Tim Merlier made no secret of the fact that he wanted to win the first yellow jersey of the 2025 Tour de France. The 32-year-old Belgian, who is the European champion, dreamed about it ever since the route was announced. He lives not far from the finish in Lille, he is at the height of his powers, and he has been putting in the hours testing with his Soudal Quick-Step team and all his equipment sponsors to ensure that everything is primed, from his skinsuit, to his helmet, to his bike, to his wheels, to his shoes, to his tyres, to enable him to cross the finish line first. While it didn't quite work out for him after getting caught in a split in the crosswinds on stage one, he was able to put all of that testing to good use on stage three, beating Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) to victory.
Merlier, who joined Soudal Quick-Step in 2023, learned his trade in cyclo-cross and took his first professional road victory in 2020 at the Bredene Koksijde Classic, aged 27. His first Tour de France stage win came one year later. “Last winter was only my second time really in a wind tunnel, so I was so excited to see everything, it’s all really new to me at the moment,” he told Rouleur. This is part of what makes him unique, according to the brands who work with him. “He absolutely loves cycling, loves the sport. It’s like he’s a kid living his dream,” says Steve Smith, Castelli brand manager. The Italian clothing sponsor has designed a bespoke skinsuit with Merlier, optimised for his sprinting speed of 70kph and capable of supplying a gain of up to a metre at the line. “While he is good at trusting the experts, he also wants to express how he feels and is willing to do his part of the work. Some top-level riders don’t want to spend time in the wind tunnel, whereas for Tim it is part of the job.”
Merlier is riding this S-Works Tarmac SL8 painted in the colours of the European champion with the 'speed sniffer' in black, and built to eke every last gain out of CdA, rolling resistance and drivetrain efficiency.
Underneath the custom paint, the S-Works Tarmac SL8 frame is the same as any other in accordance with UCI regulations. Merlier, at 6ft 1in (185cm), rides a correspondingly larger frame size, but perhaps what’s surprising is that he’s running spacers under his stem. This year we’ve seen more riders doing this – Merlier will have tested his position in the wind tunnel and the higher handlebar clearly works for both his aerodynamics and his biomechanics. The pristine white bar tape is reassuringly old-school pro, however. Full marks.
Merlier is using a zero setback seatpost that isn’t available with the consumer version of the Tarmac SL8. The effectively steeper seat tube angle is deployed by a number of Specialized's pros, including GC riders and not only sprinters looking to accelerate quickly. We spotted the same seatpost being used by Primož Roglič last year – no doubt he will use the same setup this year too. Merlier uses a long-nosed Specialized Phenom Comp with Mimic (multilayered adaptive materials) rather than a 3D-printed Mirror saddle. It’s not expensive compared with the current crop of 3D-printed models, but it’s clearly what’s most comfortable for him.
The wheels, from Specialized’s sister brand Roval, are the new Rapide Sprint CLX, which ‘flips the script’ with a deeper front than rear. The rim section on the front wheel is 63mm, while it’s 58mm out back. The wheelset weighs 1,395 grams and uses carbon spokes – new for the brand. They have a relatively narrow internal rim width of 21mm and are optimised for 28mm tyres. The Rapidair TLR tubeless tyres that Merlier is running will be 28mm (they only come in 26mm and 28mm widths). The tyre is, says Specialized, “33 seconds faster than its predecessor while reducing aero drag by two watts and rolling resistance by three watts, resulting in the fastest tyre we’ve ever made.”
Soudal Quick-Step are a Shimano team, running Dura-Ace R9200 Di2 groupsets. Merlier has 56/44 ratio chainrings with an 11-28 cassette. His stage win came on a 178.3km flat day, and although there were some minor hills, there was no need for lower gears.
Before the Tour, Merlier told Rouleur how the team must be prepared for the extra chaos of the race, with his last leadout provided by his friend Bert Van Lerberghe: “Because I’ve already done the Tour once, I knew how to do it. But the Tour is the Tour and we need to go faster this time. We need to be prepared for every scenario and this Tour will also be different because the team will protect Remco [Evenepoel] for the general classification until the last three kilometres when the time gap will be taken,” says Merlier. “Normally, we can join the team there and then it’s up to us, me and Bert, to be in the perfect position to launch the sprint.”
