Tadej Pogačar’s time trial bike leaves no stone unturned in quest for Tour de France victory

In racing terms, the action on any given time trial is perhaps less frenetic than a road stage of the Tour de France. They’re a slow burn with ever-building tension, but for tech nerds who get excited about the most marginal of gains, they are an absolute gold mine awash with shiny nuggets. Race leader Tadej Pogačar’s TT bike is a rich seam in itself, with plenty of mods and some brand-new parts that haven’t been seen before, so let's dive right in, or save it for when there's a lull in proceedings during the stage 7 time trial.

The images herein are gleaned from a UAE Team Emirates tweet, but handily Colnago has also posted a decent gallery of the bike, which we've included below.

An very expensive saddle

First up we have a brand new saddle from UAE Team Emirates sponsor, Prologo. I do have some insider information on this: There’s a claimed seven-watt benefit to the saddle, thanks to aero improvements and improvements in rider posture. While the leading edges seem to be at the forefront of any good aerodynamicist's mind, this new saddle aims to smooth the airflow as it detaches from the rider's back, with an elongated rear and heavily dropped side shrouds to shield the rails and seat clamp. 

In addition to aero benefits, the shape is claimed to allow ‘maximum pelvis rotation’, primarily for greater comfort. Finally, and to give me a lovely segue into more weight weenie mods, the weight of the saddle is a claimed 140g, which is very, very light. It’s also very very expensive, with a price tag of £1,020, and it appears to only work with a proprietary aftermarket seat clamp system thanks to narrower than usual, flat rails. 

Aftermarket seatpost

Speaking of weight weenie-ism, the saddle sits atop a non-standard seatpost from Spanish boutique carbon gear brand, Darimo. The standard Colnago TT01 seat post features a giant rail at the top for a great degree of fore-aft adjustment, but opting for a custom seatpost can do away with this and simply put the saddle where it’s needed, shaving grams. Word on the street is that this aftermarket seatpost tips the scales under 130g, thanks to it being sliced off at the absolute safe insertion limit. I also have it on good authority that Darimo is supplying aftermarket seatposts for the Israel-Premier Tech team too.

This seatpost has been developed with the two brands and will be available as an add on to the TT01 via the Colnago website if you really want to emulate this particular setup.

No paint, no logos

Even on a road bike, where there’s less material, ditching paint for raw carbon can save you somewhere in the region of 300g. On a TT bike, the gains are even greater, so it’s no surprise to see Pogačar eschew any fancy paint. His Colnago would ordinarily have simple white logos, but given he’s in yellow these have been stuck over with yellow vinyl. Likewise, his wheels have been stripped of their logos in an effort to save a few grams. The rear is an Aerocoach Aeox Ultra Orbit wheel, and while the front is unbadged it’s reportedly a deeper new Enve model.

Lightweight rotors

Brake rotors are mostly metal, for us mortals anyway. Pogačar, like his teammates, is running Carbon-Ti rotors, and while he has the option to use a full aero set with a solid carbon centre, the Slovenian has instead opted for the lighter more spindly X-Rotor at €220 a pop. 

One big carbon ring and SRM cranks

Matching the brake rotors, Pogačar is also using a chainring from Carbon-Ti. We do see him use a 2x setup frequently, but here it’s set up 1x. That will save a fair amount of weight as you can ditch a whole chainring, bolts, and the front derailleur, and also add some aero gains too. I have had it confirmed that it is a 60t ring for the first time trial, though he may use a 2x for the second race against the clock later in the Tour. 

This ring is then mounted to SRM cranks rather than Dura-Ace ones. This swaps the Shimano power meter too, with a spider-based setup used here. This swap alone is a £1,600 upgrade to what is already a very expensive bike. 

No valves

It’s very common for the disc rear to have a hidden valve, the port to which we can see taped over easily. What is less common is to hide the front valve entirely. Given the depth of the front rim it’ll require the use of valve extenders anyway, so it's a simple case of inflating the tyre to the desired pressure, then unscrewing the extender and taping over the hole. Now you’ve reduced your rotational mass and taken something asymmetrical out of the airflow at the front of the bike - an easy win for sure. 

Lightweight derailleur hanger

As per his road bike, and his teammate’s too, the rear derailleur is mounted to the frame via a Frames and Gear aftermarket derailleur hanger which we also spotted on his road bike. It's lighter, and apparently stiffer to make shifting even more crispy. We can’t actually see this, but it’s there. 

Raw carbon extensions

Poggi has been using non-standard TT extensions since the Giro d’Italia. At the time his new units were flat black and badged up with Enve logos. Here the shape remains unchanged, so I’ve no reason to suspect they are new, but they are raw carbon this time, so I suspect they’re just slightly lighter, as well as looking trick. 

Cooler brake pads

Nestled within the front and rear brake callipers are aftermarket brake pads from AbsoluteBlack. These feature a raised lattice that sticks out above the pad into the airflow and are said to aid brake performance by keeping temperatures down. There is also graphene involved in the mix thanks to its thermally conductive properties. 

An old tyre

This is something I don't think I've seen as yet. Pogačar appears to be running an old, quite worn rear tyre. It's not the TT version of the GP5000 I don't think, though the actual model has been sharpie'd out. My hypothesis is that this is perhaps an older, non tubeless GP5000 S, run with latex inner tubes. Perhaps the additional wear on the tread has made it thinner and therefore more supple, and ultimately faster, though we have no confirmation on this front.