Is This the Dawn of the ‘Road Mullet’ Wheelset Revolution at Opening Weekend?

No faster have I penned a work about how Tom Pidcock’s built-in power sensor wheels may in reality catch on than I’m pulled inexorably down into every other tech rabbit hollow like Alice, however into a global that’s a long way nerdier than Wonderland. Our Opening Weekend tech gallery has the entire tech highlights, however trawling the photographs from the in-race photographers I feel I’ve noticed one thing actually curious: I feel a number of Pink Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders have been intentionally working a ‘road mullet’ wheelset, with a deeper entrance wheel than rear.

What’s extra, to hugely blow my very own trumpet, I predicted this is able to occur. Certain, I had it in my 2024 Excursion de France predictions piece (if you wish to test my homework), however I’m just a few months out. 

This is Jordi Meeus with a Roval Rapide CLX II Workforce rear wheel and what seems like a brand new, marginally deeper, time trial entrance wheel.  (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)What’s a street mullet wheelset?

‘Mullet’ has turn out to be a bit of of a neatly used descriptor in biking tech. It may be used, after all, to explain Shane Archbold’s haircut, however additionally it is used to explain mountain motorbike wheelsets that blended a 27.5 rear wheel with a 29er up entrance. Latterly it’s been co-opted by means of the gravel neighborhood for an element setup that combines street shifter hoods with a mountain motorbike rear cassette and derailleur for added equipment vary, very similar to what we noticed the riders of Lidl-Trek the usage of at Opening Weekend. Now I feel it’s going to catch on with street wheelsets to explain any setup with a deeper entrance wheel than rear. I’ll get into why groups may go for this in a while. 

From what I will be able to see the Pink Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe riders have been blending a brand new Roval entrance wheel that was once first observed in use on the Paris Olympics at the entrance of Remco Evenepoel’s time trial motorbike with a Roval Rapide CLX II Workforce rear wheel. The present Roval Rapide CLX II Workforce rear wheel is 60mm deep, with the entrance wheel from that set measuring simplest 51mm. This implies the entrance wheel in use here’s doubtlessly round 70mm extensive. 

Some fervent dialogue inside the tech crew right here was once undertaken to fret check this principle. Was once it perhaps a hasty entrance wheel change after a puncture? Turns out not likely, as apparently no less than 3 riders have been in this setup. Was once it in all probability one thing to do with the newest, unreleased S-Works Turbo tyres that have been additionally in use by means of the crew? This additionally appears to be not likely, because the setup was once utilized by riders at the unreleased tyres, and in addition the ones showing to make use of the older S-Works Mondo tyres. Why, then, would a crew decide to suit a deeper entrance wheel than the rear, towards the usual follow of numerous years?

Mick van Dijke was once observed at the identical wheel setup, however with other tyres, on this case, a suite of unreleased S-Works Turbo choices.  (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)Aero up entrance, weight on the rear

If the fashion in aero motorbike design of new years needed to be summed up in one sentence it might be ‘make the front more aero and make the rear end lighter’. 

Briefly, the main edges of the motorbike (and the rider too) have extra of an affect at the general aerodynamic image than the rear, the place the air is turbulent, chaotic, and grimy. Manufacturers have focussed on making head tubes deeper (see the newest Noah Speedy 3.0 motorbike from Ridley for an excessive instance), and similtaneously we’ve observed seat remains particularly get thinner so as to reinforce aerodynamics whilst permitting the motorcycles to hit the 6.8kg UCI minimal weight prohibit, or no less than get as just about it as imaginable. 

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Pink Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe race completely at the Specialised S-Works Tarmac SL8, and whilst in our personal wind tunnel assessments it carried out extraordinarily neatly, it’s additionally reasonably light-weight. Infrequently, race motorcycles need to have weights added so that they make the burden prohibit (flying within the face of the particular level of the burden prohibit itself, however that’s inappropriate), and it’s completely imaginable that, as an alternative of merely including weights to the ground bracket shell, the crew has as an alternative opted so as to add weight on the entrance wheel in some way that are meant to make the motorbike as an entire extra aerodynamic. Given the lumpy parcours of Omloop, low weight is obviously a concern, however as this seems to be a time trial entrance wheel it’s no longer like there’s a deeper rear to move with it (wanting a disc wheel, which might be an excessively unlawful setup). 

In discussions with Colnago final 12 months I ran some calculations according to mixed wheelset weights, hypothesising that on a mountain level, a couple of Enve SES 4.5 wheels may well be swapped out for an Enve 6.7 entrance and a pair of.3 rear. This is able to be a web distinction of 210g/7.4oz in favour of the ‘mullet’ setup. With out in reality checking out the aerodynamics of each and every setup it’s unimaginable to grasp evidently, but it surely may well be that, in addition to a web weight growth, additionally it is equivalent and even higher aerodynamically. 

After all, final 12 months’s winner Jan Tratnik additionally seemed to be working the similar wheel setup. Two is usually a accident, however it is more difficult to argue that 3 is.  (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)Are there any drawbacks?

All else being equivalent, a deeper entrance is more difficult to keep watch over in windy prerequisites, in addition to typically being stiffer, however that is not likely to bother the professionals. Aesthetically it’s slightly difficult, and the game is ceaselessly a slave to aesthetics and custom, however for the reason that professionals are slightly satisfied to run extraordinarily deep entrance wheels along side a fair deeper rear from time to time I feel, for racing functions no less than, there are only a few drawbacks. 

Whether or not it catches on commercially will in the long run rely on whether or not it catches on within the professional peloton. Even simply 5 years in the past I’d have mentioned there wasn’t an opportunity, however now, with each unmarried stone being became over looking for the very final fraction of a watt we’re seeing time trial helmets in use in street races, visors have made a comeback, and entrance derailleurs were roundly jettisoned in time trials towards the run of custom in pursuit of pace. In that context, a fairly deeper entrance wheel than rear doesn’t sound so outlandish if there are positive aspects at the desk.