Aero kit is fastest on the flat; lightweight kit is fastest on steep climbs – we all know that. But what if you’re doing a long ride such as a gran fondo, with flat sections, climbs, descents, the full works? Is an aero, lightweight or all rounder setup faster overall?
The answer isn’t obvious, so to find out we brought together three bikes and three corresponding sets of kit and tested them all on a 100km loop in the French Pyrenees, including an ascent of the mighty Col du Tourmalet. In total, the ride has 2,000m of ascent and is dominated by that famous climb, but it’s worth remembering that the Tourmalet accounts for only a fifth of the full distance, with much of the rest of the route looking like happy hunting ground for aero gear (for details of the route, see the map on p99).
‘Performance over the full course should always be the focus, so this is a great test,’ says Simon Smart of Drag2Zero, consultant to several top brands and WorldTour teams. ‘It can be tempting for riders at
