Ever since people started racing bikes, there has always been a quest for lower weight. From wooden rims, to drillium (quite literally drilling holes in your bike) to wafer-thin aluminium tubes, riders and mechanics have prayed at the altar of lightness for decades. But in recent times, improvements in aero bikes and the ever-increasing speeds of both men's and women's pro racing have relegated the super-light bike to occasional use by climbing domestiques and mountain-stage specialists.

However, lately there's been a quiet resurgence of light bikes. Tadej Pogačar's Colnago Y1Rs made headlines at last year's Tour: a stripped-back version of the Italian brand's aero race bike with minimal paint and various weight-saving upgrades, all designed to get it as close as possible to the UCI’s minimum weight limit of 6.8kg (originally introduced to protect riders from frankly dangerous bikes made from the aforementioned wafer-thin alloy).

That said, lightweight bikes are still relatively rare, and only used by either a GC hopeful or a rider within a team who has a good shout of winning a stage where climbing performance is key. A parcours like that of stage two, for example, with 2,500 metres of elevation gain over 168.5 kilometres, featuring a particularly tough three laps of a finishing circuit up Montjuïc hill in downtown Barcelona. And it's this kind of stage where a hybrid of aero performance and lightness makes the most sense; riders aren't willing to trade the watt-saving aero bike for a more traditional-style climbing bike as they may struggle to keep the pace on the flatter, rolling early sections, but they also want the lightest, most responsive bike possible on the repeated tough climbs at the end of the stage.

Most of the bikes follow the same formula: stripping the bike back as much as possible, including paint, and often featuring similar components. One product that seemed to be everywhere was Elite's Leggero carbon cage. Light bottle cages are nothing new, but they tend to be fragile and not always that great at actually holding onto a bottle. These seem to be used by all the Elite-equipped teams, so presumably no such retention issues here.

A few bikes also had seatposts with the same distinctive matt close-weave finish. Most modern frames have seatposts specific to them, but they can be relatively heavy because they are often overbuilt to meet generic safety tests shared by all bikes. It's an easy way for a team to safely shed a few grams; brands like Darimo offer super-lightweight post upgrades for many of the bikes seen below. None of the mechanics I spoke to would confirm it, but I suspect the small Spanish component maker has made the majority of the posts on show here.

Tadej Pogačar's Colnago Y1Rs: a study in lightweight aero

Pogačar was on the same bike we saw him debut at last year's Tour. Like most of the bikes featured here, it has a very thin clear matt coating over a raw carbon frame with minimal world champion-themed graphics. Components wise, it features a full host of Carbon-Ti trick bits, including the carbon chainrings he has used for the last few seasons. 

As another nod to the hybrid nature of this modern racing machine, he doesn't go for the ENVE SES 2.3, the lightest option from UAE Team Emirates' wheel sponsor, instead opting for the stiffer, more aerodynamic SES 4.5 Pro.

Isaac del Toro's Colnago V5Rs: riding the Mexican wave

Stage-two winner Isaac del Toro, however, is a real outlier in the modern bunch, opting for the V5Rs, Colnago’s lightweight road bike designed for climbing. It's built up with the same components as Pogacar's Y1Rs, and if the stage two result was any indication, it still has plenty of speed.

I saw the bike up close before the race, loved the simple, matching chrome frame and wheel decals, and was surprised by just how light it was. I would hazard a guess it was right on the UCI 6.8 kg weight limit, which possibly was a bit risky after the issues Lorena Wiebes had at the recent women's Giro d’Italia when her S-Works Tarmac SL8 was deemed by the UCI to be two grams underweight. But it worked and he won.

Paul Seixas’s prototype Van Rysel: carrying the hope of a nation

The French prodigy had a new Van Rysel prototype bike to help him on his Tour debut. I was lucky enough to have a good look at it at the team hotel before the race. It's a lighter-weight version of the RCR-F aero bike, or a more aero version of the RCR Pro, depending on how you look at it. It features aero-profiled tubes that are shallower in depth and diameter, as well as updated geometry with a steeper seat tube angle and, much like his competitors' bikes, no paint.

This looked very much like a prototype, with simple vinyl graphics plastered over a raw frame, but it should be an ideal bike for him to try to give the French nation its first overall win in the men's Tour since Bernard Hinault in 1985.

Remco and Lipo's S-Works Tarmac SL9s: raw speed

Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz both rode the same raw version of the latest S-Works Tarmac SL9, in keeping with the combined GC plan of their Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team. Much has been written about the updated Specialized which is marginally more aero and lighter than the previous generation, and this one has taken the diet to the Nth degree by removing all of the paint.

The Californian brand has gone all out for this year's Tour, with a new road bike and an as-yet-unreleased TT bike for Remco, but time will tell if that's enough to get him or Lipowitz to the top step in Paris.

Kévin Vauquelin’s undercover Pinarello Dogma F

Pinarello also had a lighter version of their Dogma F tucked away at the start of the race for Kévin Vauquelin. The Treviso brand has more history with this form of bike than others, with various raw frames used by Team Sky in mountain stages in the past, even using special thin paints developed for F1 in later years. For this stage only the Frenchman had the raw finished bike, though I'd be surprised if there won't be others on the team riding a similar bike in the more mountainous stages later in the race.

Look 795 Blade RS 3: lighter, sharper, still classy

Cofidis, the quintessential French squad, are riding the latest Look 795 Blade RS, which was launched last week. It's a return to form for Look, with a sharp-looking, light but aero bike packed with clever details and a great-looking Mondrian-inspired paint job. Their GC hopeful, though, has foregone any such frivolities and has a raw matt black version, which, when combined with the latest Campagnolo Super Record groupset, makes for a sleek and timeless aesthetic.

Uno-X's Ridleys: stripped-back Noah Fast and a lightweight prototype

Uno-X rider Tobias Halland Johannessen had one of Ridley’s Noah Fast bikes stripped back in a bid for stage glory. Having ridden one, it's a brutally fast bike but not the lightest, so it makes sense to try and offer a light version for him on the stages' lumpy parcours.

Interestingly, though I did spot a superlight prototype from the Belgian brand at their team hotel prior to the race start, which was in full race trim and ready to go, so I expect we will see him or his team-mates switch bikes as the parcours dictates.

Knowing the Uno-X team's tradition of springing a surprise raid on the peloton, this will be one to watch as the race progresses through the Alps.

Ben O’Connor’s Giant Propel: lighter than ever (and with trick Cadex wheels)

Giant launched the new Propel in March this year, with one of its headline features a 400g weight reduction across the frame, fork, bars, and wheels compared to the previous version. Still, that doesn't appear to be enough for Ben O’Connor of the Jayco-Alula team, who was sporting a raw frame and riding the very trick Cadex Max 50 wheels from Giant's sister wheel brand. 

Like Tadej Pogačar, he hasn't gone for the lightest wheels available, opting instead for deeper, more aerodynamic ones. He could of course use the storied lightweight TCR frame, but presumably the aero benefit of the Propel is too much to give up for the Aussie star.

Aaron Gate's X-Lab AD9: learning fast from the masters

Astana were the first to move away from a mainstream European bike supplier when XDS partnered with them in 2025, and it looks like the partnership is going well. I saw many members of the engineering and product teams from the Chinese brand at the event, a sure sign they are taking their participation in the Pro Tour very seriously.

They had some very well finished lighter bikes for Aaron Gate which, instead of a plain black finish, had a very neat, lightly painted frame similar to the finish used on Pogačar's Colnago Y1Rs. They had completely raw frames for the previous day's TTT, no doubt a by-product of the attention to detail their performance engineer Alex Dowsett is known for. Sadly, a crash derailed any hopes of an upset, but I get the feeling they may turn a few more heads at this year's Tour.