Team Lotto’s Belgian sprinter Arnaud De Lie chalked up two top-5 finishes in the 2025 Tour de France’s sprint stages.
Last year, De Lie was in the colours of the Belgian national champion for his first Tour appearance, but this time, aged 23, he’s back in Lotto’s standard strip.
De Lie is riding the Orbea Orca Aero M10i LTD, Orbea’s top-spec aero bike. At 7.890kg, De Lie’s bike is reasonably heavy for a pro-level aero road bike, but is a larger size frame and has deeper-section wheels.
The Orca Aero is sold by Orbea as a pro-team replica, although with Orbea’s under-down-tube storage box, which isn’t allowed by the UCI on the pro bikes, but which it says makes the bike a little more aero.
The consumer-spec bike also features aero bottles, although the cages don’t fit standard round bottles and Lotto has replaced them with more standard Tacx Ciro cages.
De Lie’s bar/stem is the OC model that Orbea has developed specifically for the Orca Aero. His bar is 380mm across the tops, which is a little wider than some of his competitors are riding, and he has a 120mm stem length. The bar measures 310mm between the inside edges of the hoods.
De Lie has Shimano satellite shifters placed on the bar below the levers, where he can reach them to change gears in a sprint.
FSA 54/40t crankset
De Lie’s bike has a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, but with an FSA Powerbox Team Edition power meter crankset in place of the Shimano model.
As with Tobias Johannessen, whose Uno-X Mobility team also runs an FSA carbon crankset, De Lie has the largest 54/40t chainring combination that FSA provides as stock.
While that's big by everday standards, it's somewhat small for a pro sprinter, with many now choosing to run larger rings – while they're still allowed to. XDS-Astana’s Davide Ballerini, for example, was running 56/44t rings at this year's Grand Départ.
At 1.82m in height, De Lie runs a 172.5mm crank length, rather than the shorter cranks that are now often preferred by the pros. He paired that with an 11-30t Dura-Ace cassette for the flat opening stages, though we expect he switched to a wider option when the Tour hit the mountains.
Latest Oquo wheelset
De Lie’s wheels come from Orbea’s Oquo sister brand. They’re the recently launched RA57LTD, which have a 23mm internal width and turn on Oquo’s newly developed, lightweight Q10 hubs with 45 points of engagement.
His tyres are the Vittoria Corsa Pro 'Wide Rim Optimised'. They're 29mm-wide and developed specifically to pair with wheels with wider rims and provide a flatter, more aerodynamic sidewall profile.
The hubs are ceramic-coated for durability, but while Oquo has opted for stainless steel bearings over ceramic, it has a specially formulated low-friction grease to keep them running smoothly. Oquo claims a 1,460g wheelset weight for the 57mm rim depth.
De Lie is running Galfer Wave brake rotors. At a claimed 98g apiece in 160mm size, they shave a little weight off standard Shimano rotors, which sit at 114g each.
He sits on a Selle Italia SLR saddle. Although 3D-printed saddles are a popular choice among the pros and the majority of Selle Italia saddles have central cut-outs, the SLR is a more traditional-style saddle with a simple foam top.
Specs | Arnaud De Lie’s Orbea Orca Aero for the 2025 Tour de France
- Frameset: Orbea Orca Aero M10i LTD
- Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace with 10-30t cassette
- Wheelset: Oquo RA57LTD, Galfer Wave brake rotors
- Power meter: FSA Power Box Team Edition, 54/40t
- Tyres: Vittoria Corsa Pro 'Wide Rim Optimised', 700x29c
- Handlebar: OC one-piece carbon
- Seatpost: Orca Aero carbon
- Saddle: Selle Italia SLR
- Bottle cages: Tacx Ciro
- Pedals: Shimano Dura-Ace
- Weight: 7.89kg
