Every year, the Spring Classics provide racing and bike tech fans with some of the most compelling storylines of the year, culminating with Holy Week – the Tour of Flanders this Sunday and Paris-Roubaix a week later.
Mads Pedersen, searching for his first Monument win after previously earning a podium finish apiece at Flanders and Roubaix, is in red-hot form, having won the Gent-Wevelgem semi-Classic last weekend.
Pedersen launched a 56km solo attack aboard a Trek Madone equipped with a 1x, 56-tooth road chainring at the front, and gravel gearing on the rear – SRAM’s Red XPLR rear derailleur and huge 10-46t cassette.
With Trek launching the new Madone in June last year, compatible with SRAM’s Universal Derailleur Hanger, and the UDH-ready XPLR groupset coming soon after, Pedersen's bike is the lovechild of the latest aero road and gravel tech.
Lidl-Trek riders have been using the setup through the Classics campaign, and we showed you Emma Norsgaard’s bike from the Opening Weekend in February.
Now, with Flanders and Roubaix looming, and following Pedersen’s win, we caught up with Glen Leven, team support manager for Lidl-Trek, to find out exactly why the squad has turned to gravel gearing for the world’s biggest one-day races – and what’s next for Classics tech.
Speaking to Leven, who’s tasked with optimising the team’s equipment, for an episode of the BikeRadar Podcast, we found out:
- How the idea started on the forest tracks of Luxembourg
- Leven pitched the idea to Mads Pedersen
- A winter recce of the Flanders cobbles got the former world champion on board
- Why Jasper Stuyven remains skeptical
- Whether 40mm tyres could have a future at Paris-Roubaix
- And how the pros are clamouring for more tyre clearance
- But a current UCI rule could put a cap on how wide pros can go with tyres
Listen to the full interview below – or read on for the edited Q&A.
The seed of an idea
BikeRadar:
Last weekend saw Mads Pedersen win Gent-Wevelgem on a 1x setup that combined a 56t road chainring with the SRAM Red XPLR rear derailleur and 10-46t cassette. Why has there been that change in the team this year, with some Lidl-Trek riders using a 1x gravel gearing setup for the Spring Classics?
Glen Leven:
When Trek launched the eight-generation Madone last year, with the UDH hanger, I didn’t know what it was and why, but later on, SRAM launched a new XPLR groupset built for UDH, so that’s when the idea first came up – could this be a potential option?
In August, I got my new gravel bike, a Trek Checkmate, set up with XPLR. I live in Luxembourg, where the gravel roads are more like bumpy roads in the forest, and the performance of the rear derailleur on bumpy roads is huge. That’s when the idea was born – could this be an option to try in the Classics, when the riders really need to shift under load on the cobbles.
Afterwards, I needed to check on the gear range, because by going to 1x you nearly halve your gearing options, going from 24 options [with a 2x 12-speed setup] to 13-speed. However, I saw that with the 46-tooth sprocket, and a 54 or 56-tooth chainring, the smallest gear ratio is pretty close to what Mads and the other riders are used to [with 2x].
I presented the idea to Mads with some data, looking at weight and the gear ratios, and he said, “Okay, we can only find out if it works if we try”.
After Paris-Tours, we stayed for two more days in Belgium and France, where we rode it for the first time on the cobbles, to see if it made sense. Mads wasn’t super-convinced from the first ride – he thought it was maybe missing some gears, and the same for Jasper Stuyven.
With those two, we have two very different types of rider. Mads rides with more force, and Japser more with cadence. Jasper was struggling to find the right cadence and Mads wasn’t super-convinced but hadn’t rejected the idea, so we had to do more testing.
Mads then tried it more at home, on his gravel bike also, and in December [at Lidl-Trek’s training camp], I presented the idea to all of the Classics riders, male and female. I showed them the testing outcome and we did more testing on the road, especially looking at the big jump between the 46-tooth sprocket and 38 on the cassette.
That was always the big question mark – is it too big of a jump? But the riders didn’t notice it so much so we decided at the end of January to go to Flanders for three days with Mads and Alex Kirsch for three days of recon.
The first day was a long ride in the rain on the cobbles and Mads came back and said, “Okay, the decision is done, I’m going to ride XPLR.”
If you then have a leader like Mads on board with the idea then it’s likely the other riders will follow.
Testing, testing
BikeRadar:
You mentioned that Mads was initially skeptical about the jump between the biggest sprocket on the cassette and the second biggest. What was it that changed his mind?
Glen Leven:
With XPLR, the only downside is the jump between those gears.
The example I gave to the riders is that, if they’re climbing Oude Kwaremont, and it’s super-steep, they might need the 46t, but then it flattens down and you need speed, so you shift one down, so they don’t miss a gear [in between].
When we were training in January on the cobbles, on Oude Kwaremont, Mads did say, “Okay, that is a big jump, but if I go with 2x then I have to shift from the small ring to the big one, I lose two or three seconds, and I'm always worried about whether my chain is going to get stuck.”
With 1x, he’d rather have two or three seconds where the gear is too light or too heavy. Shifting between chainrings on the cobbles can always cause an issue, and it doesn’t matter if you’re using SRAM, Shimano or Campagnolo – you never know what your chain is doing with the vibration. That risk is eliminated with 1x and XPLR.
Sponsor pressure
BikeRadar:
Is there any pressure from SRAM from a sponsorship point of view to try 1x or is it completely up to the team to use what’s best?
Glen Leven:
SRAM was super-motivated and helpful to make it happen, and ensure we had everything we needed to use XPLR, but there was never any pressure.
From the seven [male] Classics riders, six are using XPLR and Jasper is still on the normal 2x setup because he’s not super-convinced and is missing one gear, because he’s a rider who’s very focussed on cadence.
It’s just one more option that we can offer riders right now, that no other team can.
1x in the WorldTour
BikeRadar:
Mads was using a 2x setup for Paris-Nice and switched to 1x for the Classics. Do you see 1x being used outside of the Classics or is it the very specific nature of the cobbles and the short climbs that make it applicable there, but not in stage racing?
Glen Leven:
If the climbs are not too steep or it’s a sprint stage, some of the riders can use 1x, but a normal road 1x setup, with a road cassette and derailleur, not XPLR, which is designed for off-road so better for the cobbles.
Personally, I don’t see a use for XPLR outside of the Flanders Classics. If you go with a normal road 1x setup then you save weight. The climbs in Flanders are short and steep, so it’s always a fast race in the end, with the climbs just small bumps, but in a stage race with big mountains where you might be climbing for half-an-hour, then you might be missing some gears with XPLR or 1x.
At this stage, I don’t see 1x being used from stage one to stage 21 at a Grand Tour, for example.
Gravel influence
BikeRadar:
It's really interesting to see that gravel tech has shifted from the gravel world and that we are seeing it in the Classics, raced in the biggest one-day races in the WorldTour. Is the team looking at any other gravel technology that could be relevant to the road?
For example, we can see on the Trek Madone that there's a flared bar, so you can get a really narrow aero position, but then still get that stability for sprinting. Is there anything else that you think could come over from gravel?
Glen Leven:
Right now, not really.
We’ve tested some dropper posts, at a super early stage, but is it really needed? The weight you have to add… Does it make sense? You can use the dropper post for the downhill, but you also need to carry it uphill.
For now, I don't see anything else from gravel coming through. Tyres are slowly getting wider but there won’t be a huge change from gravel from today to tomorrow.
Wider tyres getting wider
BikeRadar:
On that, the trend for wider tyres has been really significant over the past few years. I know that Pirelli is one of the team’s sponsors and now has a 40mm-wide P-Zero road tyre. The Madone can't take a 40mm tyre – it only has official clearance for a 32 – but if there was room in the frame, would there be a temptation to at least test it and see what it’s like for Paris-Roubaix?
Glen Leven:
The biggest problem with the 40mm tyre is that the wheel needs to have a maximum diameter of 700mm. That limit is set by the UCI and would be over with a 40mm tyre.
We tested 35s for Roubaix but didn’t see any huge advantages – right now – to go with 35, which is why we will stick with 32, and 30 for Flanders.
More clearance, please
BikeRadar:
Are the pros on the team asking for more tyre clearance on bikes? As I say, there's officially room for 32s on the Madone, but are you making that request for more room for the next generation?
Glen Leven:
Yes, that’s pretty clear. We are always checking on the trends.
Trek launched the eighth-generation Madone last year and shortly after started R&D on the next bike. For sure, we asked for more clearance, to go wider and get clearance up to 38-40, to be ready if the UCI changes its rules with the 700mm diameter, so we can have new wheels in development to anticipate this change.
BikeRadar:
It's been amazing to see how Paris-Roubaix technology has changed over the past 20 years, from narrow tubular tyres, through to 32mm tubeless tyres this year. In five years time, for example, could we see 38mm tyres on race bikes at Roubaix?
Glen Leven:
It could be. If you asked the same question to me 10 years ago, I don't think we would have even mentioned disc brakes, but now nobody is even thinking about rim brakes anymore and we’re talking about super-wide tyres. I’m always curious about what the future will bring.
