Lapierre supported the FDJ team with all three of their performance road bikes, including the recently introduced SL versions of the Aircode and Xelius.
Introduced last year, the Aircode received a 110g diet this summer to create the 2016 Aircode SL. The Kammtail air foil shapes and overall stiffness remain the same, it’s just lighter. The black and red team replica paint schemes are shown just behind the team-only blue and white. But it’s the custom metallic blue paint scheme for Arnaud Démare’s Xelius SL that’s the real eye grabber…
The Xelius SL was completely revamped this summer and is an entirely new bike from its predecessor. Using a split seatstay that bypasses the seat tube to improve compliance and save weight.
The triple triangle design and thin tubes give the bike a sleek look that should be both comfortable and fast – it’s geometry is based off the race bikes.
Démare’s bike was painted in a beautiful deep sparkly blue that matched the metallic blue on one of their team cars (check out that car, Team Sky’s Jaguars and others in this post).
While he may have had the prettier bike, teammate Thibaut Pinot fended off attacks and gravity to take the legendary Alpe d’Huez win on Stage 20, helping redeem an otherwise unspectacular race this year.
For the time trial stages they used the Aerostorm TT/Triathlon bikes.
Across the range, they were running full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groups and PRO components,