Often at big races the really interesting stories come out of smaller teams. At the Uno-X Mobility men's team bus today in Paris-Roubaix we spotted Alexander Kristoff's bike sporting a prototype UCI sticker, indicating it's a new, unreleased model.
To be honest, even without the prototype label it's clearly a new machine, with one of the most chunky head tubes we've seen in the pro peloton, taking advantage of the new rules.
Details are thin on the ground, and the team mechanics were tight-lipped, but we can glean some information for the pictures. Clearly this is a bike with only aero in mind, leaving the team to use the already aero-looking Dare VSRu for all-rounder duties and hillier stages.
Kristoff was using a 56t chainring, setup 1X, very much in keeping with the trend in the men's peloton of using larger chainrings on flatter stages for both aero and drivetrain efficiency reasons.
While the name of the model is unconfirmed, the downtube suggests it will be the 'Velocity Ace'.
The bars however are non-standard. A new cockpit is also coming with this bike, with a massively deep top section, but supplies in Kristoff's chosen 38cm width are limited, so he is using the bar from the VSRu for now.