8 useful things Tour de France pros use, that we might actually bother buying

The Tour de France is filled to the brim with very cool but very expensive tech.

We’ve spent days sneaking around team buses and scouring the paddocks for new kit.

As much as that is fun, we also know that most of the stuff we share is so otherworldly, in terms of price, or just pointless to most of us outside of the pro peloton, that we don’t often discuss the things we actually might buy and ride ourselves.

Jamie, our video manager and I did just that. We kicked the subject around at length and here’s 8 Tour de France products we spotted, that we finally agreed we might actually spend our own money on.

Assuming we had the money, of course…

Bike Upgrades From The Tour de France We'd Actually Buy... - YouTube

Watch On

What bike? Cube Litening C:68X ridden by Intermarche Wanty

Whilst we both agreed that an all-road or endurance bike would probably be best suited to both our riding, and our physiology, we couldn’t help but oggle the many race bikes on show at the Tour, but which one would we go for?

Frankly, most are so crazy expensive, they’re the things dreams are made of. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t relative bargains, even in that crazy context.

For practically half the price of a Colnago V5RS, like the one Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates - XRG use, you can buy a world-tour bike that’s just as capable, that’s proven just as race ready, the Cube, the Litening C:68X Air, used by Intermarche Wanty. There’s only a colon keeping it away from Colnago’s lawyers in that nomenclature presumably. Still, the Cube is just as close in performance terms to the top-flight bikes from other manufacturers we saw in the paddock.

With Dura Ace Di2 from Shimano, in near Intermarche Wanty Tour de France 2025 racing spec, it costs, wait for it… just £7995.

Now, that’s a lot of money, regardless, for what is still just a push bike, but in a Tour de France paddock chock full of super bikes, we both agreed it’s an absolute bargain. We both really like the bike too, and there are plenty of other reasons to choose this one over some of the others.

What TdF wheels would we spend our own money on? Reserve 57/64 wheels

Wheels took up hours of debate, back and forth. No pun intended. We both agreed we can find better value outside of the WorldTour team setups and some of the best road wheels we might buy, just aren't in the WorldTour.

We were also in agreement that, given we had to choose, around a 50mm deep wheel is hardly ever the wrong depth for most of the kind of riding we love doing. We agreed rim beds should be wide, for a good shape in the tyre, and nice transitions between our side walls and rims. We also both prefer hooked designs. We quickly ruled out the new trend for carbon spokes, as we felt they’re an expensive addition that saves weight, but does little for the ride quality of a wheelset, so we counted those out.

With that information in hand, eliminating some of the very fancy options straight off the bat had narrowed the field, then the only wheelset that matched that tighter brief but didn’t cost ridiculous money, is the Reserve’s from Cervelo’s in-house brand.

The Reserve wheels can be spotted on Visma Lease-A-Bike’s Cervelo S5 and R5 race bikes, and we loved the fact that they come with DT Swiss’s benchmark hub, the DT Swiss 240. Yes, they run the fancier and just a tad lighter 180’s also, but for both of us, the DT Swiss 240 is the only hub we’ll ever need. It’s brilliant. Combine that with decent build quality, and a decent price, and the Reserve wheels take some beating.

The Reserves 52/63 wheelset can be specced with either 240’s or 180’s and start at £1,999 or $2,700.

Bottle cages! The Elite Leggero Carbon

Yes, there are prettier ones, and unbelievably, there are some that cost three or four times their price, but the bottle cage that takes our crown in this guide of stuff we might actually spend our own money on is emphatically the Elite Leggero Carbon.

They hold your bottle better than anything, weigh sod all, and retail at £23.99 – the cost of three pints of craft beer these days. Jamie loves a craft beer.

In both mine and Jamie’s opinion, this bottle cage is not only likely the winningest (it's on a lot of bikes at the TdF) it just outperforms almost anything else out there.

Tyres are the one thing we hear most about as reviewers and testers. Everyone wants to know what the best tyre is for their road bike. Perhaps that's because nice tyres are the luxury item everyone can feel, and everyone has a view on their favourite brand.

The one that stood out to us is the Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS. It comes in 26mm up to 32mm, looks the bee’s knees and performs as well if not better than all the other options. It also uses rubber material from sources verified by the FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council).

Vittoria's Corsa’s are still a bit more fragile longer term, although as Andy Turner pointed out in his recent review, worries about that may be much less of a concern than it used to be –they still roll beautifully of course – and the Continental GP 5000 TR are a similarly strong choice, but are a little more, well, German, so somehow less exciting to look at. So, the Italians take it for this year's TdF.

It’s worth noting that the P-Zero 4S tyre, also from Pirelli, or even Pirelli’s Cinturato make way better sense for road riding back home. Especially if you’re riding in cities, or on flinty country lanes like mine in Norfolk.

With those slightly tougher models, you don’t pay much of a weight penalty, they offer plenty of feel and grip, and a flat P Zero Race is always slower than an inflated Cinturato.

Which TdF helmet gets our cash? The Van Rysel RCR-F Helmet

When thinking of which is the best road bike helmet in the Tour de France, that we might actually buy, it was probably the easiest decision of the day.

We both liked the look of plenty of helmets; the UVEX lid on Biniam Girmay is tempting, as is a Specialized Evade 3, but only one helmet makes sense when it comes to parting with our own cash, the Van Rysel RCR-F.

The RCR-F is a helmet worn by some of the world’s fastest racers at the highest level, yet it costs a third of the price of nearly everything else used. It has also received some great reviews, making it easy to recommend.

If you want a similar look but can’t afford £99.99 for a helmet, I actually bought and still regularly ride the Van Rysel Road 500 helmet. The non-MIPS version, the model I have, retails at just £29.99. The Mips version is more, but even that one is just £49.99. It was bought as a cheap helmet to get me out of a jam, but it's matte black so goes with everything, has tons of vents, looks good and does everything I need it to perfectly well – it’s turned out to be the best thirty quid I ever spent on cycling kit.

Best bling for buck at the TdF? Muc-Off tubeless valves

These aren’t quite a pocket money purchase, but they’re something achievable for many of us, and that’s a set of funky tubeless valves from Muc-Off, they're always one of the best tubeless valves in our tests, and their also the same ones that EF Education First use on their Vision wheels.

You can get them in all kinds of colours, and I think it’s one of the classier ways of adding bling to your bike.

Don’t use them with Enve wheels – they are not compatible. Check with your wheel manufacturer to make sure you don’t also need a pressure relief valve stem nut in your valves, before you purchase.

TdF aero I'd actually spend money on? Spatz over shoes

We discussed helmets and clothing and the cool gear we saw in the paddock, and not much clothing stood out as sensible, or hit that 'must have' high, partially down to the price.

One product that we would spend our own money on, however, is Spatz overshoes, as worn by Matthieu Van de Poel of Alpecin–Deceuninck.

They’re fast, they stay up, and they’re not ludicrously expensive. I might keep them for slightly cooler days, however.

Best Tour de France pedal system? Dura Ace

The concept of this whole piece is about finding the stuff that actually makes sense to buy with our own cash. Dura Ace – as a groupset – just doesn’t make sense to many of us, especially when Shimano 105 Di2 is so good, for so much less cash. People have also seemingly completely forgotten how good mechanical shifting is these days too.

However, the one exception where top-dollar Dura Ace makes sense for us mere mortals, is in the Shimano Dura Ace pedal system, one of the very best road bike pedals on the market. Yes, they’re horrifically expensive, but they are ahead of so many other pedal systems in terms of stack height, bearings, service life, weight and platform area that they had to get a mention.

The bearings run better and last longer than Shimano Ultegra pedals, so there’s less of a prize for jumping down a tier on these too, although plainly Ultegra is a damn good pedal too if you don't have Dura Ace tastes, but a lemonade budget.

Still, we both felt the jump up to Shimano’s top tier, even in the context of the extra cash, makes sense in the pedal department.

What do you think? What have we missed?

Is there something we’ve missed? Are we off our heads? Is our tyre choice preposterous, and is the Cube at £7995 still just a fancy bike, built for pros, not for us. Get stuck in in the comments and let us know.

Jamie’s side to this discussion is over on our You Tube channel where you can watch him discuss the same items we picked out, and get his view straight from the horses mouth.