Since the heady days of peak Team Sky, the phrase ‘marginal gains’ has become so commonplace as to almost be a mantra for the sport as a whole. New bikes come out every year promising measurable gains in aerodynamics, weight, and stiffness, and every year pro mechanics meticulously modify them, especially for the Tour de France. We’ve seen some expensive mods, like Lidl-Trek’s $1,300 hub upgrades for every bike to shave a few grams, but while my colleagues roamed the pits in Barcelona they saw some truly marginal, marginal gains.
You may find some of these laughable, but when stages are won and lost by millimetres, and the calorific savings of even tiny gains adding up massively over a three week race, I choose to marvel at the seemingly bottomless well of innovation that performance engineers seem to draw from, as well as what must be near infinite reserves of patience from the armies of team mechanics who have to implement these modifications. Without further ado, then, in no particular order…
