It was a bright, sunny morning at the start of the sixth edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, though there was still a chill in the shade as the women's team buses arrived in Denain.
Paris-Roubaix Femmes covered 143km with 33.7km of cobblestones, including two five-star sectors: Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l'Arbre, but no Forest of Arenberg.
The start paddock was a relaxed affair. Teams racked bikes in the morning sun, and fans could get close to their favourite riders, UAE Team-ADQ staff even hosted a Domino's pizza party on the hood of one of their team cars.
I was there on the tech hunting duty, and there was plenty to spot amongst the women's teams, mirroring the men's Paris-Roubaix tech gallery published by my colleague Will.
Highlights ranged from brand new gravel wheels to dual-headed tyre systems, I even spotted some gravel tyres, as well as some cool aftermarket parts I hadn't seen before.
A standout from the women's bikes were several fun personal stem notes they had added, including the race winner, Franziska Koch.
I started at Team UAE ADQ; they chose the Colnago V5RS, not the super-aero Y1RS that the men's team usually ride. I love that white-and-blue paint.
Several riders had fully taped their handlebar tops, providing a little more comfort as riders tend to hold the tops more at Roubaix.
The team had fitted 35mm Continental GP5000 S TR tyres, and they fitted pretty nicely in the Colnago frames.
The team bikes were fitted with Enve SES 4.5 wheels, a nice combination with the 35mm rubber.
Check out this aftermarket CCD EVO S derailleur pulley from French brand Nova Ride. They were fitted to some of the Ma Petite Enterprise Factor Monzas.
Factor Monzas were used widely at Roubaix this year by Factor-sponsored teams. It is still a race bike, but is a little more durable, and has bigger clearance than some of the brand's other bikes. This blue looked fantastic in the sunshine.
The team ran Hutchinson Blackbird Race tyres in a 32mm size and without any tyre inserts.
Next was the Mayenne Monbana My Pie team, the team were racing on Winspace SLC 5.0 machines - the brand's all-rounder. They had some interesting parts fitted.
This crankset drew me in, a 54 tooth Cybrei carbon aero chainring, with some electrical tape over the crank arm brand, answer on a postcard...
There were some great messages on handlebars. I love this one. It belongs to Constance Valentin.
The team chose 32mm Hutchinson Blackbird All-Season tyres; probably ideal for Roubaix, but not as fast as something like a Vittoria Corsa Pro. You don't often see tread like this on race bikes.
All team bikes also had allen keys taped to their computer mounts, I assume to help with emergency wheel changes.
Alison Jackson's bike was receiving lots of attention thanks to her custom Canadian paint scheme. It was, however, a pretty stock build overall.
Spot the speaker, Jackson emerged from the team bus holding a Bluetooth speaker, and it went straight into her bike's bottle cage.
Jackson's St Michel - Preference Home team uses an all-French Mavic and Michelin wheel and tyre combination. The wheels were fitted with Mavic Power Cup 32mm tyres.
It's great to see Mavic back in the mix; these silver hubs looked great in the spring sunshine.
The Volkerwessels squad have some super stealth Specialized Tarmacs; the paint jobs just look mean. The team bikes had two-piece bars and stems, and the team ran tyre inserts.
They also had this cool flat-bar conversion on show, always a fun thing to see.
Fast Forward Ryot 55 wheels and Schwalbe Pro One tyres, spot the Clik Valve tubeless valves too.
The Laboral Kutxa team ride X-Lab bikes. I was enjoying the bright pink and white paint jobs; they really pop.
This was a nice touch on one of the bike's fork legs.
Here's a wild move, fully bar taped STI shifter hoods here, surely a bid to make things a touch more comfortable. Note the two different lots of bar tape, too.
Here it is from the front, the tape wrapped around the front of the Dura-Ace levers.
One Cofidis Look bike was the recently released limited edition 795 Blade RS Ciel Du Nord. The paint reflects Northern French skies. It looked fantastic in the flesh.
The team uses Campagnolo. The Bora wheels were fitted with 32mm Vittoria Corsa Control tyres.
This is a very expensive collection of parts. I believe this is the Super Record Ultra Titanium cassette from the Ultra upgrade kit. That's one piece of machined titanium.
The Lotto Orbea Orca bikes looked pretty stock; the team had some of the narrowest tyres around.
The team had fitted 30mm Vittoria Corsa Pros, a seemingly conservative choice.
Here's Pfeiffer Georgi's Lapierre team bike; she was the only rider using some brand new Ursus wheels.
Ursus released a new wheel on Friday, the Arya G, designed for rough surfaces. The wheels use Sapim PBO vibration-damping spokes.
Here's a close-up of the new Sapim spokes; the stock Ursus Arya wheels use carbon Vonoa spokes.
The team had also switched to Vittoria Corsa Pro tyres from their usual Michelin models. All the logos were sharpied out. They wouldn't give me a hard answer on why, but it's likely because Michelin's tyres go only to 30mm.
Next up was a trip to see Eleanor Backsted's bike; she was using an ISM PN4.1 gravel road saddle.
I also spotted this very cool-looking carbon chain catcher, very neat.
Backsted's chainring looked a little dirty pre-race, unusual for a pro bike. Check out the purple SRAM chain for some bling.
Backstedt was also riding the new Canyon Endurace, spot the grip tape on the bottle cages.
Backstedt also had the existing Canyon PACE handlebar fitted, not the recently launched CP053 RACE handlebar, which we will see next.
Here is the new non-adjustable RACE bar, fitted to Tiffany Cromwell's bike. It's lighter and more aerodynamic, Canyon says.
Backsted was running the Zipp 303 NSW wheels with wireless tyre pressure sensor tech, a useful feature on the cobbles to monitor tyre pressures.
Tiffany Cromwell was using 35mm Schwalbe G One Speed gravel tyres, an unusual but probably smart and comfortable choice
Two custom-painted Aeroads here on the team car roof, from the Canyon custom paint programme.
The Cervelo S5 from Visma-Lease a Bike had the bars fully taped; it really stood out, and I assume the rider planned on holding the bar tops.
3rd place finisher and former winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot had a fairly standard setup, but I saw more special tyre sealant on her tyre sidewalls, I assume to give more security and protection.
Here it is, it isn't tubeless sealant, it’s some kind of clear thin sealant. I've seen it on men's and women's bikes.
I think the idea is that the sealant provides a better seal, helps bead retention and possibly prevents sealant leakage. But would it also boost aero performance by smoothing that bead, rim interface?
Over at Uno-X, there was a nice custom-painted Ridley Nosh FAST for Anniina Ahtosalo, the Finnish national road champion.
Liv Alula Jayco had swapped their usual Cadex tyres for what appear to be sponsor-incorrect Vittoria Corsa Pro Control rubber. The Control offers a little more protection than the Corsa Pro, and there was a mix of both models on show at the start.
The team had also switched to a one-by aero chainring, like many other teams. Shimano doesn’t currently offer such a product, and it’s beginning to feel like it’s a glaring omission for the groupset giant.
The FDJ Suez United Specialized bikes looked great; the shortness of this stem struck me, and generally, you do see some shorter stems in the women’s peloton.
This bike also had more comprehensive stem notes, denoting which sectors were coming and at what point in the race.
This is a nice one, race winner Franziska Koch’s motivating stem note, she battled until the finish in a two against one situation and took a fantastic win.
Some eye-catching custom-painted Factors at Human Powered Health got a lot of attention; they really stood out and seemed to feature Pokémon.
The paint scheme was done by popular Belgian artist Vexx, whose work features lots of bright cartoon, doodle-like designs.
34mm Corsa Pro Control tyres were fitted to the team’s Factor Monzas; a wider tyre really helps on the cobblestones.
Another custom Factor, this time for Austrian champion Kathrin Schweinberger, the eagle features on the Austrian flag.
More motivating stem notes here, which I believe translates as 'slay the beast'. The rider also had section notes neatly applied to either side of the bar tops, although it must get to the point when you can’t pay attention to them.
This was one of my favourite chainset setups over at AG Insurance-Soudal, Dura-Ace cranks with a big old aero ring, it just looked mean.
There was also a solid K-Edge custom 'Wolfpack' chain guide and chain catcher mounted as well; you can’t be too careful at Roubaix.
The team had also fitted wired Shimano GRX gravel derailleurs with a clutch to aid chain retention over the cobbles, a move we saw from a few Shimano teams over the weekend.
The bikes had allen keys mounted to the seatposts, so that riders could quickly remove a rear wheel in the event of a flat; it’s notoriously hard to get a spare bike at Roubaix.
Lidl-Trek used the Odyssey Optic Tyre inflation system, which features a toughened TPU tube inside the tubeless tyre, and the two are inflated separately. The tube provides more run-flat capability and increased protection on rough ground.
Elisa Balsamo had a custom-painted Trek Madone, which mirrored the one Mads Pederson was using.
Who doesn’t love a few bling bottle cage bolts?
This was an interesting bar setup for Shrin Van Anrooij, a two-piece bar and step, full bar tape wrap and SRAM wireless shifters on the tops and drops. Very Roubaix specific.
I bagged a few minutes with Lotte Kopecky’s bike; she had a two-piece bar and stem with a fairly shallow bar drop.
Kopecky had a 1X SRAM chainset with a 50-tooth chainring, a slightly smaller size than a lot of the male racers run.
Kopecky was on the recently released Cotton TLR tyres from Specialized in a 32mm size, ‘A’ possibly denotes this being a race day or ‘best’ tyre.
This made me laugh. I thought it could mean carbs for Lotte, or a lot of carbs. Either way, Roubaix needs fuel.
Full bar tape wrap for Kopecky, with satellite SRAM Blip shifters on either side of the stem. That electric tape finish would put me off, I think.
This was interesting. Kopecky was using the older Roval Rapide CLX Team wheels with the easy-to-spot silver hubs, not the newer Roval Rapide CLX III or Sprint options. Perhaps there’s something she prefers about these wheels.
This Uno-X bike had me scratching my head for a minute. That’s an SRAM Red XPLR rear mech, but paired to a 12-speed road cassette, not the XPLR-specific 13-sprocket cassette. They'd drilled an extra limit screw to convert it to 12-speed. This gives you the durability of the gravel derailleur but the close-spaced gears of the road cassette.
I could hear the race helicopters by now, and finished with a quick stop at the EF Cannondale bikes, which were very stock, though several of the bikes had a nice double wrap of tape.
This bike had an essay on the handlebars, chapeau to the rider for reading all over this whilst rattling over the stones of Roubaix, which will now lie silent and untroubled until next year.
