As we head towards the conclusion of the 2025 Tour de France, it’s time to look back at this year’s race and analyse the key tech trends.
Tadej Pogačar looks set for another dominant win in the race for the yellow jersey and has been at the forefront of some of this year’s key trends.
As with previous Tours, we weighed and measured a number of pro bikes at this year’s Grand Départ and almost every rider will be affected by incoming changes to the UCI’s technical regulations for 2026.
And while safety in pro cycling has been in the spotlight again, this year’s Tour has shown those who govern the sport ought to ensure they've done everything possible to ensure a safe race before hanging the riders out to dry.
Let’s dig into it all.
Aero bikes dominating on climbs
While we got all hot under the collar about Tadej Pogačar’s sub-6.8kg Colnago V5Rs and an unreleased Cervélo R5 at this year’s Grand Départ, neither bike has seen significant action at the front of the race thus far.
Instead, the race’s two main protagonists – Pogačar and his great rival, Jonas Vingegaard – have both been riding their aero bikes on practically every stage (except, of course, the two time trials).
In Pogačar’s case, he rode a white, world champion theme Colnago Y1Rs for the opening two weeks of the race, before switching to an unpainted weight-weenie build for the mountain time trial on stage 13, and then a gloss black version for the Ventoux stage and beyond.
The latter is claimed to weigh a little more than 7kg, although it’s not clear if that includes pedals, bottle cages, a bike computer and so on. In any case, it’s impressively light.
Set up in full sprint mode, we weighed Vingegaard’s new Cervélo S5 at 7.385kg before the race started in Lille.
That’s more than 500g above the UCI’s minimum bike weight limit, but there was plenty of room to go lighter with only minor equipment changes. For the stage 16 summit finish on Mont Ventoux, for example, Vingegaard swapped in lighter wheels and tyres.
He even kept his 1x drivetrain, which illustrates how fast the top riders at the Tour are now climbing (indeed, he and Pogačar smashed the previous record climbing time for the Bédoin ascent of Ventoux).
All of which raises the question – again – of whether the UCI ought to lower its minimum bike weight limit of 6.8kg.
As things stand, there appears to be little reason for riders such as Pogačar or Vingegaard to opt for a lightweight climbing bike if their aero bikes are only a few hundred grams heavier (if that).
Even dropping the weight limit by a few hundred grams, for example, might make climbers think twice about which bike to use on mountain stages, and could spur greater innovation in an area that’s felt increasingly irrelevant to pro racing in recent years.
It might also help smaller riders, for whom 6.8kg makes up a larger percentage of their overall system weight. This would be especially helpful in light of the recently announced changes to minimum handlebar widths (more on this later), which many within the sport feel will unfairly penalise smaller riders.
On the other hand, Dan Bigham, head of engineering at Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe and a key voice in the debate on safety in pro cycling, has previously said the UCI should consider raising its minimum bike weight limit to allow for “greater factors of safety”.
Any change to the minimum bike weight limit would therefore need to consider exactly what makes a bike safe to ride and race, and whether changing the regulation could affect those characteristics.
Tyre and rim widths have started to plateau
After a number of years of seeing Tadej Pogačar and many other riders on increasingly wide rims and tyres at the Tour, things have begun to level off in this area.
Overall, the median nominal, or labelled, tyre sizes were 29 at the rear and 28 up front, with the average measured widths coming up slightly wider at 30.23mm at the rear and 30.01mm at the front.
However, while Pogačar’s Colnago Y1Rs was equipped with Continental’s new 30c Archetype tyres at this year’s Grand Départ, the world champion has used 28c Continental GP5000 TT TR time trial tyres for practically every stage.
A close look at photos from the race suggest the GP5000 TT TR – which is currently available only in 25 and 28c sizes – is an extremely popular tyre among Continental-sponsored teams. Other teams have also frequently turned to 28 and 29c time trial tyres, such as the Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed TLR.
If we had to guess why tyre and rim widths appear to have plateaued – or in some cases, got narrower – we’d put our money on riders perhaps reaching the limit of how much weight they want to carry for the sake of improved aerodynamics and rolling resistance.
The key selling point of Pogačar’s new ENVE SES 4.5 Pro wheels, for example, is they’re lighter and help get his bikes that little bit closer to the UCI’s minimum bike weight limit.
Similarly, Specialized’s recently launched Roval Rapide CLX III wheelset retained the same 35mm external rim width (on the front wheel, at the widest point) as on the outgoing Rapide CLX IIs, and instead focused on cutting weight through the use of updated hubs, carbon spokes and a shallower rear rim.
The likes of Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič were using unreleased Specialized Turbo Cotton TLR tyres in a nominal size 30c, but these measured around 29mm wide on the bikes of those two riders when we saw them at the Grand Départ in Lille.
DT Swiss’ latest ARC 1100 wheels also remain fairly narrow, as used by the likes of Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) and Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), with external widths from 26 to 29mm on the rims designed for mass-start road races.
That said, we only saw one 25c tyre on a road bike at this year’s Grand Départ (on the front wheel of Geraint Thomas’ Pinarello Dogma F), so it seems the days of narrow tyres at the Tour are largely behind us.
Short cranks are having a big moment
Short cranks have been a notable trend amongst high-profile riders for a while now, with the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel using 165mm cranks for a few seasons.
Jonas Vingegaard also caused a media frenzy earlier this year when he was spotted trialling tiny 150mm cranks at the Volta ao Algarve.
Yet while he didn’t bring those to the Tour, Vingegaard’s Cervélo S5 was nevertheless equipped with the shortest cranks we saw at this year’s race, at only 160mm.
Perhaps more surprising, though, was that Matteo Jorgenson – who stands at 1.90m tall, according to Pro Cycling Stats – was using 165mm cranks. However, this goes to show it’s not only shorter riders who are experimenting with reducing their crank length.
Overall, the median crank length was 170mm, but the two most popular sizes were 165 and 172.5mm.
This suggests there’s a bit of a split occurring in the Tour peloton – between riders who are convinced of the potential benefits of shorter cranks, and those who perhaps prefer to stick with what they know.
Incoming UCI rules will affect many riders, teams and sponsors
The UCI recently revealed it would be cracking down on narrow handlebars, super-deep rims, time trial helmets and potentially big gears in road races next season, and our measurements at this year’s Grand Départ appear to confirm that many riders will need to change their bike setups.
Of the 16 bike setups we measured, for example, only three bikes – Mathieu van der Poel’s Canyon Aeroad CFR, Matteo Jorgensen’s Cervélo R5 and Tim Merlier’s Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 – met the proposed limit of 320mm in between the tips of the brake hoods.
The average distance between the tips of riders' brake hoods, however, was 30cm, and there were a number of bikes set up at 28cm or narrower between the hoods.
The tips of brake hoods on Tobias Johannessen’s Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, for example, were only 26cm apart.
Likewise, every rider with a SRAM drivetrain was using gear ratios that would see them fall foul of the maximum rollout of 10.46m proposed by the UCI’s upcoming trial (which is reportedly due to take place at the Tour of Guangxi in October).
A number of Shimano-sponsored riders were also using chainrings bigger than 54t, which would also be banned under the trial regulations (assuming they stick with 11t sprockets on their cassettes).
Less attention has been on the incoming changes to maximum rim depths – which will be limited to 65mm from 2026 – but spare a thought for Swiss Side, which sponsors Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale Team.
Felix Gall and his teammates were running the brand’s latest Hadron Ultimate 680 wheelset on their Van Rysel RCR-F aero bikes – which was launched just two weeks after details of the UCI’s proposed regulation changes were revealed in the press.
As its name suggests, the new wheelset features 68mm-deep rims and will therefore not be allowed in mass-start road races from next season.
Riders would still be able to use them in time trials, but in an open letter published last week, Swiss Side claimed it had received no warning about the incoming rule changes, and called the six-month notice for changes to be implemented "inadequate".
It also challenged the UCI’s assertion that limiting rim depth to 65mm would improve rider safety, as it claims “rim height has a limited impact on stability, predictable handling and safety”.
According to SwissSide’s own measurements of “steering moment”, rim depth has “far less influence” than rim shape, tyre choice and frame geometry.
Whatever we might think of the proposed regulations, all of this adds further evidence to the claim that the UCI has failed to properly engage with key stakeholders during this process.
Rider safety in the spotlight, but those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
Although the UCI’s stated goal for the updated regulations is to ensure “ever safer and fairer competition”, riders at this year’s Tour have still been faced with courses that – at face value – appear to contravene the UCI’s own safety guidelines.
The flat, fast run-in to Dunkirk on stage 3, for example, saw two major crashes in the peloton that looked to result from poor course design.
One of the pre-race favourites, Remco Evenepoel, hit the deck alongside a number of riders with 3km to go, in a crash during a sudden narrowing of the road that seemed to catch many in the peloton out.
With 1.6km to go, as riders were gearing up for a sprint finish, there was a 90-degree right-hand bend, and the road then twisted and snaked all the way to the line, with another high-speed pile-up during the last 250m.
The UCI’s ‘Organiser's guide to Road Events’ handbook, though, states: “In flat stages, the final 500m should be, as far as possible, straight, or at least there should be no dangerous bends.”
Of course, the second half of that sentence gives race organisers a significant amount of leeway, because the UCI doesn't appear to offer a strict definition of what constitutes a "dangerous bend" in the context of a sprint finish.
In January, though, the UCI also said its SafeR committee had taken on board feedback from professional riders (in a 'Sprint Finish Survey') about "the need to avoid corners in the last sections", which makes it difficult to understand why this finish was not flagged by the UCI as being potentially dangerous.
After all, the course certainly appeared to play a part in both crashes during the finale, as riders jostled for positions at more than 60kph, while having to move back and forth across the road to follow the racing line.
Even race broadcaster, TNT Sports, titled its highlights of the final kilometres "CHAOTIC FINISH! 🤯 | Men's Tour de France Stage 3 Final KM's".
It is, of course, fair to say that crashes during bike races simply happen sometimes and there’s not always someone or something specifically to blame.
Jasper Philipsen, for example, abandoned the Tour with a broken collarbone earlier that same day following an unfortunate crash on a wide, straight road, in the run-up to the day’s intermediate sprint.
Likewise, being a race organiser is no easy task, and the increasing amount of road furniture and features designed to slow vehicular traffic in modern towns and cities doubtless makes organising 'safe' sprint finishes incredibly difficult.
But rather than blaming the riders for crashes, or enacting new equipment regulations without input from key stakeholders (which some believe will have little impact on safety anyway), those who govern cycling and the Tour should ensure their own houses are in order as well.
