A closer look at BMC's wild new 'Red Bull' aero bike: Ben O'Connor's Tour de France bike
At the opener of the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, our esteemed tech writer Will Jones had a particularly busy morning, spotting two brand new race bikes in the paddocks, courtesy of Lotto Soudal's new Ridley bikes and AG2R Citröen's wild-looking 'Red Bull' BMC aero bike.
Fast forward to today, and with the Tour de France officially upon us, we've been doing our annual tech pilgrimage touring the teams' hotels at the Grand Départ in Bilbao. We've already brought you a closer look at the Ridley prototype, and now it's the turn of the BMC.
We stopped by the AG2R Citroen hotel – an aptly named 'palace' (it really was lovely) – and spent some time getting up close and personal with the bike, checking out the details, and trying to see beyond the god-awful stickerbomb design that someone had given it, presumably to make it stand out more on TV.
The bike we got was that of the team's GC favourite Ben O'Connor, but we also noticed a second, marked up for French star Benoit Cosnefroy.
Given the aggressive tube profiles on show, and the fact that O'Connor chose not to ride it on the hilly first stage of this year's Tour, it's evident that the bike in question is a dedicated aero bike, rather than a semi-aero race bike or anything focused entirely on the climbs. With that in mind, we're assuming this is a replacement for BMC's Timemachine Road, the current aero bike.
Given its apparent aero leaning, we'll likely see more of it on the flat stages to come, and beneath sprinters or bigger rouleurs such as Oliver Naesen.
