Walking up and down the hill where several team buses were parked ahead of the Tour de France teams' presentation gave me my first proper look at nearly all of the riders' race bikes on the eve of the race.
Lidl-Trek's bikes have garnered a lot of attention already due to their very eye-catching 50th anniversary paint jobs. It's a busy design with a lot going on that will set tongues wagging.
Having stared at Lidl-Trek bikes at several races already this year, my eyes were drawn to the silver hubs of their Bontrager wheels almost immediately, and it seems the team has rolled out a special hub upgrade for the Tour this year.
The squad's Bontrager Aeolus wheels have been built up on Tactic VR01 V2 hubs, a set of superlight and very expensive hubs that weigh in at a claimed 207 grams per pair.
The hubs themselves, as well as being superlight, use a 60-tooth ratchet system and no-contact freehub seal for low drag. The hubs also have a preload adjustment collar to tweak preload, or how much the bearings are compressed, to ensure they spin as well as they possibly can.
The hubs use ABEC 7 bearings, and are machined from 70 Series aluminium in Germany. I priced a pair up on the Tactic website, and you can expect to pay around £973 or $1,299
Luckily I found myself stood next to Glen Leven, the team's technical manager, who was happy to chat about the hubs and told me a little bit about them. Leven explained the hubs saved about 70-80 grams of weight for the team, and that the squad had something of a deal worked out with Tactic for supply.
Over the last several months, we have also seen the team racing on Bontrager Aeolus wheels with different logos and shiny silver hubs; these wheels are still officially unreleased, and Leven told me we can expect them to launch later in the year.
I wondered if the upgrade was to offset some of the likely heavier special paint the bikes have, but regardless, lighter, low-drag hubs are music to the ears of all bike racers.
The team also has at least one all-black Madone race bike using the brand's Project One superlight Vapour Coat paint, and the team told me this bike was bang on the UCI 6.8kg weight limit, and even had to have heavier parts fitted to make it legal.
A few of the team's riders also raced on their 'normal' team-issue Madones during Stage 3, not the 50th anniversary bikes, which could possibly weigh a little more.
I also noticed the team running Tactic disc lockrings, and they are also super light at 12.4 grams per pair. Like the hubs, they are made from 70 series aluminium and have material machined away from the body.
After going over my photos, I spotted more aftermarket parts in the shape of Chaser Sports aluminium thru axles, a Chinese brand I wasn't familiar with.
Chaser Sports manufactures aftermarket, lightweight thru axles for several bike brands. The ones for the Lidl-Trek and Trek Madones cost 113 dollars and weigh a claimed 37 grams per pair.
This isn't the first time Tactic hubs have been used in the WorldTour; Team Ineos used them back in 2023 when they used Princeton wheels (Tactic is part of the Princeton family)
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