A new Campagnolo groupset, three new helmets and a horde of time trial tech: All the Giro d’Italia tech from the Grande Partenza

Starting with something new, this is a helmet designed in a collaboration between XDS Astana and their new bike sponsor XDS, the brand borne out of a carbon bike manufacturing factory in China.

There’s a clear aero consideration to the shape, but not completely at the expense of ventilation. It’s unclear what it’ll be called, nor when it’ll be available to buy.

Also new is the EF Education-Easypost team’s changeout kit. They’ve made a splash in recent years by collaborating with streetwear brand Palace, but this year they’ve kept it simple and switched pink to white, retaining the bling diamond design.

Also, a special mention to Egan Bernal’s new Colombian national champion’s kit. It’s a great design.

Also new is the Q36.5 Pro Cycling team’s time trial helmet. This one’s pretty wild, but in the age of spaceship helmets like the Giro Aerohead and the Specialized TT5, this one now seems rather normal. Zooming in on the writing at the rear of the helmet, it says ‘Split MIPS’, which suggests it’ll replace the existing Split helmet.

The shape of this is quite similar to the POC Procen or the Sweet Protection Redeemer, with how it skirts around the shoulders. Given that those are both quite rider-specific in that they aren’t always the fastest option for everyone, we’d expect this to be similar, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see some riders still using the existing Scott Split helmet.

XDS Astana actually brought two new helmets to the race. This is their second, a TT helmet that the team’s aero expert Alex Dowsett was involved in designing.

It uses a shape that’s slightly more akin to the Rudy Project The Wing or the S-Works TT5, which are said to be slightly more universal in how well they perform with different riders.

Speaking of new things, there’s no doubt that the big new-tech news coming out of the Giro is the new Campagnolo Super Record groupset, which has broken cover beneath a few of the Cofidis Team riders.

The headline change is Campagnolo’s decision to revert back to using thumb shifters, ditching the double-paddle it unveiled in 2023.

The new shift/brake lever is currently unbranded, but it looks sleek and svelte in this matte carbon finish.

The rear derailleur has a significantly more skeletal appearance than the current Super Record Wireless version.

It still maintains a similar overall shape, but it’s been on a diet.

Any unnecessary material has been removed, and parts of the parallelogram have been hollowed out.

The other big news is a switch to a 13-speed cassette. We’re told this is a 10-33, but the N3W freehub body that Campagnolo uses – introduced when it launched 13-speed Ekar – can accommodate a 9T smallest cog.

Up front, the derailleur here has been on a bit of a diet too.

The battery (on both derailleurs) appears unchanged.

The mech retains a similar overall size and shape to the existing version, but the centre has been hollowed out to expose the derailleur linkage system, potentially freeing up movement, but at the very least saving weight.

Now to move on to some of the bikes that caught our eye over the first few days in Albania. Starting with young Brit, Josh Tarling, whose Pinarello Bolide TT bike, complete with 3d-printed ridges on the seat tube, made from what we believe is titanium, and an absolutely massive chainring.

We’re told it has 68 teeth. Whether he ever made it into the 11 at the rear is unknown, but the aero benefit and reduced friction that bigger chainrings offer would have undoubtedly been a factor in his victory.

With that said, the rider he beat into second place was Primož Roglič, at just a single second slower, and he too was using a 68T chainring. It looks even bigger when paired with the Slovenian’s small Specialized Shiv TT frame.

Another of the bikes that caught our eye was the BMC Teammachine R of Australian GC contender, Michael Storer, many people’s outside favourite to do well in the race after winning the Tour of the Alps in April.

Another eye-catching bike was the Aurum Magma of Team Polti VisitMalta. Each frame was hand-painted to create a magma effect.

They are only being used for this race, the 108th edition of the Giro d’Italia. However, it’s unclear what the team will do with the bikes once the race is over.

It’s hard not to stop and check out the wild new Colnago Y1Rs. This one belonged to Jay Vine, and there’s a really neat feature we found on it. It’s further down this gallery though so you’ll have to wait.

Next up, the Trek Madone of Mads Pedersen, who has so far won two stages. He wore the maglia rosa after pipping Wout van Aert to the victory on stage 1.

This is the Scott Addict of Tom Pidcock. This bike can easily be built up to under 6kg, so it’s curious to see there’s no weight-adding tech. He is using the Zipp 454NSW wheels here, rather than the as-yet-unreleased Zipp wheels which come with an inbuilt Tyrewiz pressure sensor. These are perhaps heavier, it’s unclear, but there’s probably no need to see your tyre pressure when racing on the road.

And we saw his time trial bike above, but here’s Primož Roglič’s other bike, the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8. It looks as though he’s using the Roval Rapide CLX II Team wheel at the back, but paired with the new, deeper, front wheel that we’ve seen riders using for a while now. It’s unclear whether it’s something new entirely, or perhaps just a rear rim laced up to a front hub. The omission of the ‘CLX’ branding suggests it’s something new.

With his current position as GC leader, the team has focused on the details, such as this pink K-Edge out-front computer mount.

As well as this black and pink Supacaz bar tape.

Pink SRAM logo stickers are stuck onto the brake levers too.

And pink Tacx Deva bottle cages. Most pro bike tech is expensive, but you can buy these yourself at just £12.99, should you wish to add a splash of colour to your bike.

There are also pink SRAM stickers on the crank arms, and a pink K-Edge chain keeper here too. It’s the little things that matter, and the Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe team has really paid attention to the details here.

Speaking of the details, we had to include these new shoes from EF Education-First’s Darren Rafferty.

They are painted by Northern Ireland-based Shea Gribbon, The Shoe Dr, who boasts clients including Nike – via Mark Cavendish – and KFC (yes, the chicken shop).

Another neat idea is the addition of a Tudor watch face onto the disc wheels of the Tudor Pro Cycling time trial bikes. Good marketing, Tudor, well done.

This is the Colnago Y1Rs of Jay Vine, and while expensive tech and unique designs are flashy and interesting, to me, the best thing in this tech gallery is the small rubber bung with ‘Jay’ embossed into it. Those little bits of detail really finish off a bike.

Also interesting is this Zipp Super9 disc wheel, which has been fitted with a Tyrewiz tyre pressure sensor. While this adds a little weight it does mean that it would be possible to tell if you’ve lost a few PSI at the rear without having to stop and look, or even having bounce the rear wheel up and down as we’ve seen some riders do in the past in other races. The front tyre on the other hand you can see without getting out of position, and the sensor itself would likely be too much of an additional drag to risk.

Some teams’ tech hacks are so subtle that they look standard, such as this time trial basebar grip. It is designed by Leap Components as a way to make holding the bars more comfortable and secure, while smoothing airflow off the back of the brake lever.

3D printed saddles are a dime a dozen at the WorldTour level nowadays, and this Selle Italia is just one of the ones we saw.

But this is certainly more unique. It’s a time-trial specific saddle from Colorado-based Dash. This is a standard saddle with traditional carbon rails, but the brand also makes seatposts that integrate directly into the saddle for a super clean, aero finish.

Speaking of time-trial specific tech, there was plenty on show, including these custom-moulded time-trial extensions from Sync Ergonomics. I quite like looking to see how the designer has integrated the satellite shifters into the extensions. Everyone seems to have a different approach, but here they’re moulded into the inner face right at the end, where your index finger will finish once wrapped around the grips at the end.

Whereas these are moulded onto the outside face, beneath the rider’s thumbs.

The hand grips on these bars feature a much more abrupt step up and pronounced groove for a finger. The shifters sit further down and are presumably actuated by the pinky or ring finger.

These Deda Jet Hydro bars are an off-the-shelf option rather than custom printed. They place the shifters on the inner face.

This is an interesting product from Syncros. It looks as though the length of the extensions can be adjusted using the small spacers, and the angle of the hand grip can be tilted at the end. They probably don’t match the aero performance of a perfectly fitted custom pair, but for riders looking to dial in their position while maintaining an aero edge, they look ideal.

The other area where time trial tech has exploded in recent years is in rider clothing. Here, for example, you can see on the Visma-Lease a Bike sleeves that there’s a double layer fabric with trip lines down the arms.

Here on Tom Pidcock’s kit though, it’s perfectly smooth.

The Castelli kit provided by the race for the jersey wearers uses trip strips too, but here they’re exposed to the edge of the kit.

Alpecin Deceuninck’s Kalas kit, meanwhile, has strips of fabric that go the other way, in line with the wind rather than perpendicular to it. You can see those stripes continue down the rider’s torso too.

Team Picnic PostNL’s kit uses vertical strips, but at much closer spacing than those found above. Interestingly, across the shoulder, those strips hit a seam and change direction.

That fabric then continues down the riders’ backs.

Here’s another look at that Visma kit, worn by Dylan Van Baarle here, showing the double-layer strips down the arm, which finish at the elbow.

Ineos Grenadier’s Gobik kit, worn here by Egan Bernal, uses similar.

It looks like Ineos and Movistar – both sponsored by Gobik – are wearing the same skinsuits.

The Alé kit provided to Groupama FDJ also uses double-layer fabrics with strips beneath that go down to the elbows, but in this case, they’re spaced much wider apart.

The Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe kit uses strips that are much more closely spaced, and they appear to continue down to the wrists. They also appear to be wearing toe covers with aero socks, rather than full aero overshoes.