Another week of the tour – another week of trying to squeeze in testing. Between watching it live in the morning and the replay in the afternoon, it’s certainly tough to get work done. But we’re making it happen! We felt horrible for Contador and Talansky (though the guts Talansky showed finishing that stage speaks volumes about what he will do in the future.)  Monday marks the rest day and just one more week of racing after that. Saturday is the Time Trial, so we will be sure to keep you posted on all the new tech throughout the day.

For those visiting for the first time—welcome! One of our favorite ways to showcase our readers is our Readers’ Rides album on Facebook. You can check it out at http://on.fb.me/12jEqE3. If you would like to have your bike featured in our album just tweet us at @AeroGeeks, Facebook message us, or email us at info@AeroGeeks.com.

This Week’s Posts

Tuesday –currexSole RUNPRO – Review

Wednesday – Reynolds Strike SLG – Review

Thursday – Scott Plasma 5 – First Look

How’d They Do That???

When Tony Gallopin wore yellow on stage 10 you may have noticed his custom yellow Ridley. While many teams will bring yellow frames for GC contenders, it did seem a bit prescient of Lotto to bring a yellow frame for Tony. Well, it turns out that seeing into the future had nothing to do with it. Ridley’s CEO actually grabbed a frame from stock, cleaned it, painted it, and decaled it (oh, and  he also drove it to the start line) in the 18 hours between Tony putting on the jersey after stage 9 and when he started stage 10. Check out the full gallery here.

https://www.facebook.com/ridleybikes/posts/680310442017758

Backtracker

While we always get excited about aero products, it’s often the product that helps to ensure our safety that really gets our attention. So when we heard about the Backtracker, the whole team got a little giddy. We have wanted an easy-to-use rearview camera for a while. However, where the rearview camera solves one problem, it can create another—you have to continuously pay attention to it. The Backtracker offers a solution to this problem—a radar unit that will alert you to traffic approaching from the rear.

It consists of two units that detect and interpret the speed and acceleration of vehicles at a distance up to 150 yards. A unite on your handlebars alerts you to the rear-approaching traffic. And a backlight alerts motorists via increasingly frequent light pulses.

You can preorder the Backtracker now for $199 at http://www.dragoninnovation.com/projects/41-backtracker-by-ikubu. Included in the price is the Backtracker radar and light, mounting brackets, and USB charger. Head over to http://www.backtracker.io/#/home to learn more. And of course as soon as we get a chance to play with a Backtracker for ourselves we’ll be sure to share it with you!

TriRig Alpha White Paper

Recently a TriRig Alpha aerobar showed up in the mail for us, and we’re in the process of installing it on our Quintna Roo CD0.1 this week. And while the looks of the Alpha showed it clearly was designed for speed, we didn’t have any hard data to qualify that. Now we do.

This week TriRig published a white paper on the Alpha. At first glance it looks to be very fast. We’re going to take a deep dive into the data as part of our Alpha review, but for now you can take a look for yourself.

Current Review

1. BMC TMR02 Ultegra – We built our TMR02 this week and got it fit to our multisport editor. One look and you will understand why Taylor Phinney relies on it. This bike screams speed. But we don’t judge books by their cover. The only way we pass judgment about a bike is on the road.
2. Reynold Strike SLGs – We rode the SLGs for the last time last week and walked away as happy on our last ride as we had been on our first. Make sure to check out our review.
3. Giro Selector – We have been riding the Selector for a few weeks now, but this is the first chance we have had to talk about it. The Selector is deceptively cool. At first glance you cannot see how air could possibly get over your head. So we were definitely pleasantly surprised to see that there is a significant cooling factor.
4. Pearl Izumi P.R.O IN-R-COOL Tri Suit – Pearl sent us the Tri Singlet and Shorts and we’re just starting to spend time with them. The term “second skin” is the best way we can describe them so far.