Not too long ago, it was standard for every bike brand’s race line-up to include an aero bike, a climbing bike, and a ‘somewhere-in-between’ chassis. But in recent years, there’s been a resurgence of the ‘do it all’ machine.
Trek, Specialized, Lapierre, and many others have prioritised a singular race bike encompassing aero features whilst edging close to – or creeping under – the UCI’s minimum weight limit of 6.8kg by merit, often, of slimmer tubing. These tube profiles appear to undermine the ‘wider is more aero’ rule of thumb that was often prevalent in white papers published by the same brands; there’s certainly room for some cynicism here.