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Here's your complete behind the scenes tour at the 2024 Tour de France time trial stage, focused on sports technology like power meters, smart trainers, bike computers, laundry machines, and plenty more!

The Tour de France is in full swing, and with it, a few days ago, the time trial stage. That’s always an interesting opportunity to check out which sports tech riders are using, such as bike computers, trainers, as well as things like laundry machines and fans (the swirling variety, not the screaming variety).

In the above video give a walkthrough of the entire team/technical zone (called the paddock), where I show how it all works. From the warmup routines/schedules, to each step along the way from warmup to the starting gate (including UCI checks, additional warmup trainers at the starting gate, and more). And obviously, we talk pineapples too.

Now when it comes to Tour de France stages, they’re basically in two core buckets: Regular stages and Time Trial Stages. I suppose there’s now gravel stages too, but, we’ll keep things simple. These two buckets employ different bikes, and we see teams use additional equipment not typically used on a road stage. For example, very few riders will warmup for a regular road stage – since the warmup is builtin to the 10KM or so of the race. Some teams will use trainers for a cooldown after a stage though.

Likewise, when it comes to bikes, being different bikes we often see different groupset configurations used, as well as different bike computers and bike computer mounts used. For example, at this year’s time trial stage I saw even more teams using the tiny (and old) Garmin Edge 130 Plus than any previous time trial stages.

If you’re looking for marginal gains at the absolute pointy end of this TT, I suppose saving a few grams and possible aero hit, in this area makes sense. Of course, sometimes it’s just logically easier to fit mountwise within the aerobar gap space.

Of course, the use of TT bikes means this isn’t a good stage to take a closer look at which bike computers teams are normally using. And likewise, which power meters companies are normally using. Most of the power meter pieces do lineup to their team Shimano/SRAM sponsorships, with an exception for one team on SRM (Team UAE). There are 15 teams on Shimano, 4 teams on SRAM, and 3 teams split on FSA or SRM.

But on normal road stages, you’ll also be able to sometimes sneak a look at which Shimano teams are putting power meter pedals on there to get more accurate data. Teams continue pressure Shimano in this area, and outside of visible races where people like me take photos of bikes, many Shimanoequipped teams and riders are using power meter pedals for more accurate training power data.

At first glance I saw the longavailable Elite Direto XR, but then I noticed the “Team Edition” sticker. I figured that was just a random marketing thing since it was with the team, but after texting with Elite, turns out, that’s actually a legit new edition of the Elite Direto XR with new software features.

Specifically, this new Elite Direto XR Team Edition will feature: Race Mode (10Hz data transfer), Shimano Di2 Trainer Control, Pain Break, and Standalone Mode. It’ll be available exclusively at Decathlon later this summer. A clever partnership, and cool to see Elite add those features in.

Beyond that, we saw Tacx kit out some of their teams with the Tacx NEO 3M, but others were on the Tacx NEO 2T. As usual, Tacx had skinned their trainers (NEO 3M units) for teams currently holding title jersey’s, like the KOM/sprinter/etc jerseys.

#TourDeFrance #Cycling #TdF