The Tour de France is the most important event on the cycling calendar.
Because of this, it’s also cycling's biggest shop window – and brands pay big bucks to get their bikes front and centre on our TV screens for three weeks in July.
But there are plenty of brands making fantastic bikes that can’t, or simply refuse to, pay for this kind of exposure.
With that in mind, here are five of the best road bikes you won’t see at this year’s Tour de France.
1. Quick Pro ER One
Chinese bikes are one the hottest topics in cycling right now, with a number of brands from the Far East looking to shake up the industry.
XDS-Astana has understandably garnered much of the attention after racing its X-Lab bikes at last year’s Tour, but another key Chinese brand you shouldn't ignore is Quick Pro.
The brand’s AR One all-rounder road bike was ridden to a win at the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali by Team GB rider Harry Hudson, and the iconic Euskaltel-Euskadi team is now riding its ER One aero road bike for the 2026 season.
Designed to be lightweight, stiff and aerodynamic, the ER One features a deep aerofoil down tube and head tube, as well as a wide-stance aerodynamic fork.
There’s even a cut-out for the bottle cage nestled in the down tube, similar to that seen on Pinarello’s Dogma F.
Built from high-modulus, T1100 and M65 carbon fibre, Quick Pro says top-spec builds of the ER One can weigh as little as 6.8kg when paired with the brand’s own carbon-spoked Canwin wheels and integrated handlebar.
That's not bad for an aero bike with a frameset price of only £2,000.
2. The new Merida Reacto
With Bianchi taking over as the bike sponsor of Bahrain Victorious, Merida is now out of the WorldTour and the Tour de France for the first time since 2013.
Sadly, that means we won’t see the new Merida Reacto raced in anger this July, but that doesn’t diminish our excitement for this bike one bit.
Although admittedly quite long in the tooth, the current Reacto remains one of our favourite aero bikes, combining a fantastic ride quality with excellent-value prices.
Although we’ve yet to learn any official details about the new version, there’s plenty we can glean from its unofficial debut at last year’s Tour.
First of all, Merida looks to be sticking to its guns and keeping the Reacto platform as full-fat aero bike – rather than watering it down to a one-bike-to-rule-them-all, like the Specialized Tarmac or Trek Madone.
The fork blades, head tube and down tube aerofoils all look to have been made deeper, while the bottom half of the seat tube is carved out more aggressively – likely to save weight first and foremost, but perhaps also to improve tyre clearance.
It’s fair to say it's a less radical design than we’ve seen with some recent aero bikes such as the Cervélo S5, Colnago Y1Rs and Factor One, but that’s not always a bad thing in our view – whacky bikes and proprietary parts often make a bike more annoying to live with for those of us without a pro mechanic to maintain it and a limitless supply of free spare parts.
3. Argon 18 Nitrogen Pro
Next up, we want to shine a light on Argon 18’s new Nitrogen Pro.
The result of three years of meticulous research and development by the Canadian brand, the Nitrogen Pro is an aero bike designed for the real world – not just the perfectly smooth tarmac local French authorities lay out for the Tour peloton every year.
This means it's optimised around 30mm-wide tyres, with clearance for 34s, and features a custom wheelset designed by Scope to match.
On top of this, there’s a custom one-piece handlebar up front, with narrow 36 or 38cm bar widths across the entire size range, and – while it might not seem all that exciting on paper – CeramicSpeed’s Solid Lubrication Technology headset bearings that shouldn’t fall apart after one winter of riding.
Overall, it looks a lot like a pared-down, drop-bar version of Argon 18’s time trial and triathlon bikes, and is said to save a whopping 24 watts of aero drag – at a presumably pro-peloton-appropriate speed – over its previous flagship road bike, the Sum Pro.
4. Rose Shave
Hot off the heels of the new Nitrogen Pro is another new aero bike – the Rose Shave.
Launched last week, with claims of impressive aero performance and a UCI-illegal complete bike weight, we won’t see it at the Tour because Unibet Rose Rockets was unceremoniously snubbed for a wildcard spot at this year’s race… Better luck next year, perhaps.
Regardless of that drama, the Shave looks every bit the WorldTour-worthy race bike, with sculpted aero tubes and a bucket load of smart details.
At the cheaper end of the range, the bike comes with more amateur-friendly, endurance bike geometry, while higher-end builds get a more traditional long and low fit.
The Shave also features clearance for 35mm tyres, aero-optimised bottle cages and another custom Scope wheelset designed to maximise the frameset’s aerodynamic potential.
All in, the Shave is claimed to be 10 watts more aerodynamic at 45 kilometres per hour, and weighs as little as 6.6kg in a size medium for the top-spec model.
5. 3T Strada Italia
1x drivetrains are a fast-growing trend in the pro peloton, but the brand that kicked it all off on the road won’t be at this year’s Tour.
That’s right, we’re talking about 3T and its Strada aero bike.
The 3T Strada is most famous for its ill-fated partnership with Aqua Blue Sport, and their attempt to make having only one chainring the default option in the WorldTour back in 2018.
While it didn’t work out then, it’s fair to say it was an idea ahead of its time. Nowadays, we see 1x road bikes being ridden throughout the Tour de France – Jonas Vingegaard even used a single-chainring setup to race up the Galibier during the 2024 edition.
Despite this, today’s 3T Strada is less dogmatic about 1x – the bike now ships with a front derailleur mount as standard, but you can remove it if you want to.
It's also had a complete design refresh, and is now pitched as an ‘aero-comfort’ bike, rather than as a pure race bike, because of its endurance-style geometry and generous tyre clearance.
And if you appreciate European manufacturing, you can also get a version of the Strada that’s made in Italy, in 3T’s own factory, using filament-wound carbon fibre for a beautiful finish straight out of the mould.
