Tour de France 2026 Tech Briefing: The Van Rysel RCR-F Pro is the king of aero

​The world’s best cyclists will be competing in the Tour de France until 26 July. Victory and defeat on the roads of France are decided not only by the riders’ legs, but also by their equipment. The TOUR Tech Briefing for Stage 17.

Following the mountain stages and the time trial, breakaways are expected to dominate Stage 17. Team Visma, too, could set their sights on stage wins following Jonas Vingegaard’s withdrawal, in a bid to secure a meaningful result from the Tour.

Depending on their riding style, sprinters also stand a chance if they make it through the mountainous start of the stage unscathed. The approach to the finish isn’t exactly straightforward, with three sharp bends in the final 1,000 metres and an uphill home straight. The course design suggests that the organisers are not expecting a bunch sprint.

​The most likely scenario, in our view, is a breakaway group. In today’s simulation, we’re assuming an attack from within a group. 15.4 kilometres from the finish, on a gentle climb just before the final descent, our attacker pulls away. He disguises his surge by staying in the saddle – effectively a sprint from the saddle.

If there were a sprinter in the breakaway group, the non-sprinters would have to take them by surprise with such a move beforehand.

Number of the day: A 37-second lead over 15.4 kilometres

​The simulation shows that, once again, aerodynamics is the key to success. Anyone who wants to break away from the group and pull ahead must manage their energy as efficiently as possible – in other words, they must cut through the wind effectively.

The Van Rysel RCR-F Pro is once again the king of this discipline, clocking up a 37-second lead over a non-optimised bike in just 20 minutes’ riding time. Given that the bike contributes only a small part to the overall performance, that’s a significant achievement.

Whether such an attack from a breakaway group is successful, however, depends above all on the behaviour of the other riders. Only if a gap opens up because the others hesitate to chase immediately does a fast rider have a chance of crossing the finish line solo.

An overview of the (almost) full line-up*:

​The table shows the simulated ride times for the final 15.4 kilometres of the stage. Which bike would best support an attacker launching an attack from a breakaway group? Once again, the aero bikes stand out with the shortest ride times; despite the slightly uphill finish, weight plays a significantly lesser role.

​* Simulation calculations

Based on our own wind tunnel tests, we carry out simulation calculations for the Tour de France tech briefing. How TOUR tests: Aero road bike test in the wind tunnel.

We are investigating which wheels can offer a technical advantage in which situations. The variables we can control in the simulation include wheel weight, rider weight, the inertia of the wheels, the drag coefficient, the rolling resistance coefficient and the efficiency of the drivetrain.

To model ride times, we use realistic power outputs and rider weights, combine these with our wind tunnel data, and have the riders race virtually along selected sections of the route, which we extract from the official route data; the derived elevation profiles are key to this. The modelling also includes bends, which we can brake for realistically, and adjustable power profiles for different types of riders. This allows us to distinguish between hill climbs and proper final sprints. Taken together, this makes the simulation very realistic. What we cannot replicate are dynamic handling effects such as the individual behaviour of the wheels on different surfaces.

The journey times calculated for the sections of the route that are decisive for the race highlight the influence of the wheels – provided that the riders always behave in the same way in a given scenario.