First brought to our attention by the ever-observant Cycling Spy, it appears Belgium’s Wout van Aert is testing an unorthodox time trial bike setup involving solid disc wheels both front and rear. This should have aero advantages, mirroring the setup most often seen on track bikes. With only a few days until the start of the Paris Olympics, and a gold medal on the line, the multidisciplinary rider is clearly looking to eke out any advantage over his competitors in an effort to secure a medal.
Van Aert’s Cervelo P5, a bike that has recently been updated with some minor tweaks to the seat cluster along with wider tyre clearance, has been stripped back to raw carbon almost entirely in order to save weight - paint over a whole bike can often run into the hundreds of grams - which is even more of a factor when running a solid front wheel.
