Aerodynamic bikes may be all the rage in the road bike market these days but you'd hardly know it by looking at the bikes used by riders starting stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia. Of the 22 teams on hand, only about half a dozen were primarily on aero rigs while another two or three fielded a mixed group. Nearly everyone else were on nominally round-tubed machines.
Several factors seemed to play a role in this decision. Many teams here are sponsored by companies that don't yet make an aero model, plus the second half of the route along the coastal edge of Northern Ireland was expected to include some potentially wicked crosswinds (that never really materialized) where deep profile tubes could have proved tough to handle. Monday's logistically complicated transfer to southern Italy also had some teams bringing a somewhat abbreviated range of equipment for the first few days of the race.
Lotto-Belisol strongman Adam Hansen went with a non-aero Ridley Helium while many of his teammates went with the theoretically speedier Noah FAST
Even squads with easy access to aero bikes didn't use them, such as Astana, BMC, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, and Tinkoff-Saxo. Mind you, three of those are sponsored by Specialized, who recently launched a new Tarmac model and may have wanted a little more attention paid that way.
Most teams certainly still opted for aero wheels, though, but section depths mostly hovered at a modest 30-50mm or so. We noticed plenty of 25mm-wide tubular tyres, too, even from teams that don't have a wide-profile rim to match. Even stage winner Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) used 25mm-wide Vittoria tubulars on his Giant Propel Advanced machine.
Stage winner Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) went full aero
Aerodynamic drawbacks or not to the mismatch, it seems that more than a few racers may have been prompted by the perpetually threatening weather to go the conservative route in terms of grip.