10 Things To Copy Off Tour de France Pros To Make You FASTER & More Comfortable on The Bike

From tyres to saddles, we've taken a good look at all of the 2023 Tour de France bikes and equipment and here are 10 things that you can copy off the likes of Pogacar, Mark Cavendish and Vingegaard to make you quicker and more comfortable on your road bike.

In this video we take a look at the best road bike saddles, chain catchers, cycling nutrition, bike fits and weigh-in on the tubeless road bike tyres debate.

The Tour de France is home to some of the nicest road bikes and best road bike equipment in the world, so who better to get some top tips off of. Will you be purchasing any of these road bike upgrades? Let us know in the comments section below...

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⚫️ In this video

0:00 Introduction
0:25 Slammed stems are so last year
1:27 Wide tyres ain't slow
2:03 Get a chain catcher
2:58 Tubeless or tubed tyres?
3:49 The gear for the job
5:03 Fuel like a pro
5:43 Try a short-nosed saddle
6:11 Keep your sponsors happy
7:16 Your bike position is important!
7:58 Aero vs lightweight bikes
8:52 Outro

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[buster.keaton]

I love the shift in road cycling over the past few years towards a focus on comfort equating to speed. I spent decades riding 23C tires at well over 100 PSI thinking that was fast because it "felt fast". I now ride 32C tires at 60 PSI with no discernible loss in speed, but I feel radically less beat-up when my ride is done... not to mention I get far fewer flat tires.

[amhtxc]

Tubeless fatter tires, disc brakes, taller stems...some have already tried dropper posts and single chainrings with no front derailleur...Mountain biking is driving innovation in pro raod cycling!! Amazing!!

[andrewcockburn]

Slammed stems all the way. They look better at the café and keep physios in a job.😊

[christ]

The chain-catcher, for years it remained unnoticed on my bike until last week. I was descending down a bumpy road and could hear my chain dislodge from my chainrings from all that bouncing about. The chain-catcher kept the chain against my chainrings and all I had to do was to upshift the FD and start pedaling again, the chain hooked back up nicely. No dismount needed. I’m going to make sure this nifty gadget is on all my bikes from now on. 👍👍👍

[ugghhhyoutubeisawful]

that was awesome! i will never understand why the cycling broadcasts who have 4-5-6 hrs of coverage time refuse to give any (or next to nothing) details about gears, tires, wheel depths, heck, silly things like bearings and bb 's could even be worked in and i dont think anyone would be disappointed (again...5-insert capitals here 'five'- hours of coverage a day). no wonder cycling has no money. make the sponsors happy (and get mo money from sponsors) broadcasters and tell us about stuff. the sponsors will love it and we will love it.

[bobnelson]

Went from 23's at 120 PSI to 25's at 75 PSI. No loss in performance and a ride improvement. Now I'm on 28's at 65 PSI. Wow! What a difference in ride! Did a coasting test with some of my friends (we've done this every year) and I've lost nothing in performance (although the 28's were at 75 PSI at the time). I'll never go smaller than 28's again.

[bikesavvy]

As a mechanic hate to let you know the truth about the spaces under the stem is to reduce the sharp bends the brake hoses on round steerers. Less are needed with D shape

[Rambleon]

Tubeless today caused Pogačar to crash (2nd stage in the 2024 Giro, ) luckily he didn't get injured like so many this year.

[tyrionlannister]

I ve been riding quite a lot on the road and MTB 25 mm Continental GP 5000 tyres . Comfortable ride, quick acceleration and not a single puncture for about 6 years, really. This is my 3rd set. I change every 2 seasons after about 10 thousand km. One of the most important adjustments was moving the saddle on my Madone about 5-6 mm back. Thet helped combat the hands numbness substantially. Keep riding 🚴

[thomashines]

Thank You for the insight, I’ve been away from cycling for about 8 years, I’m now 58 years old and getting ready to climb back into the saddle and return to my first passionate sport, it may look a little off at first, but, it’s the passion that will make me feel younger once again, all the memories of smoking the field, and riding the Luge in Southern California will be replicated but in a more logical incantation, for I’m no longer 209 and 6% body fat or 23 so…… thanks for a bit of good information. Nice Video, I Ride Specialized, FSR Enduro and Allez Comp Pro.

[echtogammut]

The short nose saddle has to do with a UCI rule that the nose of the saddle has to be behind the bottom bracket. Initially teams were cutting saddles to make this work and the UCI said "no, no", so manufactures stepped in with short nose saddles. You don't need a short nose saddle, unless you need your saddle pushed forward and are subject to UCI inspections. The reason most pros did this, was to get into a more "TT" position on their bike.
Amusingly, Specialized sold this saddle as being more "ergonomic" and people bought into it, not knowing this was UCI "stupid rule" and everyone jumped on board seeing a new category to sell to a market of people who want to copy the pros.

[victorrodriguez]

Don't be confused by what you see. Sponsors are supplying what they want to sell. ( products with higher profit margins)
If the riders were able to choose the bike build best suited to a particular race. We'd see a peleton full of rim brakes and tubular tyres.
Facts!!!

[seanmccuen]

I'm on 30mm tires (on wide rims) and fkn' love 'em. 7:22, nice ride.

[xuchenglin]

This is the most honest video of cycling gears you guys ever made for a while, probably even true if you count other similar content creators. TDF is where hype has to meet the reality. Tyre is still one of the most important factor that has a 100% clear impact on speed, especially consider how fast the pros goes, and how they even race with each other on the downhills. Rolling resistance don't have a draft effect so the faster you go the more rolling resistance. Consider most of the times pros don't travel solo, and they travel fast, that means they experience a greater proportion of drag from tyres than us. Then the huge stack of spacers, what a relief! After all it's a human race, gears not imapct as much as the marketing bs wanting you to believe. Cycling is a simple sport and let's just keep it simple.

[dogukantosun]

I use a -17 degree stem with a 10mm spacer. It looks cooler than a -6 degree stem without spacer.

[randallsmith]

One unintended function of a chain catcher is to make sure it is almost impossible to get out from behind the chain catcher when the chain inevitably finds its way behind the catcher. Based on personal experience…

[victorrodriguez]

Wide tyres aren't slow. But skinny tires are faster.
I do use a small device on all of my bikes that keeps the chain from getting stuck between the frame and the crank arm.
Those "Specialized " tubulars are made by Vittoria.

[DavidFritzIII]

As far as wider tyres go, not everyone can simply slap on 28 or 30mm on their wheels for a faster ride, most of us don't have wheels with inner widths wide enough to be faster with the wider rubber

[billkallas]

Call me "old school", but I still ride with a 9cm saddle to bar drop, rim brakes, and 25mm tires. (with standard 53x39 gearing, and a 12-25)

[richardmiddleton]

Wider tyres might be faster on rough FLAT roads (although you still have to run the right pressure), but I bet none of the climbers are using 30mm tyres! The difference in weight between a 25 and 30 will be at least 50g per tyre and it's rotational weight on the very peripheral of the wheel! Then there's accelerating out of corners, closing gaps etc. where a heavier tyre is going to take more energy to accelerate.