The incredible progress of bikes explained by Thomas: “Tadej Pogačar would not have won the Tour with my 2018 bike”

One of the main themes in modern cycling is the technological progress of equipment, with bikes becoming more and more high-performing every year. This is exactly what Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe discussed in their podcast Watts Occurring, responding to a question from a listener.

The question was: Tadej Pogačar, who dominated this year, would he have still been able to win the Tour using a bike from a few years ago? According to the British champion, winner of the 2018 Tour de France, the answer was clear: no. Rowe, now sports director of Decathlon Ag2R La Mondiale, agreed. Here are their respective answers:

THOMAS – “Would Tadej Pogačar have won the 2025 Tour de France with the bike I used when I won the Tour in 2018? No, he wouldn’t have. Tadej finished almost five minutes ahead of Jonas Vingegaard in the end, but he wouldn’t have been able to do it with a bike from ten, even five, years ago. You have to think about all the extra fatigue he would have accumulated over the three weeks, compared to a rival racing with a 2025 bike.”

ROWE – “The difference between a 2018 bike and one of today is simply too big, the progress made has been enormous. If we frame it as a direct challenge on a single climb, Pogačar, riding an 8-year-old bike, might still be strong enough to go faster and win that specific challenge. But it would be far too difficult for him to absorb all the disadvantages across every single stage. If he were equipped like in 2018 and Vingegaard had 2025 equipment, Tadej would have no chance of beating him at the Tour.”

Article “The incredible progress of bikes explained by Thomas: ‘Tadej Pogačar would not have won the Tour with my 2018 bike’” written by @strongmoderncycling.

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