The Hottest Bikes At The Tour De France 2026

Barcelona is a hive of activity ahead of the 2026 Tour de France Grand Depart, and I've been very busy myself visiting as many team hotels as possible to get you lot the latest, greatest, hottest tech. Let's get started. What better place to start than the bike that has officially ridden the Tour de France faster than any other in history? This is Tadej Pogacar's Colnago Y1 RS, which he predominantly used in 2025 where he set an average speed of 42.9 kilometers per hour. Now, this particular frame set, as most of you will know, was released early in 2025, so we've seen a fair bit of it. Back then, it was predominantly white with the rainbow bands, but as you can see, much like a lot of the other bikes that we're seeing at the Tour de France from the GC leaders, most of the paint has been stripped back. That is, of course, to make the bike as light as it possibly can be. We'll see Pogacar riding this for most of the road stages, if not all, in 2026 again. A lot of the componentry is also quite similar to what he used successfully last year, full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset. There are a couple of different changes though. Firstly, at the bottom bracket, this is a Spanish company called Bicone, which makes ceramic bearings, et cetera. Back here, he's still got the carbon tie rear derailleur hanger, and he's also got access to some brand new as yet unreleased wheels. Give me two ticks. Now, this year, the UCI introduced some new rim depth regulations, which means the maximum rim depth you're now able to use in a pro race is 65 millimeters. Enve's previous wheel set, the Ultra Deep ones, didn't meet those new regulations, so they just built some modern ones. These are the Enve 6.7 SES wheels. Rim depth is exactly 65 millimeters at the rear and 59 millimeters at the front. In designing these new wheels, they've also changed the rim shape to make them extra aerodynamic, so they claim these are actually faster than the deeper predecessors anyway. Apparently, this is what he's going to be using on stage two of the Tour de France, which is the first road stage this year. Now, this particular rim shape has been specifically designed to be optimal for 28-millimeter tires, which is what Pogacar's using at the moment from Continental. These are the 5000TT. Beyond the new wheel that you see there, you've still got a Fizik 3D printed saddle. Most of the pro bikes are using 3D printed saddles at this point. I've got to say, they are a lot more comfortable than they initially look. If you press down on it here, you can see just how much flex he's got at various points on the saddle. Not on this bike, but on a few others, we have noticed that Konaga have produced a brand new lightweight 3D printed head unit mount for their Wahoos as well. A few bits and pieces that have changed versus 2025, but predominantly, it is the same bike. I expect it's going to be just as fast. Right, let's weigh this naked carbon bike, shall we? 0.52. 7.1 kilograms, which is very light for a fully aero road bike. The width of the tire, despite the wheel is being made for 28 millimeters, is actually coming up at close to 31 width according to my park tools calipers. I think that's probably down to the rim width itself. We have popped over to see the Jayco Alula team. Obviously, this bike stood out to us straightaway. It's the Giant Propel of newly crowned German champion Felix Engelhardt. Now, the companies have to work pretty quickly to get custom painted bikes in time for the Tour de France because the European National Championships take place less than a week before. Felix won his national championships last Sunday. We are filming this on a Thursday. Chapeau to Giant for getting this bike sorted so quickly. It's a fantastic looking design. Obviously, it's got the German flag colors, but I do particularly love this top tube and head tube design where it gradually fades from black into gray and then into white at the rear of the frame there. Other things of note that I've spotted, down here, you can see the magnet which helps trip the power meter into action. That is actually attached to the chain keeper or chain stop here at the back, which prevents the chain going in towards the frame there. He's another rider using very short cranks, 165 millimeters, combined with some pretty big chain rings. At the front here, we've got a 55 tooth combined with 40 at the rear. At the back, 11 up through to 34. Now, I'd imagine this bike is set up for stage two, the first road stage of this year's Tour de France, which does have some pretty steep climbs in the finishing circuit, which they do three times. I'd imagine those gears are for that. He's also got a 3D printed custom head unit mount here at the front. Bars are quite narrow. I haven't measured, but he's certainly a rider that wants to get as aero as possible within the UCI regulations. Now, one of the things that's pretty cool about these Giant bikes is that pretty much everything comes from Giant themselves. They produce these Caddx wheels. They've got the 50 millimeter deep ones here. Even the tires here come from Caddx. It's the aero model. Since they're a size 30, let's see actually what width they're measuring up at. Another thing that you'll see here on the seatpost, so slightly different to traditional bike design, and Giant have had this for many years, but the saddle pin goes over the top of the seatpost. There's a micro-adjustment there, and then just below it, you can see another custom 3D printed thing there. That is to hold the frame number on. Not got the frame numbers yet for the Tour de France, but they will be there on the back. Now, beyond the bike itself, he'll obviously have a custom jersey. I've not seen that yet, but the team haven't given me a look at the jersey that the rest of them will be wearing at the Tour de France. They've given me a size extra small, so small I was able to hide it and conceal it in my back pocket there. An amazing design, which I absolutely love, but I don't think I'm going to fit that onto my body currently. I've got a new bike for you, courtesy of Bianchi. This is the updated version of their longtime model, the Specialissima, which is more of their comfortable climbing model. They also have the Oltre RC, which is their aerodynamic model, but apparently, this new frame set is pretty much spot on when it comes to aerodynamics as the Oltre RC, but it is a hell of a lot lighter. This frame set is 200 grams lighter than their fully aero model. Three riders have access to the bike at this particular race in Tour de France. Matty Mohoric, whose bike we have here, former Milan-San Remo winner, of course, plus the Italian Damiano Caruso and Robert Stannard as well. Other updates to the bike include the one-piece bar and stem, slightly different shape to its predecessors. If you can look from the back here, it's got that slight rise that we see in a number of one-piece bar and stem aero models these days. Then the standout part of this bike is, of course, this incredible paint job. I hope that the camera does it justice in the sunlight here because it really is sparkling. I think there'll be some traditionalists out there that aren't too happy in the lack of Celeste with the traditional Bianchi colors, but if you do look closely, there's definitely some Celeste sparkle hidden within there. Of course, we've got the bottles down here. Now, the other update to the frame set is down here because it's got a UDH, which stands for universal derailleur hanger, something that originated in the mountain bike world, but more and more road bikes seem to be adopting it these days. Now, the wheels on here come from their team sponsor Vision. These are the Metron RS45s, but I understand there are some brand-new Vision wheels in the team truck. Let's see if we can get some hands on them. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the brand-new Vision wheels, but keep your eyes peeled for them because I'm sure we'll get details for you soon. What I have grabbed is the Bianchi Ultra RC of the diminutive climber on the team, Lenny Martinez. There are some really cool details on this bike to make it as light as possible. The biggest and most obvious is the crankset, which comes from the Chinese manufacturer, Ellely. It's got a hollow carbon spindle going through the bottom bracket here. Apparently, this crankset is 260 grams lighter than the Shimano equivalent, so a quarter of a kilogram. That's a hell of a lot. There's a lot of titanium going on on this bike as well, courtesy mainly of a brand called Six Wheel. You can see the disc caliper mounts here, they're titanium. I've also got those titanium through axles from the same brand. The rear derailleur hanger is also from Six Wheel and titanium. Then here, the bottle cage bolts, they come from Carbon Tie. They're the Bianchi Special Edition, so Bianchi the name in Boston there, and also in the Celeste green of Bianchi. I love all those cool details in this bike. I guess you'll be wanting to know how much this thing weighs. Just before I do that though, I remembered I forgot something. Look at this bespoke carbon frame number holder here at the back. That's just glued onto the seat post, but I bet that thing weighs next to nothing. Right, let's weigh it. We've got an illegal bike, we've got an illegal aero bike. Where are the UCI when you need them? 6.79 kilograms and it's aero. I better tell the mechanic. Don't want Lenny Martinez ousted from the race on a bike that's too light, do we? Tour de France Tech interlude, just to say that if you like the look of this t-shirt, you can purchase one yourselves. Just head over to shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com or scan the QR code that should be on the screen right now. That will take you through to our online store where you'll find a whole load of merchandise that's there to celebrate the biggest race of the entire year. All purchases you make go towards funding the free-to-view videos that we do here at GCA. Right, back to the tech. Just popped over to Tudor Pro Cycling and they've been kind enough to let us have a look at the brand new BMC Time Trial bike. This thing looks fast even when it's static and going absolutely nowhere. Check it out. The big standout thing for this bike are these rear seat stays. These things come up and hit you in the face and slap you around a few times just to make sure you know that they're there. They are humongous, 145 millimeters wide. I got so excited about that, I've forgotten to even tell you what this bike is called. It is the BMC MPC, which apparently stands for Masterpiece. If you're new to cycling, actually, even those of you who've been into cycling for quite a long time, you might not know what BMC stands for, Bicycle Manufacturing Company. Kind of does what it says on the tin, doesn't it? Anyway, back to this new frame design. This was designed with Tudor Pro Cycling and BMC in conjunction in the wind tunnel at Silverstone in the UK. As such, it's been designed to be optimal at speeds of around 55 kilometers per hour, which is what these big pro riders are doing on flat roads and even rolling terrain these days. It wasn't just a pro rider who was sat in the wind tunnel for hours on end. Instead, they got real life-size mannequins so they can spend hours and hours with that kind of lifelike rider in the same position to get absolutely everything dialed in on this bike. What they claim is that there is a 3% reduction in drag at the speeds that I was talking about earlier on. This particular model is being raced here at the Tour de France by Matteo Trentin. Now, at the rear here, as I said, the seat stays, they just look absolutely ridiculous. Kind of akin to the time trial bike from Hope that Team GB used on the track a few years ago. Apparently, the UCI limit for the width is 145 millimeters and as such, this hits that limit. Not room for 145-millimeter tires though. No, because there's not enough clearance down here. They'd be comfy, wouldn't they? All be a little bit slow. The other interesting thing is that this bike is only available in two different sizes, but it's still able to accommodate riders of all shapes and sizes because there's so much adjustability here at the seat post and at the seat clamp here at the top and obviously at the bars at the front as well. I'm not sure there's any other bike out there where just two different sizes will fit all different riders. What are we at? 9.7 kilograms. The UCI commissaires have no worries with this particular bike, but like I said before, most time trial bikes are reasonably heavy because in that discipline, it really is all about aerodynamics, even on some of the hillier and rolling individual time trials like we've got in the third week of this Tour de France. Not a surprise, but an amazing looking bike from my perspective. Maybe not all of you agree. Do you love it or do you hate this bike? Let me know in the comment section down below. OMG, take a look at this. We have got the road bike here of the team leader at Pinarello Q36.5, Tom Pidcock. We've also got his time trial bike, which looks just as fantastic, but I'm going to show you shortly. This particular paint job is not unique to Pidcock at this race. It's one that the entire team is using. They're a change-up in kit and also with the paint job of the bikes they're using at the Tour de France this year. It's cooled. It's got tones of Titan and Luxta Venice. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I've got to say, it looks fantastic. In my world, it's a light turquoise with gold decals, they've been the Pinarello ones, and the UBS, the Union Bank of Switzerland decal on the forks on the side there. Nothing massively new about this bike. It is the Pinarello Dogma F, top of the range, been used in the world tour for a couple of years at this point, very successfully, I might add. I've got to say, this is one of my favorite color schemes that they've come up with so far. Other things of note on this bike, it's got a Prologo saddle here, which has got an integrated saddle rail system. Apparently, this allows better transfer of power to the pedals. You can change the saddles more easily, from what I just understood. It's also already been used to win some pretty big races because it's not just the Pinarello team sponsored by Prologo. One of the other teams they sponsor is Wismar-Lisebike. Jonas Vingegaard used this to win the Giro d'Italia. Wout van Aert used a very saddle like this to win Paris-Roubaix earlier on this year. It's already been proven to be very successful. The other thing I noticed about Pidcock's bike is that he's got quite narrow bars. I'll measure them shortly. Although the bars are narrow, the levers are not tilted in. I'm not sure whether that would make them UCI illegal if he just prefers the more standard position rather than the inward turn hoods that a lot of people are using these days. I think you'll agree this is a standout bike. I'd love to spend longer on it, but like I said, I've got the time trial bike to show you as well. One, two, three. Ta-da. The magic of modern cameras and editing, at least for the last 20 years or so, but I think it still looks good, as does this bike. I am sure you will agree. This year at the Tour de France, we are seeing a real contrast between special paint jobs. As I said earlier with today's bike, paint jobs have been stripped back to the bare carbon. That's what his time trial bike, the Pinarello Bolide F, is here. Stripped back down to the carbon, then the gold decals of the Pinarello on the down tube, the UBS bank there, and the F here at the rear. In terms of some of the measurements, he has got some very small cranks on here. These are 160 millimeters. He is fairly short of stature, obviously, but even so, those cranks are very short. Up there at the top, there are some 3D-printed extra forearm pads in front of the elbow pads. I'm presuming for extra comfort. It's not something I've seen on many bikes. Initially, when I looked at this bike, I was thinking there was some chipping from the chain slapping on the chainstay here. As it turns out, it's just wax that has dropped off the chain. No need for a test. This chain is definitely waxed. One thing that you'll definitely notice if you tend to watch cycling content, mainly during the Tour de France but not other times, is the ribbed effect that we've got here on the front of the seatpost and the seat tube. Not just for pleasure, that is to enhance the aerodynamics. First seen on Filippo Ganna's track bike when he used it to break the indoor world hour record, but now used on the time trial bikes that they use on the road as well. This is a quick bike. It looks quick, doesn't it? We've gone from the new Pinarello paint job over to a car. Not strictly bike-related, I know, but in some ways it is. As you can see from the name on the bonnet here, this is the car of Tom Pidcock. It's this that he used to transport his new bike to the start of the Tour de France this year. Now, I am not much of a car expert, but I can tell you about this is that A, it's a Porsche, B, it's fast, and C, I think it's a GT3. It looks nice. That wraps up part one of GCN's Tour Tech 2026, but stay tuned because we've got another video coming with much more tech, including Mathieu van der Poel's custom canyon for the race this year. I'll see you then.