Campagnolo's new direction, return of the Venge, flares in the peloton and more: 11 tech predictions for 2024

It's a new year in the world of cycling. New teams, new kit, new tech. We’ve decided to put our money where our mouths are and put together some actual predictions for 2024. It’s what we think is going to happen, be released, and perhaps with a sprinkling of what we hope will come to pass in the next 12 months. It also means that this time next year we can look back and mark our own homework. Will it be full marks, or will there be a big red “Must Try Harder” in the margins? Only time will tell.

1. Endurance bikes will be rebranded

The inexorable spread of disc brakes has allowed, amongst many other benefits, bikes to be fitted with much wider tyres. We have seen an increase in the clearance offered by almost all drop bar bikes across the board, with the benefits in grip and comfort widely touted. Last year we saw the new Canyon Endurace offer space for 35mm tyres, with the marketing specifically mentioning ‘all-road tyres’, and the new Specialized Roubaix up to 40mm, but we think 2024 will be the year that we start to see ‘endurance’ rebranded as ‘all-road’ more comprehensively.

Endurance bikes have for some time been the slightly stale option in many brand’s portfolios, when viewed against the spicy aero and lightweight race-oriented machines. This is a shame, as they often can be far better suited to the riding and terrain that many of us actually ride on, so cynicism aside about marketing departments simply slapping a new badge on old goods, we think this is a good thing. A revivified endurance market is good for consumers as our roads continue to deteriorate and social media continues to entice us all towards the ‘epic’.

2. Gravel groupsets on road bikes

I’m basing this primarily on the successes Primož Roglič had at the tail end of the 2023 Giro d'Italia by slapping a SRAM gravel groupset on his road bike for the final road stage, and for the mountain time trial too. The inter-compatibility of the SRAM range will come in handy if we do see endurance road bikes being rebranded as all-road. It's far from beyond the realms of possibility that we might see a new endurance/all-road bike offered with a gravel groupset. We did see this to some extent in 2023 with the Vitus Venon Evo, but rather than offering the same setup with different groupsets, the brand offered two ostensibly different bikes (groupset, wheels, tyres, finishing kit), albeit utilising the same excellent chassis.

3. Gravel bikes will further diverge

One thing we learned while testing gravel bikes for our 2023 awards is that the best gravel bikes were the ones that sat firmly in one camp. The more radical, gnarly ones were great fun, while those with a clear focus on speed were… well, these were also great fun for different, more speedy reasons. Those gravel bikes in the middle, the ones that sought to be all things to all people, were the ones we felt came up a little short. 

We have already seen a divergence in the market, with gravel race bikes becoming more racy - think the Specialized Crux, the Factor Ostro Gravel, and the Pinarello Grevil - and the more adventure end of the market getting slacker, fatter and with more places to mount things - think the 3T Extrema Italia and the suspended YT Szepter. We think this trend will continue, and bikes previously stuck in no-mans-land in the middle will pick a side and specialise. At the more budget end of the market we suspect to see most bikes erring towards the bikepacking, fat tyre and bag mounts end of the spectrum. 

4. Further decline in 650b options

While we did see a new wheel size standard last year, 750d, we dont think this is really going to take off in any meaningful sense. What we do think will happen though, as a continuation of what we saw in 2023, is the further decline in bikes offering 650b options. Mountain bikes dabbled with 27.5” (the same as 650b, but a different name) for some time before reverting back to 29” (700c to us drop bar riders) and the same has happened in gravel, and will continue this year. 

While 650b did offer added tyre volume benefits while keeping the same(ish) diameter as a smaller volume 700c setup, bikes like the 3T Extrema Italia have shown it is entirely possible to fit massive rubber - we’re talking over 50mm - into a 700c chassis. Consumers are getting more and more on board with larger volume tyres, even on the road, so sticking to a single width tyre, one slick and one knobbly, is perhaps more appealing that having to fork out for an entirely new wheelset in order to maximise the potential of one's gravel bike. 

The only place we expect to see its growth is among OEM speccing on smaller-sized women's bikes, where smaller wheels can help with bike fit needs. 

5. New bikes, new groupsets

As ever we will undoubtedly be treated to more new stuff for 2024. Brands operate on relatively well defined product cycles, so this is perhaps a bit of an easy prediction to make. We’ve already been teased a new Canyon Aeroad, so we expect to see that actually come to market for 2024. As ever, the wonderful users of WeightWeenies have been busy while we’ve been off enjoying bumper helpings of roast turkey and have spotted evidence of a potential new Trek Emonda and a new 12sp Shimano GRX groupset. Details are thin on the ground for both, but from what we can tell it looks like the new Emonda (if that is what the bike is) is taking aero cues from the latest Trek Madone by introducing the ‘IsoFlow’ seat tube hole and cantilevered seatpost arrangement. This is very much in keeping with the 2023 trend of lightweight bikes becoming more all-rounders, which we will go more into shortly. 

From what we can expect based on leaks and product lifecycles, we believe a new SRAM Red groupset will also hit the market in 2024, and on a purely product-cycle speculation basis, the Pinarello Dogma F came after successive two-year cycles for the Dogma F10 and F12, but is well into its third year, so if we saw a new one of these it wouldn’t be a great surprise. 

Not so much a prediction, but more a hope, is the resurgence of the Specialized Venge. Lightweight bikes are the new all-rounder, but many brands still have an all-out aero offering, the Cannondale SystemSix, the Trek Madone, and the Canyon Aeroad for example. We’d love to see what Specialized could cook up in its wind tunnel to make use of the more relaxed UCI regulations on tube shapes. 

6. Lightweight bikes will all become all-rounders

Another continuation we expect to see is lightweight bikes becoming more aero. It’s happened to the Canyon Ultimate, the Bianchi Specialissima, the Cannondale SuperSix Evo, the Specialized Tarmac (which was, to be fair, always an all-rounder), and we expect to see more of this sort of thing for 2024. What may well be a new Trek Emonda, as mentioned previously, would appear to be fitting this description if it’s staying feathery, but taking aero cues from the Madone. 

Perhaps the next candidate for this trend is the Scott Addict. It’s been around for some time in its current guise, and the new Scott Foil is so clearly an all-out aero bike it does hint at a gap in the range for a bike better suited to… well, everything else?

7. Greater use of the SRAM UDH

This, being SRAM's Universal Derailleur Hanger, is something we’ve seen little of thus far on the road, with only the Ridley Falcn adopting it as yet and potentially the new Trek mentioned above. The system on paper makes a lot of sense, and as it has proliferated greatly in the mountain bike world we see no reason it can’t do the same on tarmac too (or gravel, or all-road, or… anywhere else). Actual standardised standards are a good thing, especially in this case, so this is as much a hope as it is a prediction, and something we’d be glad to see continue beyond just this year. 

8. Flares in the peloton

No, not the smoke ones that you see on Dutch Corner, or the denim ones seen in the '60s. We’re talking flared handlebars. Now that the UCI is to ban the use of turned-in brake levers we expect to see professionals (and enthusiastic amateurs alike) opt for either narrower bars in general, or flared bars. We have seen this to some degree already, with the latest Trek Madone featuring a narrower width at the hoods compared to the drops in a slightly sneaky way to save a few watts. The problem though is that many flared bars simply don’t come in anything narrower than 40cm, which is wider than we see on the bikes of Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel et al. 

It is quite possible that we will start to see new ‘road flare’ bars, and, happily for me as someone who uses 38cm bars, more high end bars being produced in narrower widths. 

Thanks to another UCI rule, we won't see anything narrower than 35cm (outside to outside) but if aero-focussed riders like Jan-Willem van Schip and Victor Campenaerts proliferate in the peloton, we expect flared bars, with 32-34cm tops flaring out to 36cm at the drops to abide by this rule. 

9. More boring paint jobs

As brands transform their lightweight bikes into all-terrain speed machines, primarily by making the tubes shapes more aero, they need to shave grams elsewhere. For pro teams at least, keen to butt up as closely as possible to the UCI weight limit, these savings come in the paint department. Paint is relatively heavy (a couple of hundred grams or thereabouts), and we see many teams already opting for black-heavy paint schemes (as carbon is black, ‘painting’ it is a matter of applying a thin layer of protective clearcoat). 

The Colnago V4Rs of UAE Team Emirates has a new but still mostly black scheme, Ineos’ Pinarello Dogma F has traded navy for black, and the Bianchi Specialissima of Arkéa-B&B Hotels is also more or less totally noire. Our hope is that consumers still get fun paint jobs. All-black-everything bikes have been a trend for years now and it’s high time we embraced being a bit more eye catching. 

10. Campagnolo will focus its efforts on being a ‘luxury brand’

Not having Campagnolo in the WorldTour is a bit of a sad day for cycling fans. It’s a brand with a heritage that’s hard to match, but it does feel like the Italian brand is slowly moving towards ‘luxury brand’ status. Given the eye-watering price of the top-end new Super Record EPS, combined with no top-tier pro sponsorship, makes us wonder if the business model going forward is going to be less focussed on winning races, and more taking a leaf out of the Gucci playbook. 

If the top end stuff is hyper-desirable by dint of its price tag and exclusivity, the theory goes that consumers will want to buy into the brand at lower tiers. It works for couture dresses by selling belts and handbags, so why can’t it work for rear derailleurs too?

This isn't a totally whimsical guess, either. The company's CEO, Davide Campagnolo, grandson of founder Tullio, suggested as much at the media presentation ahead of the Super Record Wireless launch, pitching the product at a category he described as 'sports luxury'. 

"Our product has always been in the premium high segment of the market. I think Campagnolo belongs to that segment," he explained. "Sports luxury is something exclusive, something not for all, but something that anyone wants to own. I think that Campagnolo belongs to that direction, and what we do in the future will be in that direction."

11. The Van Rysel RCR will be bike of the year

This is a pretty big call this early in the year, but we think the combination of Van Rysel’s well defined track record in producing solid bikes at the low end of the price spectrum, combined with a bike good enough (at least the team will hope) to mix it at the very highest level of the sport now that it is sponsoring AG2R will be near impossible to beat. 

While it may not be quite so budget as other bikes in the Van Rysel road range, it’s hard to imagine it will be more expensive than other similarly equipped road bikes. While the Dura-Ace spec isn’t on offer yet, a SRAM Red, power-meter enabled build with Zipp 303 wheels is on sale already for €8,500. This is pretty competitive for the build, but more importantly at the lower end a SRAM Rival, with a power meter, and Zipp 303s wheels is €4,200, converted roughly that’s only £3,600 for what is, on paper, an absolutely race-ready machine. 

Cycling is very frequently a murderously expensive hobby, and so anything that lowers the financial barrier to entry, especially for racing, is great news, even if it turns out it rides like a cow.