Spotted: L-Twoo Groupsets and Other Time Trial Tech at the Tour de France Femmes

What a day of running around the pits at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift! With the only time trial of the race being run today in Gevrey-Chambertin, stage 4, I took the opportunity to check out all the kit being tested against the clock, and I can report that there were some seriously interesting setups, from the usual latest and greatest wind-cheating tech to items we’ve never seen in the pro peloton before.

Asian brands are coming for WorldTour racing

Let’s start with the item, or items, as the case may be, that really caught my eye and should be a small indicator to Western markets that the stampede of Asian brands is coming for the market here. Wild card-invite team Ma Petite Entreprise, a squad that has been sponsored by Winspace, an Asian direct-to-consumer brand, for two years now, upped the presence of Chinese-made components in use by having the squad on L-Twoo’s R-EX groupsets.

If you’ve not heard the name before, take note as they are growing fast and see to have a solid following in Western markets already.  L-Twoo is a Chinese groupset manufacturer with a wide array of road, MTB, and gravel shifting options available. The R-EX components the team were using were the brake levers and shifters, bar-end shifters, front and rear derailleurs, and the disc brake calipers. The chainsets were either Shimano Ultegra or Dura-Ace but with Cybrei 1x chainrings and Ultegra casettes.

Custom aero bars everywhere

Today’s aero bar extensions came in all shapes and sizes, and that’s purely down to a huge amount of the peloton seemingly having them custom-made. The two main players in this field that I noticed on a plethora of teams’ bikes were either Speeco or WattShop. It really has become the area where it’s hard to spot “sponsor correct” cockpits; even over on Zoe Backstedt’s bike, she was using two different WattShop bars on her two Canyon SpeedMax bikes.

Talking of the Canyon SpeedMax, I did manage to take a look at the bike of eventual winner Marlen Reusser of Movistar. What with being not just the world time trial champ but also European champ, the team and Canyon have had to squeeze not just the rainbow bands onto her frame but also the blue with yellow stars of Europe.

In the video there is a whole host of extra tech I’ve not included here. More custom-painted bikes from championships, more SpongeBob and even a few pizzas.

Hit that play button and enjoy.
Cheers, Dave.