Looking back at my testing over the last few years, I’ve seen the most rapid change and growth in bike design coming from gravel bikes.
In just over a decade, we’ve seen tyre clearances nearly double, aero become essential and real innovations in versatility that are directly helping riders of all kinds.
In the same time, road bike design has witnessed a series of small improvements – not such a seismic change, more a gradual process of things getting better.
However, perhaps we may see a bigger shift in the next few years. That’s because the greatest changes in road bike design aren’t about the bike; they’re all about the rider.
It’s not about the bike
Aerodynamics used to come at the expense of rider dynamics; now physiology experts are getting as much airtime in design as aerodynamicists. In fact, they are working in tandem (as they always should have been).
Seeing the rider and bike as a system is the new terrain for improving road bike design. Any aero testing or evaluation of a bike alone is telling me nothing. If you’re evaluating a bike's aerodynamics without the rider, all I know is the bike's efficiency if I decided to ghost a bike down the road.
I want to know how I affect my bike’s aero performance – my legs chopping up and down, my arms and shoulders moving as I sprint. Or, more importantly, I want design teams to evaluate and understand those complex conditions in making a bike aero.
Good things are happening in design. One of those is the rise in stack heights as designers look to track, time trial and triathlon bikes. It seems counter-intuitive that a higher front can be faster, especially if you’ve had decades of people saying, ‘slam that stem' and that lower equals quicker.
However, it turns out that being in a position you can hold for longer, and compacting your frontal area by rotating your hips – and being in a more forward position – makes for a faster ride. This is what Merckx has done with the brilliant 525R, winner of our 2026 Race Bike of the Year award, and it's a key element of Factor’s radical One, alongside the Elara aero gravel bike.
Tyre and wheel developments
Away from frames, tyre developments are also contributing to improved aerodynamics.
Increased tyre clearances are good if you want to run bigger tyres for poorer surfaces, but they have the added effect – if you use standard road bike tyres that are 28-30mm – of reducing air disruption as the wheel spins past the fork legs.
Brands such as Factor have made wide fork legs to reduce this effect.
We’re also seeing the accepted ideas around wheels being challenged. Hunt, which is still an upstart in wheel design despite being around for 11 years, is challenging the idea that a shallow front wheel and deeper rear wheel is the optimum choice. In fact, it has flipped that notion. The new 5AM Limitless has a taller, wider front wheel and a narrower, shallower rear wheel.
Hunt claims bigger aero gains are achieved at the front because there is less influencing the air as the wheel spins.
There is more turbulence at the rear of the bike than at the front. This turbulence is due to the frame, but also moving legs and spinning cranks. So, here Hunt believes a lower weight for maximum power transfer is more beneficial than a deep-section wheel.
Lucky 13?
We’ll also see major changes to bicycle drivetrains. SRAM and Campagnolo already have 13-speed 1x drivetrain options. These are being used more on the road and are almost ubiquitous in gravel.
Shimano’s leak of the new Dura-Ace showed 13 speeds for the cassettes, too, and I hope it'll offer a 1x option – or at least bring 13-speed to GRX at a higher level than we have now.
I’ve written before about wanting to see the back of front derailleurs, and I think that’s now on the cards. More brands are offering premium versions of their road bikes in 1x configurations. How long will it be before a major brand designs a road-going frame to be 1x optimised with a no-compromise chainline, as Vielo does with its impressive R+1?
On a personal note, my next bike build is based around a 1x drivetrain. I’ve tested a few road bikes with a single ring and been impressed. Now I want to explore that more and see how it is to live with in a wider variety of road riding.
An invigorated path
Over the years, I’ve written many an opinion piece asking if we’ve reached peak bike. I recall saying things couldn’t get better than the original Cannondale SuperSix EVO, or how Specialized’s Venge Vias and Cervélo’s S5 had ‘won’ aero. Obviously, I was wrong then, and perhaps a little pessimistic.
Now I think we’re on a new invigorated path, spurred on by a new generation of design in both talent and outlook.
If they can influence governing bodies such as the UCI, and those that hold the purse strings at the major brands, we could see an even bigger revolution in new bike designs.
