Team Ineos riders have been spotted riding a new lightweight wheelset at the Vuelta A España which started on Saturday. Images of Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal caught our eye at the stage 3 summit finish which was won by Remco Evenepoel.
We couldn’t help but notice the grey hubs on both rider’s shallow carbon wheels which didn’t appear to be their usual Dura-Ace numbers. After a little research can confirm they are the Tactic Racing TR01 hubs. Which retail for a cool £1000 per pair.
Mention Ineos Grenadiers, and Team Sky before them, and you can’t help but think of the marginal gains philosophy that has been used to almost transform professional cycling. Naturally, this extends to equipment and it looks like the team wanted to shed some rotating weight for what promises to be a very hilly Vuelta this year.
We covered Team Ineos using the rather special Lightweight wheels at the Tour de France on their rim braked equipped Pinarello’s back in 2019. It’s no secret that disc brake-equipped bikes are now a little heavier than their rim-braked predecessors for various reasons. But one area that is still guaranteed to shed some weight is the wheel department. Ineos Grenadiers are clearly interested in making some gains in this area for the race’s hillier stages.
Weight savings over Dura-Ace
This year we have pretty much seen the team only racing on Dura-Ace wheelsets. The Dura-Ace R9270 range is split into C36, C50 and C60 options. The model numbers refer to the rim depths of the wheels.
We have seen Ineos riders using Princeton wheels before for road races and time trials and on the track for Filippo Ganna‘s hour-record bike. We spotted them using Princeton wheels back in 2021 before the Tour when we spotted them on the Peak 4550 wheels which featured a striking sinusoidal or wavy rim profile.
The team appears to have gone all out in the search for lightweight at this year’s Vuleta however and have paired the Princeton Alta 3532 rim with the Tactic TR01 hubs. A combination we haven’t seen before in competition. It’s an expensive pairing with the team’s spec coming in at $3,950 on the Princeton website, which offers several different hub options.
We reached out to Princeton for some more info and understand the rim and hub set combination…
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