valiantly pushing on with his handlebars dangling for several kilometres, Hofstetter would eventually get a fresh Bianchi from his team car. However, back in the thick of the action on the 10th cobbled sector of the race at Monchaux-sur-Ecaillon saw Hofstetter in trouble once more.
This time, at 25km to go, Hofstetter could be seen riding at the rear of the peloton with the right-hand side of his handlebars snapped off and dangling. It seemed that the harsh vibrations or perhaps a heavy impact while riding the cobbles had snapped his spare bike’s handlebars in a very similar way.
Hofstetter, who last year won Tro-Bro Léon, was visibly angry and annoyed after having his chances of getting to the head of the race scuppered by an identical mechanical.
In the end, the Frenchman was a non-finisher at the 195km race, which was won by Colombian sprinter Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates) from a lead group which had attacked at 30km to go.
The Bianchi Oltre RC was launched in October last year and was billed as a new ‘hyperbike’ by the legendary Italian brand. The bike featured F1-influenced ‘air deflectors’ designed to channel airflow more effectively around the bike. Prices started at £11,200 or $13,500 for the top flight model which is raced by Arkéa-Samsic.
It later transpired the air deflectors could not be used in UCI races as they were not included as part of the homologation process for the bike and as such could not be used in UCI-sanctioned events. It appeared Bianchi never intended for the deflectors to be used in…
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