De près avec le vélo de route hyper-aéro inédit de Dare au Tour de France 2024

L'équipe Uno-X pilote un vélo de route aérodynamique radical et inédit lors du Tour de France 2024.

Produit par la marque taïwanaise (et sponsor de l'équipe Uno-X) Dare, le vélo va à l'encontre de la tendance dominante des vélos polyvalents, en adoptant plutôt une approche hyper-aérodynamique avec peu de considération apparente pour le poids.

Avant le départ de la course à Florence, en Italie, nous avons examiné de près le nouveau vélo à l'hôtel de l'équipe Uno-X.

Serait-ce la moto qui aidera l'équipe Uno-X à remporter sa première victoire lors de la plus grande course du sport ?

Retour du vélo aéro

Ces dernières années, nous avons vu un certain nombre de marques de premier plan abandonner les vélos de route aérodynamiques dédiés au profit de modèles qui équilibrent performances aérodynamiques et faible poids.

Specialized, par exemple, a mis son S-Works Venge au pâturage lors de la sortie du S-Works Tarmac SL7 en 2020, tandis que le Madone SLR de huitième génération récemment annoncé par Trek a sonné le glas de son Émonda.

De même, la sortie d'un Giant Propel Advanced SL léger en 2022 a vu l'emblématique TCR de la marque relégué à une utilisation limitée dans le WorldTour.

Dare semble adopter l'approche inverse, avec un design plus proche de celui d'autres vélos de route aérodynamiques tels que le Cervélo S5, le Ribble Ultra SLR et le Cannondale SystemSix Hi-Mod.

Pour autant que nous puissions en juger, le nouveau vélo de route aérodynamique de Dare semble s'appeler « Velocity Ace », car cela est imprimé sur le tube diagonal.

Il s'agit très probablement d'une mise à jour du vélo aérodynamique existant de la marque, le VSRu. Le nouveau vélo double cependant les optimisations aérodynamiques, avec des formes de tubes aérodynamiques plus profondes partout et une construction entièrement axée sur la vitesse.

Tubes à section profonde tout autour

Le tube de direction est l'une des parties les plus frappantes du Velocity Ace.

Il utilise un profil aérodynamique profond et tronqué et s'élève du tube supérieur pour rejoindre l'arrière du nouveau guidon intégré du vélo (nous en parlerons plus tard).

À l'extrémité inférieure, le tube de direction est sculpté pour contrôler le flux d'air provenant du té de fourche.

Vu de face, le tube de direction est en forme de sablier – se rétrécissant entre les roulements supérieur et inférieur du jeu de direction pour réduire davantage la traînée.

Alors que la fourche du VSRu s'est légèrement effilée vers le bas, les pattes étroites à lame de la nouvelle fourche restent profondes jusqu'en bas.

Là où le tube diagonal du VSRu avait une petite découpe pour la roue avant, le Velocity Ace a un tube diagonal droit avec un profil aérodynamique tronqué plus profond et plus large.

Contrairement au nouveau Trek Madone SLR, le Velocity Ace utilise des porte-bidons standard non intégrés avec des bouteilles d'eau rondes pour vélo.

Il se peut cependant que le tube diagonal redessiné offre une meilleure gestion du flux d'air autour de cette zone qu'auparavant.

À l'arrière du vélo, les profils aérodynamiques du tube de selle, des haubans et de la tige de selle ont également été considérablement approfondis.

Reste à savoir si cela aura un impact sur la conformité. Cependant, si l'on met de côté les haubans, il ne semble pas que Dare ait fait beaucoup de concessions en matière de confort.

Like some time trial bikes, the seatpost appears to have multiple saddle clamp locations, enabling a rider to adjust the effective seat tube angle – an important consideration for fit purposes.

One of the deepest handlebars we’ve seen

Beyond the head tube, the bike’s new aero handlebar is also remarkable, thanks to its use of an exceptionally deep and thin aerofoil profile on the tops.

Expectedly, the handlebar uses an integrated design, with the hydraulic brake hoses fully concealed within the bar and running into the frame unseen.The top tube rises to meet the rear of the stem, while the headset top cap has been cleverly profiled to smooth out the junction between the two.

Overall, Dare’s new bar appears to take the opposite approach to Ribble’s ground-breaking Ultra handlebar (which features on the Ultra SLR). The Ribble bar uses a similarly deep aerofoil profile, but is much more bulbous, as it’s designed to manipulate the airflow hitting the rider behind it.

Notably, Trek says the updated handlebar on its recently launched, eighth-generation Madone SLR does something similar (albeit on a smaller scale).

The Dare handlebar, in contrast, looks to be designed simply to reduce its impact on the airflow as much as possible.

As with rear-end comfort, there doesn’t seem to have been much consideration for a rider being able to hold the tops of the handlebar. As with the rest of the bike, it looks to be all about maximising aerodynamic efficiency.

On this bike, which belongs to four-time Tour de France stage winner, Alexander Kristof, the cockpit combines a 120mm-long stem with a 380mm-wide handlebar (measured centre to centre at the brake hoods).

The frame also has a logo noting the headset contains CeramicSpeed's SLT (Solid Lubrication Technology) bearings – which are claimed to provide exceptionally long lifespans, reducing the frequency with which the front end requires servicing.

A speed-focused build with personal upgrades

The rest of the build sees an uncompromising focus on speed.

Like last year, Kristof’s wheelset of choice is the DT Swiss ARC 1100 Dicut DB, with 62mm-deep rims.

These are wrapped with Schwalbe Pro One TLE tyres, in a 700 x 28c size that measures up at 27.9mm-wide on the DT Swiss rims.

As with last year, the tyres have conspicuous blue accents that don’t come on the versions of the Pro One TLE available in shops.

Having spotted these last year, we asked Schwalbe if this was a new, updated version of the German brand’s highly-rated tubeless tyre. Unfortunately, the brand declined to shed any light on the subject.

According to our well-informed YouTube audience, though, these could be special-edition, race day-only versions of the tyre – something faster, lighter but potentially less durable than the standard tyres, for example.

Schwalbe has apparently created similarly-branded tyres for its sponsored mountain bike athletes previously, so that could be what’s going on here.

As for the drivetrain, Kristof and his Uno-X team are still running Shimano’s flagship Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 groupset.

This year, though, the team has switched from using Shimano’s Dura-Ace FC-R9200-P power meter crankset to FSA’s Powerbox Team.

This consists of an FSA power meter spider (which we believe is made by Power2Max) paired with the brand's carbon cranks and aluminium chainrings.

When we saw Kristof’s bike, a couple of days out from the race start, it was equipped with some huge 56/40t chainrings.

Even though these were paired with a wide-ranging 11-34t cassette out back, we wonder whether Kristof might have swapped to something smaller for the race’s mountainous opening stage.

Perhaps due to a change in team sponsor, Kristof has switched saddles from the Pro Stealth Curved Team he used at last year’s Tour to a Prologo Scratch M5 with carbon rails.

Finishing things off, Kristof’s bike was also decked out with CeramicSpeed’s latest OSPW (Oversized Pulley Wheel System) RS Alpha and a waxed chain.

The 'Alpha Disc' solid pulley wheels are claimed to prevent dirt or debris entering the system and contaminating the bearings.

A new bike that’s heavier than the old one

It’s rare to see a new road bike released that’s significantly heavier than the outgoing version, but that’s exactly what we have here.

According to Dare, the VSRu had a claimed frame weight of 1,190g in a size small (although Kristof rides a 56cm frame). While we don’t yet have a claimed weight for Velocity Ace frame, we think its deeper tubes and aggressive aerodynamic optimisations have likely added weight.

That appears to be confirmed by the overall weight of Kristof’s Dare Velocity Ace, too, which came in at spot-on 8kg, according to our scales.

That’s 255g more than the 7.745kg weight we took for his Dare VSRu at last year’s Tour.

As things stand, that’s all we know about Dare’s radical new aero road bike.

Given a number of Uno-X riders are using the bike at this year’s Tour, it appears the bike is production ready and could launch imminently.

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Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 with FSA PowerBox Team power meter (56/40t chainrings, 11-34t cassette), FSA carbon cranks, CeramicSpeed OSPW RS Alpha and UFO waxed chain

Wheelset: DT Swiss ARC 1100 Dicut 62 DB

Tyres: Schwalbe Pro One TLE 29c (measured width 27.9mm)

Bar/stem: Dare, 38cm handlebar width, 12cm stem length

Seatpost: Dare

Saddle: Prologo Scratch M5  Nack

Bottle cages: Elite Vico Carbon

Pedals: Shimano Dura-Ace

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