Want to Ride Faster？ Copy the Pros

This is a modern world tour race bike. It costs thousands of dollars. Everything is made from carbon fibre and it weighs less than seven kilograms. And it's been shaped in a wind tunnel to be as fast as possible and designed to race the Tour de France. A great thing about a Tour de France race bike is if you have deep pockets, you can actually buy a bike like this. But they are very expensive indeed, although the brand new X-Lab is a lot cheaper than most. in the World Tour peloton right now. But what makes a Tour de France bike so special? Well, over the next few minutes in today's video, I'm gonna share five things that make a Tour de France race bike so special and so different than the one in your garage and the ones worth copying. Aerodynamics have been a bigger change in the Tour de France and how road bikes look these days. Now bikes are shaped in the wind tunnel to be as slippery through the air as possible. And you see that in every element of the bike, from the handlebar that's aero-shaped with a teardrop profile on the top section, this very narrow head tube and a deep fork blade, this massive deep aero down tube, the seat tube, the drop rear stays, even the seat post is aerodynamic. All the cables and brake hoses are inside the frame and handlebar, no visible cables like 20 years ago, and the wheels are aerodynamic too. The deep section profile. Wide as well, and flat aero spokes, even the hub shells are shaped to be aerodynamic. And the bottle cages, and increasingly the bottles themselves, are aero-profile too, to maximise the aero gains a bike can offer. Because 20 years ago, weight was a big focus for a Tour de France race bike, but these days, they're happy to give up a few grams, or even kilograms, of weight for more aero gains. Because the faster you go... The more aero matters. And you might think aerodynamics only matters to the world tour pros at the high speeds they ride at, but it matters to us mere mortals too. Because over about 15 miles per hour, air resistance is the biggest drag you face when riding a bike. And even more when riding on a windy day like today. You can see the trees blowing around behind me. So adding that wind speed and aerodynamics becomes the biggest factor when riding a bike fast. And not just about riding fast, But decreasing the effort required to ride at any given speed, so more energy saved for the end of the ride and that final sprint to beat your mates to the finish line. This one might actually surprise a lot of people because you might look at a bike like this with deep wheels and skinny tires and big down tubes and all these aero features to be a hardcore race bike. Being stiff and unyielding and just hard work to ride over your local roads. But actually the biggest change over the last 20 years is how easy and how nice these bikes are to ride. Thanks to improvements like wide tyres at low pressures. Hydraulic disc brakes, so you can stop very easily with very little pressure on the brake levers. Electronic gear, so changing gear, it's a breeze. All those improvements over the last 20 years have made these bikes far easier to ride, whether you're racing at a ragged edge or just riding around on a Sunday morning with your mates and enjoying the views and stopping for a coffee. They deliver all the speed benefits that Tour de France pros need and want, and also give us regular, normal, mere mortals a bike that's pleasantly, surprisingly easy to ride and live with, even at a fraction of the speed of Tadej Pogačar. So yeah, don't judge a bike by its cover. These bikes are very nice to ride indeed. A Tour de France race bike isn't fast because of one single thing, but every part, every element of the bike is chosen for the performance gains it offers. It's all about the marginal gains and all that adds up to a bike that is incredibly fast in the Tour de France and with a regular rider like me on it as well. On this bike we have the short cranks for more aerodynamic position, the narrow handlebars to reduce the frontal surface area, deep carbon wheels to cut through the wind. Optimised tyre width and pressures for lower rolling resistance, ceramic bearings in the hubs, the bottom bracket and the headset for improved efficiency, aerobottles and cages that are actually faster than standard round bottles, and even the rider's clothing, the helmet and socks are designed to save watts. On their own, each of those parts saves a handful of watts, but add all those watts together, and you get a big bunch of juicy savings that helps any rider, whether your name is Tadej Pogačar or David Arthur, ride faster. And you don't have to copy every detail if you are trying to go faster, but knowing which ones deliver the best bang for buck or the best performance benefit, like wide tyres at low pressures for real-world comfort and speed. Optimising your position for aerodynamics with a narrow handlebar and short cranks, or just buying some fancy deep-section carbon wheels that are both aero and lightweight too. The other fast upgrade is building a brand new website with today's sponsor, Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a brand new website fast in 2026. It's as easy as using AI, answering a few simple questions, and a bespoke website built for you in minutes. Or do it yourself by choosing a template from the massive library of award-winning templates and then customize how it looks and how it functions with an easy drag and drop interface. And you can build a website for any purpose as well. If you're a bike shop and need to start selling bikes and products, you can do that on Squarespace. If you're a bike mechanic running online courses to maintain and service your bike, You can do that too. If you're a photographer and you need a website to show off your photos from a Tour de France, you can do that too. So, plenty of reasons to build a brand new website this year. And better yet, you can start a free trial today, no strings attached, and find out how easy and fast it really is with the link down below. And if you enjoy it, which I'm sure you will, there's a discount code on screen right now for a discount of your first website purchase or domain name. So head to Squarespace right now, and build a brand new website. Next up is something that many people overlook or forget. The rider is more important than the bike. Yes, a bike can be light and fast and aero, but a rider is the one pedalling the bike up the mountain and has to be fit as a fiddle to ride the bike fast. But rider fitness aside, a modern world tour bike is designed to help put the rider in the most efficient aerodynamic position to help them get the best performance they can on a bike. So on this bike, for example, We have a narrow handlebar, the big trend over the last few years to reduce your frontal surface area and bring your arms and elbows in for a nice compact ride position. Often bikes have very long stems as well to stretch the reach of the rider into an aero position. And on this bike, we have short cranks. The cranks are shorter to help the rider get an aero position on the bike to open up the hip angle. That's been a big change over the last few years. The other small detail on the bike is the inline seat post, which together with the short cranks and the stem reach help put the rider in a very efficient position. We are seeing some WorldTour modern race bikes Having more progressive geometry so a steeper seat tube angle to bring the rider forward over the BB the bottom bracket And longer reach to put the rider in that very aerodynamic position, but those changes happen slowly but are happening nonetheless So will buying a bike make you faster, make you as fast as Tadej Pogačar? Well, probably not. There's all the training you have to do, the miles and miles every week, riding up hills, training effectively and smartly, getting plenty of sleep every night and watching what you eat and having a healthy nutritional balanced diet. All that will help you ride faster more than buying a fancy bike, but a fancy bike will definitely help you ride faster. Especially if you're upgrading from a cheaper, heavier, slower bike. Thanks to all the marginal gains on today's modern World Tour race bikes. All those features will definitely help you ride faster. But if you don't think you can justify riding a world tour race bike, and I get that. A lot of people don't think they're fast enough or good enough to justify a bike like this. There are still plenty of ways you can benefit from a bike like this without actually buying one. So upgrades like wide tyres at low pressures. Maybe a narrower handlebar, some deep section wheels. There are some good brands offering low price carbon wheel upgrades these days. And then getting a professional bike fit to make sure you're sat on the bike comfortably and efficiently to ride faster on any bike you're riding. Then beyond the bike, your clothing, so tight fitting jerseys, an aero helmet. Aero socks, and then a coach. A coach to help you train better, smarter, and more effectively with a power meter and a heart rate monitor to train the engine, the thing that has the power of the bike up and down the hills. There are smarter and cheaper ways to go faster on any bike than spending 10 grand on a brand new one. All those features will definitely help you ride faster, but My biggest takeaway is, you don't have to be fast to justify a bike like this. Ignore the bike snobs out there. If you can't afford a bike like this, treat yourself. The way it rides, the performance, the low weight, the speed, the way it makes you feel on a Sunday morning, it's worth buying a bike like this. It may not make you as fast as Tadej Pogačar on a Sunday morning club ride, but it will definitely make you feel pretty amazing. So yeah, World Tour race bikes are fantastic pieces of engineering and definitely That trickle-down technology to more accessible, low-priced bikes benefits us all. So let me know your thoughts on what makes a Tourer Front bike so special and whether it's worth buying one like this by dropping a comment down below. And I see a first ride on this brand new XLAB 89. Watch that video up there. And if you enjoy content like this on a regular basis in your YouTube feed, make sure you are subscribed by hitting the button right there. I've been David. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you again very soon.