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When OQUO and the Lotto team invited us to tag along with Arnaud De Lie, Lennert Van Eetvelt and co. at the Grand Départ in Lille, my imagination shifted straight onto the big ring. In my mind’s eye, team mechanics worked late into the night, polishing individual ball bearings, dabbing mysterious compounds onto running surfaces and exchanging hushed thoughts about carbon spoke layups under the warm glow of French streetlights. The wheel, cast as the peloton’s unsung hero. What would it feel like to sit in the team car as they call a crosswind attack? Would my journalistic integrity take a tumble if I helped seal Jenno Bergmoes’s GC coup with a perfectly timed wheel swap? Almost certainly. Doesn’t matter. I crank the altitude tent up to haute catégorie, pack the aero socks – and head for Lille.
OQUO Launch Their Ltd Series With the Lotto Cycling Team
Co-hosting the Gran Fondo Tour premiere, OQUO have rolled onto cycling’s biggest stage with their new Ltd series of wheels. The Basque wheel specialists may be part of the Orbea group, but they operate independently – and they’re now the official wheel supplier for the Lotto team. Their pride and joy? Their first completely in-house hub.
The champagne-coloured Q10 hub is a real showpiece, built and assembled entirely in the Basque Country. The meticulously machined hub shell is made from a high-strength aluminium alloy, and practically begs for the classic “aerospace grade” badge of honour. Inside, things take on a nautical twist: the heart of the hub is the ceramic-coated Shark Ratchet system, which combines a unique engagement angle with ultra-precise machining for maximum efficiency in race mode. On top of that, a specially developed oil-grease lubricant squeezes out every last watt from the finely milled internals.
But the Q10’s signature move only comes into play when everything grinds to a halt – it can be dismantled without tools, making regular maintenance far easier. For me, that’s a gamechanger. But how much does that really matter in the day-to-day chaos of the Tour?
The new Ltd wheels mark a real milestone for the Basque brand. While the previous generation wheelsets were mostly reserved for low-key training rides, this year the Lotto riders are rolling into actual race action with OQUO wheels. That might sound like a minor step up, but it’s the result of a long and complex process. At the heart of it lies trust – in the wheels themselves and their performance. But just as crucial is the relationship between the team and the manufacturer: communication, support, and the ability to deliver when it counts. After all, a pro team burns through at least 300 wheelsets per season.
Bonjour Tristesse – The Heart of the Tour Beats in a Holiday Inn Car Park
Day before the Tour, 9:30, Quest Englos
I’m ten kilometres outside Lille, aimlessly pedalling a shared ebike through a soulless business park. It’s the day before the Tour. Yesterday was all about celebration: the team presentation. A fenced-off course in the city centre. Tens of thousands of people. Tour banners draped over neoclassical façades, kids, pensioners and dogs all decked out in polka dots. Excitement, pride, anticipation. The city wore yellow. Out here, it’s wearing grey.
On the bleak expanse of a Holiday Inn car park sits the Lotto team’s Tour convoy: five support vehicles, two equipment trucks and the team bus. Right next to it, in matching formation, the blue team vehicles of Movistar. Behind that, the motorway. The contrast between the glamour of Tour fantasy and the grit of Tour reality couldn’t be more stark. Staff are trying to stick accreditation decals onto windscreens without trapping air bubbles, a technician is cursing as he wires up radio antennae on the team cars, and a mechanic is scraping pigeon droppings off a bonnet. In between, some grizzled reporters in faded khaki photographers’ vests are loitering on motorbikes. The car park is the functional antithesis of the romance and drama that drive the Tour across France
I wander aimlessly between the cars. An Alpecin staff member mistakes me for someone else, and I end up with a lifetime supply of caffeine shampoo stuffed into my backpack. The only person who seems truly excited is a small boy on a mission to collect every rider’s autograph in his sticker album. He’s got two so far. Only 182 to go.
There’s a quiet reverence around the Lotto team truck. Sponsors, media reps and the boy with the sticker album are watching a mechanic wrap bar tape. People speak in hushed tones. A glance signals: do not disturb. The riders are heading out for their final pre-race spin in 30 minutes. Each bike is being given a last once-over. And the wheels?
Every Orbea Orca Aero team bike is fitted with the same setup today: the OQUO RA57 Ltd. The spare wheels, along with variants in different rim depths, are hanging inside one of the equipment trucks. In total, 53 OQUO Ltd wheelsets are heading into this year’s Tour. Most of them will never leave the truck. A sad fate.
In fact, the sheer volume of kit here takes some of the shine off even the most high-end components. Out here, expensive parts aren’t coveted – they’re tools. Used, swapped, discarded. I’m starting to suspect this might not be the easiest place to spin a heroic tale about wheels.
The Best Wheels Go Unnoticed
Day before the Tour, 11:00, Holiday Inn car park
Two soigneurs are carefully weighing out carb powder into pre-labelled bottles. Whether it’s the final on the Champs-Élysées or just a spin through the business park, the prep is equally meticulous. Just before eleven, the car park stirs to life. The riders step out of the hotel. First the cameras click, then the pedals – and just like that, the team rolls out again.
The boy with the sticker album looks just as lost as I do with my wheelset questions. But here’s the thing: the Tour is one big energy-saving challenge. Every minute a rider doesn’t have to spend standing around in a car park is a win, even before the race begins.
Normally, this would be the moment to kick off the big Gran Fondo-style photo shoot: mechanics pulling hubs apart, the Shark Ratchet’s perfect fit glowing in the backlight, a beam of sunlight cutting through the slowly rising tailgate and falling dramatically onto the wheelsets inside the truck… But the day before the Tour isn’t the time for theatrics. Everyone here has a job to do. Spare bikes are being cleaned, tire inserts fitted into tubeless setups, cassettes swapped. The wheels themselves get little mechanical affection – not that they need any. A day in the life of a Tour de France wheel, it turns out, is – in the best-case scenario – a pretty dull affair.
Martijn van Schaijk, head mechanic at Team Lotto, helps put my thoughts into perspective. The truth is, not much actually happens to the wheels before, during or after a stage. New tires are fitted every three to four days, gearing is adjusted daily, brake pads get swapped regularly – but the wheels themselves just keep turning, calmly and without complaint.
“Do you true the wheels?” I ask.
“They’re perfect straight from the factory,” Martijn replies.
“Do you check spoke tensions after stages?”
“No need.”
“And the bearings?”
“They last forever.”
The only attention a wheel gets during the Tour is a few drops of lube – and that’s mainly because bike washing after stages is a pretty brutal business. Behind us, another mechanic fires up the pressure washer and laughs: “Don’t do this at home.” The ice is broken.
Speaking of breaking: “Has a rim ever cracked?” “No.” Martijn shakes his head. I’m not entirely sure he’d tell me if it had.
OQUO Have the Odd Fortune of Usually Being Unfortunate With the Weather.
OQUO have the rare luck of working with Lotto riders who mostly live and train in Belgium. Why is that lucky? Because from October onwards, the wheels say goodbye to sunshine and dry roads, to get hammered for six months straight by the full force of the Belgian winter. That unholy trinity of salt, mud and rain puts bearings and lubrication through a proper torture test. Throw a few cyclocross races into the mix, and you quickly find out where your product really stands. Sunshine is good for the soul – but it’s in the muck where you really learn about sealing and durability.
What I’ve come to learn: a team doesn’t choose a new wheel partner lightly. Sure, the financial package matters. But what really counts is that the new wheelset delivers a clear performance upgrade. At OQUO, the Lotto riders are directly involved in the development process. They get test wheels, ride them hard and give detailed feedback. The team also run their own aero tests, consolidate rider input, and feed everything back to OQUO. The engineers take those insights and roll them into product development.
In general, the distance between the Basque Country and Belgium seems remarkably short. In case of theft or any other disaster, OQUO could quickly supply replacements thanks to their local production and a workforce full of cycling fanatics. In return, the team provides the Basque engineers with valuable race data. At the end of the season, the wheels are sent back to OQUO. Some are even X-rayed and checked for cracks or structural changes.
Trust Makes You Faster – What the Pros Expect From a Wheelset
Day before the Tour, 12:30, Holiday Inn car park
There’s movement again in the car park. The riders are back, and the atmosphere is noticeably more relaxed. The young autograph hunter adds three more signatures to his collection – only 179 to go – along with a stash of bidons that should see him through to the U23 ranks.
Most of the riders head straight into the hotel, but Jenno Berckmoes and Arnaud De Lie take a moment to share their thoughts on wheels from a rider’s perspective. Alongside aerodynamics and weight, there’s one quality both of them highlight as especially important: confidence. They’re talking about handling – but more specifically, how predictable that handling feels. For De Lie, a powerhouse sprinter, stiffness and precise steering are non-negotiable.
What doesn’t he like about the OQUO wheels? The freehub sound: too quiet.
“The Basque country is a world of cycling. We know the passion of the company.” – Arnaud De Lie
Berckmoes, on the other hand, gives a more nuanced take on the progression from the previous to the current generation of OQUO wheels. In terms of stiffness and speed, he says they’ve taken a real step forward: “They are really fast wheels – and nice and quiet.”
Freehub sound, it seems, is very much a matter of taste – even among the pros.
Both riders are equally indifferent when it comes to the maintenance-friendly, tool-free hub I had been quietly raving about. Fair enough, I suppose – I’d probably feel the same if I had a mechanic who’d just hand me a fresh wheel whenever needed. What they do speak highly of is the collaboration with OQUO and the local production setup. The cycling-mad Basque Country seems to have earned the respect of these two Belgians. Then they, too, vanish into the hotel. Recovery time. The car park starts to empty. Even the autograph kid is gone. I hop back on the shared bike and pedal my way back to Lille.
The Flatter the Stage, the Deeper the Rim
Stage 1, 12:30, paddock
It’s packed in the paddock. Riders kiss their girlfriends goodbye, UCI officials scan frames, and fans gather in front of the UAE bus, shouting for Pogačar. Martijn checks tire pressures one last time (anywhere between 3.9 and 4.7 bar, depending on the rider and the stage), eats a banana, and organises the gear inside the support vehicles. Wheels and bottles are stacked high in the back of the team car, right where I would like to be sitting. Things aren’t looking good for my day in the team convoy. I’ve lost my seat to a wheel. Berckmoes will have to ride into yellow without me.
Almost every rider is on tubeless tires now, with inserts. Punctures have become more rare. When they do happen, wheel swaps are typically done early in the stage – before things get too hectic. Later on, riders just get full bikes straight off the roof of the team car.
The final call on rim depth rests with each rider. Martijn and his crew analyse the stage profile and weather forecast, then give a recommendation based on rider weight, type and the day’s goals.
The standard wheelset for Team Lotto is the OQUO RA57 Ltd. On hillier stages, it’s swapped out for the slightly lighter RP50 Ltd, while for time trials, the team switch to the RA80 Ltd. The RP35 Ltd has a harder time making the cut. These aren’t exactly the glory days for dedicated climbing wheels – or rather, Tour speeds are simply too high for them. Stage 1 looks set to be a fast one. Fast and windy. It’s shaping up to be a classic RA57 Ltd kind of day.
Just minutes to go until the start. As if moved by an invisible hand, the chaos in the paddock begins to fall into place. In the Tour’s tightly choreographed routine, every team car, every motorbike and every UCI official has a fixed position. Add to that the publicity caravan, ambulances, tow trucks, motos – and of course, the riders. All in all, around 300 to 400 vehicles have to find their place each morning.
Riders shout, horns blare, crowds cheer. And then it begins – the Tour de France 2025. Somewhere in the hills of the Basque Country, proud engineers are probably watching the broadcast, pointing at a blur of wheels flashing past the camera, watching for that white OQUO logo.
Stage 1, 15:30, public viewing
I’m sitting with the OQUO team at one of Lille’s many pop-up Tour de France public viewing spots. The stage is dragging a little. A breakaway up front with no Lotto rider in it, the peloton two minutes behind. Then suddenly – cut to the roadside. A Lotto rider has stopped. Arnaud De Lie. Heart rates spike among the OQUO crew next to me. What if it really is the wheel? De Lie slams his fists angrily onto the hoods. I glance left. OQUO are holding their breath. Then relief. It’s the brake lever position. No mechanical. No drama for the wheels on their Tour de France debut. For every wheel involved, the day passes without incident. Exactly what I feared. Good wheels don´t make great stories.
Find out more on oquowheels.com
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Words & Photos: Nils Hofmeister
