$8K vs $18K: The Tour de France’s Least and Most Expensive Bikes Compared

At the Tour de France, bikes are more than just machines—they’re statements of performance, precision, and prestige. While the riders are the stars of the show, the equipment underneath them is increasingly a showcase of cutting-edge engineering and high-end investment.

From custom aero frames to weight-saving carbon components, Tour de France bikes reflect the pinnacle of road cycling technology. And in 2025, the cost of that performance has never been higher.

Using current pricing and spec sheets, we’ve compiled a breakdown of the most expensive and least expensive bikes at this year’s Tour de France, with the overall costs – both of the most expensive and least-expensive WorldTour-ready bikes – really surprising us.

There’s a lot to know about the Tour de France of course. Check out the latest news and tech in Velo‘s Tour de France hub. And for more bikes, our bike checks show what the pros have ridden in detail over the years, while the Ultimate 2025 TdF Bike Guide gives us a breakdown of what teams will ride what this year.

The most expensive road bike in the Tour de France is….

Based on our math and conversions (as of July 2025), the most expensive bike in the Tour de France is the Colnago Y1RS belonging to UAE Team Emirates – XRG. You’d expect that for the team with Tadej Pogacar, no?

The trouble with figuring out exactly how much each bike in the Tour de France costs is simply because of the amount of customization many of these bikes go through. You can buy a UAE-livery Y1RS aero bike direct from Colnago, but it lacks many of the customizations that the team goes through. The team goes through the trouble of spacing lower weight Carbon-Ti chainrings and disc brake rotors, as well as Carbon-Ti carbon chainrings that cut weight and add to the bike’s bottom line.

This one requires a bit of work to spec out. If you were to buy the components and build the bike to match, here’s an approximate breakdown of how much it might cost:

And the least expensive bike?

Not every bike here has a direct US (or even EUR) conversion. And while many folks might assume the least expensive bike is the one associated with China (the X-Lab AD9), it isn’t quite as simple as that. If anything, we’d estimate there are two bikes vying for the least-expensive bike in the pro peloton: The Cube Litening C:68X AERO and aforementioned X-Lab.

The Cube Litening C:68X AERO isn’t a bike that’s been blessed to cross North American shores, but its worth paying attention to. For a retail price of €7,299 (or roughly $8,500), you get an aero road bike frame, carbon wheels with carbon spokes, a Dura-Ace groupset with a power meter, and even Tubolito TPU tubes. For that you get a bike that comes in at a claimed 7.4 kg (16.3 pounds) as spec’d. That’s excellent for a WorldTour-ready road bike.

Also in consideration is the X-Lab AD9 as ridden by XDS-Astana. XDS is far from a household name in the global West, but it is far more popular in its domestic market of China. The frame price is hard to find, but it is listed at Cyclegears at a approximate price of $3,736 (converted to USD).

While a complete build version of this bike is likely to be less expensive, building the bike piece by piece brings the approximate cost to $12,701. That’s more expensive than complete versions of the Canyon Aeroad CFR, Van Rysel RCR-F, or even a Factor Ostro VAM. The X-Lab AD9 might be a Chinese brand, but the pricing – and the feedback from the XDS-Astana team – indicates that this is far from a bargain basement bike.

In our estimation, that makes the Intermarché–Wanty Cube Litening C:68X AERO the least-expensive bike in the Tour de France, and the World Tour in general.

While we don’t have either bike directly in front of us at the moment, the differences between the most-expensive bike (the Colnago) and the least-expensive bike aren’t all that different on the surface. Both share the same Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, and both are touted to be quite aero bikes overall.

So where does most of that money go then? The Colnago frameset is dramatically more expensive, at ~$7900 to the ~$3400 of the Cube frameset. The Enve wheels of the Colnago cost dramatically more, too, as does the array of upgrades from Carbon-Ti.

All of that adds up to make the most expensive bike in the Tour de France more than twice the cost of the least expensive bike.

The expensive bikes are all for the time trials

Yes, the most expensive bikes in the Tour de France are the ones that are hardly ridden outside of a few stages. Time trial bikes aren’t just more specialized for specific situations, but they’re far more expensive too. That additional cost comes from the even more-specific gear that the bikes bring in the pursuit of aero: specific wheels, custom made aero bar extensions, arm rests, and more.

We estimated that Tadej Pogačar’s TT1 bike cost $21,556.09, which would make it more expensive than any road bike in the Tour de France immediately. However, we suspect that’s not even the most expensive time trial bike in the Tour de France. Our estimations say that tis title belongs to the Pinarello Bolide F TT.

The Pinarello Bolide F TT frameset sets the tone alone with its price, at a claimed price of £30,000, or $40,955 as of July 2025. That gets you a set of custom-made aero extensions as well as the standard bpase bar.

Add in the pair of Princeton Carbonworks Mach 7580 TSV2 front tri-spoke wheel and Blur 633 V3 rear disc wheel ($5900), the time trial-specific Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 Di2 grouspet, Continental Grand Prix 5000 TT TR tires, and Fizik Transiro Aeris Adaptive TT saddle, Shimano Dura-Ace pedals, and accessories, and you get to $52,000. That’s some serious money considering there are just two time trial stages.

How much do Tour de France teams pay for their bikes?

It’s difficult to figure out what the ins and outs of these commercial agreements are between teams and their sponsors or suppliers. The agreements are sure to change between the teams based on the rider’s profiles, the team’s success, or the sheer potential for marketing opportunities between the teams.

With rare exceptions, however, teams at the level to make the Tour de France do not pay for their bikes. If anything, teams are paid for the rights to be the bike sponsor of a team, with the pricing varied based on star riders’ value. This story by Rick Vosper from 2017 details the cash buy-in for a team sponsorship to be roughly €3.2 to 4.5 million, or roughly USD $3.4 to 4.8 million. We’re positive that the asking price has gone up since 2017.

How many bikes do teams bring to the Tour de France?

Our own Jim Cotton did the heavy lifting to figure out just how much a team needs to bring to the Tour de France, including more than just bikes.

But how many bikes does a Tour de France team bring? Our story details that a team brings eight riders to the Tour per year, and each of those riders bring at least three road bikes per rider. Further, the teams have at least a pair of time trial bikes per rider, too. Bring that together and that’s at least 40 bikes per team.

We’re estimating the average cost of a road bike in the Tour de France to be roughly $13,241 (USD as of July 2025). Put that together and that’s $317,787 in road bikes alone, not including the additional wheelsets, spare gear, and more that a team brings with them.

Team bikes: a list, and approximate costs

This story has been updated with US-specific pricing for the Colnago Y1RS frameset.