Venturing with what the bicycle brands will surprise us throughout the year that begins is a kind of pool in the face of a market that has yet to recover from the ups and downs of recent years, for which reason the brands increasingly try to stretch some developments whose creation consumes huge resources.
And it is that the brands are continually debated between the need to offer new bikes, beyond the annual updates of colors and components, that maintain the attractiveness of the brand and the attention of the potential client. On the other hand, developing a bike nowadays entails a tremendous effort, both in terms of time and human and material resources.
This implies that what not so long ago was a life cycle of around two seasons has been stretching over time due to the need to amortize the bikes that cost so much to create as much as possible. Besides, it must be considered that making a major modification to a model or launching a completely new one must imply an improvement and the incorporation of new technologies.
To mention the last big changes that led to substantially different models, they occurred around five years ago, with the incorporation of disc brakes and, in recent seasons, with the standardization of completely internal wiring. The latest trend affects aerodynamic bikes where the renovations seek to take advantage of the latest update to the UCI rules that eliminated the obligation to maintain a 3:1 ratio between the width of the tubes and their depth.
Candidates for change
In this guessing exercise we will have to trust the bikes that were last changed around the year 2019 since between 3 and 4 years seems to be the figure set as the standard life cycle of current bicycles. A useful life that in many cases is extended with small modifications such as those of the new Cervélo S5, practically indistinguishable from the one launched in 2017 and which this past year received an update with tweaks in the steering area.
During the concentrations of the professional teams in recent weeks we have been able to venture some bikes that will surely be renewed throughout this season, such as the Canyon Aeroad of which we saw Mathieu Van der Poel use a prototype that heralded a new bike and whose current version has suffered various ups and downs, from the delays caused by the pandemic to problems with its new handlebar or with the anchorage of its seatpost.
Rumors of a new bike were also sparked by the new handlebars that riders on Specialized bikes are using and that could lead us to think that a new Tarmac could be on the way, although this time it is not likely to be more than a facelift. expensive compared to the existing one, which has only been on the market for a couple of seasons.
Another renovation that seems safe is that of the Cannondale SuperSix, the benchmark of the North American brand, and of which we saw a prototype a few days ago in the hands of the new EF Education-EasyPost cyclist Andrey Amador. Without leaving Cannondale, another bike that would have to be updated would be its SystemSix aerodynamic model, a bike that has been left in the background with the evolution towards aerodynamics that completely transformed the SuperSix.
2022 brought us a new Scott Foil, which maximized its aerodynamic qualities while seeking a more competitive weight. It is not unreasonable to think that this new season its sister Addict is the one that receives a facelift, a bike that dates from 2019 and that, although it has a fully current design and technologies, after 3 years it is reasonable to think that it could receive some change
Nor would it be strange if we saw some tweaking in Giant’s TCR, a brand that completely renewed its Propel aerodynamics a few months ago. The TCR climber, although its current version was released in 2020, is one of the few bikes where we can still see cables coming out of the handlebar tape. In any case, it would not be a drastic change, but we imagine that it would focus on achieving that demanded cleaning of lines.
Another of the bikes that has not been modified for a long time of those that are currently on the market is the Ridley Noah aerodynamics, a development from 2018, prior to the changes in the UCI regulations that affect aerodynamics, so it could be a good candidate to undergo a major change.
However, all this is no longer mere assumptions based on the usual way of acting in brands, something that cannot be extrapolated in a time where new developments are carried more and more in secret and in many cases, we do not get to know nothing until these new bikes are presented to the press. So we will have to be patient and wait until June when the Dauphiné dispute ends up becoming the testing ground before the imminent Tour de France, which in recent years has become the perfect speaker for new bikes.
Source: www.brujulabike.com