As the mince pie of cycling slowly turns a lovely golden brown in the oven off the off-season, it’s time to take a look back on the year in tech. If you only hopped aboard for the ride over the summer there’s a whole host of interesting stories from the start of 2023 that you’ve probably missed, so I’m going to run you through the hottest tech stories of the year month by month.
In general, the year has been defined by tough headwinds for the industry as a whole, as rebounding stock levels post-covid have intersected with a drop in demand, and exacerbated by a noticeable increase in the cost of living. That hasn’t stopped brands from releasing new tech, nor has it stopped racers from using innovative mods to gain an advantage over their competitors. Without further ado then, before I get all doom and gloom, here’s what got you all sufficiently buzzing throughout 2023.
January
The January tech playbook is pretty well established by now. The new year dawns and all the pros are ‘spotted’ in their new kit, on their new bikes, at their new team training camps in Spain and elsewhere. We put together a guide to the bikes and kit of 2023, but given it’s soon to be outdated I suggest you just keep an eye out for the 2024 guide which is coming soon.
The season properly gets underway with the Tour Down Under, where we get to see the pros giving it both barrels for the first time. This year there was a ban on TT bikes for the opening time trial, meaning we saw some heavily modified road bikes instead as teams sought to maximise their aero gains for the opening 5.5km prologue.
Elsewhere, at the Vuelta a San Juan, we were left asking why Oscar Sevilla had added a strip of electric tape between his seat stays. It turns out to be a properly old-school puncture protection hack, but it’s certainly not something we see much of anymore, not least since tubeless has reached near-ubiquity in the pro peloton.
Finally, in a more business-oriented story, we also reported that Rapha’s chairman invested €10 million in Classified, the planetary rear hub system. While we are yet to see the hub in regular use in competition, it continues to slowly gain momentum as a viable system for adding gear range to 1x bikes.
February
February tends to be when things go…
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