Tadej Pogačar has been ahead of the curve in many modern cycling trends. He was an early adopter of short cranks and, likewise, his use of wider tyres on the road. But one area where he has been left behind in recent years has been in his use of a different bike on the cobbles to his standard race machine.
Last year, while Mathieu van der Poel was aboard a Canyon Aeroad, Pogačar ditched his new Colnago Y1Rs for the older V4Rs. Wout van Aert, despite doing recon aboard the more aero Cervélo S5, opted for the more endurance-oriented Soloist along with the rest of his team, but most other teams were aboard their standard aero machines.
This year, confirmed by his mechanic in an interview where it was also revealed that the Slovenian superstar won Milan-San Remo on a cracked frame, he will race aboard Colnago’s aero machine, and an Instagram post from the man himself reveals the setup is pushing the limits of what it can handle to the very extreme.
The radical Y1Rs first appeared at the tail end of 2024, with Pogačar using it for early-season races in 2025 before he mysteriously swapped back to the V4Rs for the cobbled and Ardennes classics.
Speculation online was rife as to whether he preferred the handling of the V4Rs that he was more used to, as the geometry of the Y1Rs was something of a departure from the Colnago road bikes he’d have ridden his whole professional career, or whether after initial testing in those early races the aero bike went back to Colnago for some tweaks before its return for the pre-Tour race block and the Tour de France itself.
Whatever the reason, since its return, it hasn’t been swapped out again despite Colnago updating the V4Rs to the V5Rs, and the use of it to ride to victory at Strade Bianche shows it’s at least usable on rougher roads.
Pogacar’s mechanic confirmed that this year he will use his aero bike for the cobbles:
"Before the Tour of Flanders, we will do another tour of Roubaix. There, we have been collecting data that the sports department needs to calculate what equipment and settings are optimal."
According to our contact at Colnago, this will be his fourth recon of the year, evidencing not only his, but his team's commitment to winning the race after finishing 2nd on debut last year.
"Tadej has already decided to compete with the Model Y [the Y1Rs], which he has not yet raced in Roubaix. That is why we repeated the ride on the cobblestones many times, we tested different tyre widths and pressures. In addition, the sponsors promised us that we would get material adapted for riding on cobblestones for this race."
From Pogacar’s Instagram post, we can see that he has absolutely maxed out the tyre capacity of the bike. Shots of the tyres in the back of the team car reveal that he is using Continental GP5000 S TR tyres, and we suspect these must be the new 35mm variety. They’re so tight there’s basically no room for anything besides the Roubaix dust to pass between tyre and fork. At the rear, the tolerance is equally minimal, but it appears still possible with a 2x setup.
At Milan-San Remo, he stealthily ran a 1x setup, and we expect this was something of a test run for Roubaix given the mostly flat parcours. Shimano doesn’t offer 1x setups out of the box, but with an aftermarket CarbonTi chainring and a K-Edge chain keeper, it is perfectly possible. Given we often see that the front derailleur clearance is the limiting step when it comes to tyre clearance, and that he is still running 2x in this post, it is entirely possible that he is running a larger front tyre than the rear, perhaps a 32/35mm split.
His usual 3D printed, aero computer mount has been swapped out for what appears to be a bronze-anodised alloy model to reduce the risk of it snapping, and the bar tape around the hoods also appears to have been double-wrapped too, which is very much the norm for Roubaix, though not for Flanders.
One final mod is that he appears to have swapped his race-day, $300,000 Richard Mille watch for a smart watch. The 2025 edition of Paris-Roubaix saw the crown of the watch cut into the back of Pogačar’s hand badly enough to cause noticeable bleeding, so while the luxury watch brand is a high profile sponsor of the team it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see the Slovenian either opt to go without a timepiece on race day, or add some extra padding to the back of his wrist for extra protection, in much the same way as we saw him adding foam to the underside of the levers of his 2025 Paris-Roubaix bike.
