Bike tech has come a long way since 2015 – through a decade of rapid, performance-driven change – and looking back at the machine ridden at that year’s edition of Paris-Roubaix is a case in point.
John Degenkolb, having finished second in the Hell of the North in 2014, returned a year later to win Paris-Roubaix and become only the third rider in history to do the Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix double. Mathieu van der Poel also went on to complete the feat in 2023, and won Paris-Roubaix again in 2024.
Van der Poel’s winning bike last year, a Canyon Aeroad (pictured at the top of this article), is typical of the Paris-Roubaix bikes of today, just as Degenkolb’s was very much in the mould of a 2015 Roubaix machine. However, while MVDP used his regular, disc-equipped aero road bike, Degenkolb rode an endurance bike, the Giant Defy, for the cobbles of Roubaix.
Disc brakes were not permitted by the UCI in 2015, so Degenkolb used a rim brake Defy, with 30mm Vittoria Pavé CX Team tyres – progressive in their width at the time – in a tubular format, a two-piece handlebar and stem, and a cross-top lever for the rear brake.
Rim brakes, tubulars and additional brake levers are all very much out at Paris-Roubaix in 2025 – and endurance bikes are a rare sight when aero is all the rage – so, ten years on from Degenkolb’s win, what tech will dominate this year’s race? And – crystal ball time... – if we throw things forward to 2035, what will Roubaix tech look like in another decade?
Ahead of Sunday's men's race, I asked three of BikeRadar’s tech nerds for their predictions.
And yours? Let us know in the comments below.
What trends will dominate this year’s race?
Warren Rossiter, senior technical editor
Paris-Roubaix is relatively flat – and pancake flat compared to the Grand Tours – so there's no real disadvantage with running 1x.
For this year's race, I’d predict an aero bike, running 30mm tyres and with a 1x drivetrain making at least an appearance on the podium.
Simon von Bromley, senior tech writer
For various reasons, Paris-Roubaix bikes have become somewhat boring in recent years, with most of the top contenders simply opting for their regular aero race bike, plus a set of the largest tubeless tyres that will fit. I expect more of the same this year.
No doubt we’ll see plenty of 1x drivetrains in use by SRAM-sponsored riders this year (Shimano doesn’t officially support 1x for road bikes yet, so we’ll see far less of it from the WorldTour teams the Japanese brand sponsors), though I suspect most will leave the wide-ranging Red XPLR AXS gravel derailleur at home in favour of the ‘road’ Red AXS and its tighter cassettes. (Editor’s note: Simon’s prediction was written before Lidl-Trek surprised us with a hacked Red XPLR AXS 13-speed derailleur modified for use with a 12-speed road cassette – no one called that).
Visma-Lease a Bike may also be able to shake things up with Gravaa’s KAPS on-the-fly tyre pressure adjustment system, with Wout van Aert spotted using the system during a recce.
Jack Luke, digital editor
My pick is perfect because its invisibility means it can’t be disproven: tyre inserts will be used extensively by teams at Roubaix.
Road inserts are generally designed to provide a run-flat solution (rather than protect the rim), but wider tyres open the opportunity for beefier gravel-like inserts.
Wide tyres are more comfortable (and faster), but even chunky rubber will struggle to isolate the rim from a full tilt whack against a coconut-sized cobble at 50km/h.
Flat tyres are slow, so if I were a team mechanic, there’s no question I’d be strongly encouraging my riders to use inserts.
What trends will dominate Paris-Roubaix in 2035?
Warren Rossiter, senior technical editor
Current UCI rules, which state a wheel and tyre’s diameter cannot exceed 700mm, somewhat limit the tyre width pros can use at the moment, along with current frame clearances.
By 2035, I predict bike designers and racers alike will have much more freedom. Imagine just having one bike for everything!
In ten years, we won’t need experiments in suspension, like we’ve seen in the past, just stripped-down aero race bikes capable of taking a 40mm tyre, sitting on a road rim the width of Zipp’s current 303 XPLR gravel wheelset, which measures 32mm internally.
That’ll give the cushioning required without excess weight, and I wouldn’t rule out a 1x14-speed wireless and electronic groupset, of course, in the style of SRAM’s current direct-mount gravel and MTB drivetrains.
The Lidl-Trek team has already started to experiment with SRAM Red XPLR, bringing gravel gearing to the Classics for 2025, thanks to the early adoption of SRAM’s UDH standard on the Trek Madone road bike. Trek may be forward-thinking in adding UDH, but it gives a strong signal as to what the future may look like.
Simon von Bromley, senior technical writer
When tasked to imagine a future a decade away, it’s tempting to dream up all manner of space-age technology.
If we look back ten years to John Degenkolb’s win in 2015, though, we can see that while there’s been plenty of technological progress since, some of the fundamentals haven’t changed (partly because the UCI simply won’t allow them to). Dege was ahead of his time with 30mm-wide tyres.
Given the direction of travel, though, I reckon we’ll see a continuing focus on aerodynamics, integration, wide tubeless tyres and wide rims to match.
Given Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe’s head of engineering, Dan Bigham, told us that tyres are “the next frontier” of road bike performance late last year, I think it’s fair to say we’ll see increased focus on that area over the next decade.
Will the 30-32mm tyres that most riders use at the moment seem as laughably narrow as the 25-28mm tyres many riders used a decade ago? It’s not far-fetched to think so.
With Lidl-Trek (and presumably other pro teams) asking for 38 to 40mm of tyre clearance on their next race bike, and gravel racers pushing into cross-country mountain bike territory with tyre width, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see 35mm tyres as the new ‘standard’ for road, with tyres around 40mm used for Paris-Roubaix and other Spring Classics.
Jack Luke, digital editor
Picking an assortment of bold Tomorrow’s World-like tech, I see advances in graphene, 3D printing and live telematics becoming the norm at Roubaix.
Graphene promised higher strength and lower weight than anything before. Though limited now, its use will be commonplace on bikes by 2035.
3D-printed bikes suited to match each rider? It’s not that farfetched, given the rate of development we’ve already seen with cockpits.
We’ve been predicting that aero sensors are just around the corner for years. Products from the likes of Body Rocket look promising, and I expect the tech will mature – and be used extensively – by 2035. Elsewhere, we’ve seen a new Zipp wheelset with an integrated tyre pressure sensor break cover at this year’s Spring Classics.
With Paris-Roubaix such a fast race, and riding the bone-jarring cobbles such a juxtaposed experience to sailing across smooth tarmac, live data – be it aero data, tyre pressure data or something else – could be par for the course by 2035.
