Education First rider Tejay van Garderen will be well equipped for tomorrow's team time trial on his Cannondale SuperSlice time trial bike, with a series of subtle customisations for the rider.

Tomorrow's Tour de France team time trial will be a showcase of some serious tech and an opportunity for major GC contenders to win a few vital seconds early in the race.

Given the flat nature of the stage and the team formations at play, speeds will be very high. So there's no surprise that van Garderen is using a rather chunky 56-tooth chainring.

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Image 5 of 10

To put that in perspective, in the 58-11, at a cadence of 100rpm that translates to a speed of 65kmh. A fairly punchy cruising pace but one that we wouldn't be surprised to see tomorrow.

Looking closer at the bike, van Garderen is clearly not favouring comfort over speed, as he's using sandpaper in place of handlebar tape on the handlebars and extensions. That will likely be both to cut down drag at the front end and to improve grip over harsh terrain.

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Image 2 of 10

While the commercially available SuperSlice comes with disc brakes, van Garderen has opted for rim brakes. The team has previously used the disc brake model, and perhaps van Garderen is looking for minor gains in aerodynamics and weight in the hillier time trials set to come later in the race.

Perhaps the strangest alteration is the use of a Shimano Ultegra front brake. It's anyone's guess why Education First has not used Shimano's top tier Dura-Ace brakes, but my guess would be that as this is a deviation from the standard frame, Ultegra direct-mount brakes may have been the only model to fit the design.

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Image 4 of 10

Van Garderen is using an integrated crankset spider-based Power2Max power meter, which have historically been a favourite option for pairing with Cannondale's SiSL 2 crankset. 

The bike also sports a Vision metron rear disc wheel and a deep-section Vision Metron 81 SL front wheel. He's matched those with Vittoria Corsa Speed 25mm tubular tyres – a mildly wider setup than some of the competition has opted for.

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Image 7 of 10

As a GC contender with strong time trial form, we look forward to seeing how van Garderen puts his TT bike to use in the coming weeks.

Julian Alaphillipe took an incredible solo win today on Stage 3 of the Tour de France, showcasing the rider's increasingly impressive all-round form. The S-Works Tarmac he rode may have played a smaller part than the Frenchman himself, but is well worth some admiration. 

Alaphillipe's S-Works Tarmac is arguably the perfect breakaway weapon of choice, with a mix of aerodynamics, stiffness and light weight.

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Image 4 of 17

While the S-Works SL6 Tarmac is less aerodynamic than the S-Works Venge, it is still every bit as aerodydnamic as the original S-Works Venge, and has been honed in Specialized's own 'Win Tunnel.'

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Image 14 of 17

Alaphillipe has sided for relatively deep Roval CLX50 wheels, which most likely brings the weight right up to the UCI minimum of 6.8kgs. The wheels have been paired with S-Works Turbo tubular tyres, which mix grip and weight together nicely. 

It's impossible to overlook the use of disc brakes by a high-profile GC contender like Alaphillipe, where many have opted to remain on rim brakes. The S-Works Tarmac uses 140mm rotors, smaller than some, but Alaphillipe's fast descending suggests that the smaller rotors are up to extremely harsh braking.

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Image 11 of 17

Alaphillipe uses a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, with a standard 53-39 groupset, paired with a relatively rangey 11-28 rear cassette. That suggests the rider is confident he can make cadence on even the steepest of inclines without the use of a compact chainset.

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Image 7 of 17

His front end is a little conservative by pro cycling standards, with a 10mm stem rather than the super-long 140mm stems that have become common in the WorldTour. That will aid his punchy and aggressive descending style.

Alaphillipe has used a soft felt fastening for his handlebar tape, rather than the cruder electric tape that normal consumers use, most likely to save on weight but also make for a more comfortable grip when on the tops. His tricolour K-Edge GPS mount is also a fantastic subtle flourish to the build.

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Image 17 of 17

Alaphillipe, like all of Quickstep, uses a Bryton Rider 450 computer to relay speed and cadence, along with the power data from his integrated Shimano Dura-Ace power meter.

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Image 8 of 17

Looking at Alaphillipe's form today, we can him to be putting his S-Works Tarmac through its paces in the mountains when vying for a possible GC victory.

Anyone who followed cycling in the nineties will remember Cannondale’s oversized aluminium CAAD (Cannondale Advanced Aluminium Design) bikes winning races well before carbon rolled into town.

The likes of the all-conquering Saeco Cannondale squad, and their especially flamboyant leader, Mario ‘Lion King’ Cipollini, helped make these bikes iconic.

That heritage has never been forgotten by Cannondale, which unlike many brands, has always upheld its alloy line-up as a race-ready package – not just relegating these bikes to the bottom of the heap as cheaper, entry-level alternatives.

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Image 9 of 33

Non-carbon racing pedigree

Cannondale has maintained the geometry and cutting edge materials required to keep these bikes on pace with what’s expected of a race bike and it says this 13th generation proves alloy can still cut it, snapping right at carbon's heels in terms of speed, weight and comfort.

‘Every new CAAD bike we design improves on the preceding version, but the CAAD13 represents a pretty radical new direction for us’, says global product director David Devine.

‘With CAAD13 we focused on elements that really improve the ride, namely drag reduction, comfort and wide-ranging capability, while not increasing the weight.’

The result is a completely new look for CAAD 13 and a big departure from the more traditional, predominantly round tube shapes we have been used to seeing.

It’s hard not to spot the similarity to the new SuperSix EVO – Cannondale released just last month. The traits of that modern race bike prevailing in the design – namely aerodynamic truncated airfoil tube profiles, dropped seat stays and an aero cockpit

The geometry and riding position also mimic the SuperSix Evo, with handling therefore likely to match, ensuring the race level feel that Cannondale has sought after.

Not just lookey-likey

The challenges of sculpting these truncated airfoil aero tube shapes in aluminium are many. Cannondale’s engineers have delivered a modern masterpiece in terms of material manipulation with CAAD13.

Cannondale calls it SmartForm, but it’s essentially a hydroforming process that enables intricate tube shapes in alloy, creating a more aerodynamic frame with increased stiffness where it's required for performance, but with no additional weight over its predecessor.

The aero tubeset, seat post and cockpit combined, Cannondale claims, achieves a 30% reduction in dag compared to the previous model.

The cockpit on the top end CAAD13 Disc model is directly descended from the full-aero Knot products Cannondale developed for its wind cheating race bike the SystemSix. A key difference, though, is this also utilises Cannondale’s Save technology to improve comfort.

A neat feature of the bar/stem is that despite having the aero benefits of a one-piece design it is in fact a separate bar and stem, allowing the individual components to be easily swapped, plus 8° of bar rotation, to fine tune riding position.

It’s a similar mix of aero and practicality at the seatpost. The carbon Knot 27 post (carbon version only featured on the top end model) is a truncated airfoil profile, like many of the frame tubes, but Cannondale suggests it’s extremely compliant, even more plush than it’s previously used super-skinny 25.4mm Save post.

The result is Cannondale claims this latest CAAD 13 model is twice as vertically compliant than its predecessor.

Tyred out

While we’re talking comfort, we know tyre width and pressure are key determinants of road bike comfort and Cannondale, in keeping with trend, has upped its clearances to 30mm (although a quick glance suggests there’s likely room for a bit larger still).

What the tyres are seated on is equally important to ride feel, and the new Knot 45 carbon wheelset – from Cannondale’s in house Hollowgram brand – supplied on the range topping Force eTap AXS disc model are the very same wheels fitted to the top end SuperSix Evo models that cost twice as much. It’s a lot of wheel for the £3,999 pricetag of the complete bike.

That, in a nutshell, highlights one of the main benefits of choosing an aluminium frame. You can have top-drawer components like Sram's eTap AXS wireless shifting and top of the range carbon wheels without an eye watering overall price.

Some other nice touches on the new CAAD13 are things like the multi position water bottle mounts allowing reduced drag for a single bottle placement, and also greater capacity for two bottles. Again another idea borrowed directly from the latest SuperSix Evo and SystemSix models.

There are speed-release thru-axles for faster wheel removal and Cannondale hasn’t forgotten practicality in other areas. Mudguard mounts (neatly hidden under the top of the seat stays) mean the CAAD13 can be a truly versatile machine, from everyday work-horse to full-bore racer.

Added to that the fact the weight penalty for choosing aluminium is now less than ever – CAAD13 has a claimed frame weight of just 1150g (painted size 56cm) – Cannondale continues to do a great job of proving it’s CAAD bikes are a truly viable alternative to carbon, if you want more bang for your buck, or if you simply have a hang up about the fragility of the black stuff.

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Image 18 of 33

The range

The new CAAD13 line-up features 3 disc brake and 2 rim brake models for men, sizes 44, 48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 60,and 62cm, as well as 1 disc brake and 1 rim brake women’s model in sizes 44,48, 51,and 54cm.

Pricing is as follows

CAAD13 Disc Force eTap AXS £3,999.99
CAAD13 Disc Shimano Ultegra £1,999.99
CAAD13 Rim Brake Shimano Ultegra £1,583.33
CAAD13 Disc Shimano 105 £1,583.33 *women’s model also available
CAAD13 Rim brake Shimano 105 £1,333.33 *women’s model also available

This article was originally published in Issue 78 of Cyclist Magazine

Words Peter Stuart PhotographyChris Blott

Some bikes are objects of beauty, some are unique concepts and others are prized antiques. The Lotus bike is all of these – its sleek, curved silhouette is a reminder of a time in cycling when science, automotive engineering and the pinnacle of the sport collided.

For enthusiasts, though, the Lotus 110 is about more than looks – it also has a complex history and is probably loved and loathed in equal measure by those involved in its creation, development and eventual demise.

Cyclist has travelled to a country house in Dorking to meet four owners of the Lotus 110 frame. They are all members of the Lotus 110 Club, which was formed to connect some of the owners of the 250 or so bikes that are still in existence.

The number 110 may seem immaterial, but in fact holds a great deal of importance. The story behind it, however, begins with a very different bike, the brainchild of infamous and enigmatic British engineer Mike Burrows – the Lotus 108.

Flowering of the Lotus

Coming from the world of recumbent bike racing, where he developed numerous high-speed prototypes, Burrows was looking for a project in conventional cycling.

His brand, WindCheetah, turned some heads with a highly aerodynamic monocoque frame, the WindCheetah Monocoque Mk 1, in the mid-1980s. It was a revolutionary design, but at the point of development no one was interested.

‘I took it to all the bike shows and said, “Isn’t this wonderful?” and I just got blank looks,’ Burrows recalls when Cyclist catches up with him.

‘They said to me, “Why have you covered the tubes over?” and I said, “I haven’t covered the tubes – this is a tube in the shape of a bicycle.”

‘Nobody could understand it. And so I just thought, “F**k it, I’ll go back to racing recumbents.”’

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Image 10 of 10

Burrows shelved his frame. The cycling industry didn’t seem prepared for such a bold leap forward in technology, but his bike would soon come to the attention of a different racing industry.

‘Rudy Thomann, a young French racing driver, was working with Lotus on the development side, and he also rode in the same club in Norfolk as me,’ says Burrows.

At the time, Lotus was in considerable financial trouble and was close to being sold by parent company General Motors, so it was in need of a positive PR story.

‘Rudy came by my workshop and saw the monocoque bike hanging on the wall. He took it to Lotus and suggested that they consider making a bike. Lotus said yes, and we got off to a great start. Sadly it all went sour at the end…’ Burrows trails off.

The product of that first relationship was the Lotus 108, a one-sided monocoque marvel.

Through a partnership with the British Cycling Federation, Lotus developed the bike for Chris Boardman, and he took a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics aboard it, creating a piece of cycling history in the process.

Boardman, however, wasn’t entirely enamoured with the amount of attention being focussed on the bike by the press and public. 

‘Chris put in all the effort at the Olympics and in the end everyone was talking about the bike and not him,’ says Paul Greasley, historian for the Lotus 110 Club.

Lotus, on the other hand, was thrilled with the success but wanted the spotlight to remain on its engineering ability, and not the eccentric genius of Mike Burrows. So began the great rift in the Lotus-Burrows venture.

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Image 3 of 10

Breaking the mould

‘Burrows probably saw the bike as his pension,’ says Greasley. Lotus, however, had other ideas.

Burrows continues, ‘They made a second mould, and that’s when things started going a little sour between us. They appointed their own engineer and aerodynamicist; they obviously wanted to make the Lotus bike and not the Mike Burrows bike. I didn’t spot this coming.’

Lotus moved away from Burrows’s single-sided design, and modified the frame to accept any groupset, where it was previously track-specific. Needless to say, Burrows was far from impressed.

‘They started making changes aerodynamically that really didn’t add anything to it,’ Burrows argues.

‘For instance, they changed the curve of the down tube for some reason, which with hindsight was a load of bollocks. They just wanted it to look different.’

As for Burrows’s 108 frame, rumour has it seven of those used for Boardman’s Olympic bids and Hour record attempts were sold to collectors, for £25,000 each.

Despite Burrows’s cynicism, the Lotus 110 still managed to help Boardman to a Tour de France prologue victory in 1994, with an average speed of 55.2kmh.

That remained the fastest stage of the Tour ever ridden until Rohan Dennis went even faster in the summer of 2015.

Despite the continued sponsorship by Lotus, Boardman seemed to develop a pretty dim view of the 110’s fame. Speaking in 1994, he told reporters, ‘The team got some frames and we’ve used them. That’s as far as it goes.’

From there, the Lotus 110 took another odd turn, as production left the UK altogether. Tony Wybrott, a member of the Lotus 110 Club, was involved in the production of the original batch of Lotus 110 frames. He worked at Bristol-based motorsports composite company DPS.

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Image 4 of 10

‘We made six development frames that then went to Lotus to be tested, and then we made a batch of 50, which I think went to the Gan and Once teams,’ Wybrott recalls. ‘It’s hard to know where those DPS ones went – we’ve traced 10 of the remainder so far.’

The majority of Lotus 110 bikes that exist today are in fact of South African descent. To save money, Lotus changed production companies in 1994, switching from DPS to Cape Town-based Aerodyne.

Aerodyne made around 200 frames before the axe fell. ‘In 1996 Lotus had a change of management and also a change of ownership, and the focus was moved back onto cars,’ Greasley says.

The final nail in the coffin came with the UCI’s Lugano Charter in 1996, which banned the use of monocoque non-tubed bikes in competition. However, that didn’t spell the end of the story for the Lotus bike, which may be about to see an unlikely resurgence.

As a consequence of its age, the Lotus has recently come out of copyright and so is on the cusp of being copied legally.

‘A company out in South Africa is now doing a replica,’ Wybrott tells us. Perhaps the 110 could still have a chance to reform the world of cycling?

It’s a silver lining that even Burrows can appreciate. ‘Looking at it now, the bike made history,’ he says. ‘Chris got his gold medal and won, and I ended up working for Giant and developing the compact frame,’ he says cheerfully. ‘At the end of the day, the good guys won.’

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Tony Wybrott's Lotus 110

Produced by DPS, this Lotus is a souvenir of Wybrott's time making the bike 

‘I worked at composites company DPS in Bristol,’ Wybrott says. ‘Lotus had manufactured the 108 themselves but they didn’t want to do the 110, so they came to us and we made the moulds, and went on to make the bikes for them. We made a batch of 50, which I think went to the Gan and Once pro teams.’

When the frames came back after use Lotus was happy to destroy them, but Wybrott suggested auctioning them off for £100 – and he was at the front of the queue.

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Image 2 of 10

‘The weave is easy to see on mine because it’s not painted,’ he says. ‘You can also see the segments. You have a piece for the right-hand side, a piece for the left-hand side, and then inside is a separate piece, which comes on the inside of the chainstay and gives you that detail for the rear wheel cut-out. It’s three pieces in effect.’

South African company Aerodyne later took over production, and Wybrott says the only difference is that Aerodyne’s 110 has ‘that little detail right behind the chainring – a hole for the front mech.

‘The UK-produced ones don’t have that. Also the South Africans did three sizes: small, medium and large. We only did one size: Boardman’s size.’

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Dan Sadler's Lotus 110

Produced by Aerodyne, this custom-painted Lotus is a TT project in progress 

As a youth, Sadler had a fixation with the Lotus 110, and the 108 before it. ‘I was young and impressionable,’ he says. ‘I was 15 in 1992 when Boardman won gold in Barcelona, and I’ve just been fascinated by the bike since.

‘Everyone wants a Lotus, really – it’s the go-to bike. And now I’ve got one I’d never let it go.

‘I paid £700 for the frame on eBay 12 years ago,’ he adds. ‘These days, for something in that condition, you’d have to pay between £6,000 and £8,000.’

Sadler had his bike painted. ‘It was plain carbon when I bought it,’ he recalls. ‘I had it done just because I like those colours. Black on white is always a good look.

‘I’m not racing on it right now, but the only reason is that I can’t adopt the position I currently ride on this bike – I can’t get the front end low enough. I’m trying to get a custom stem that drops the whole thing down. It will get raced again at some point.’

Would he ride the 110 for pleasure? ‘No. It’s too expensive!’ Sadler laughs.'

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Tom Edwards' Lotus 110

Produced by DPS, this is a pure collectable reconstruced to Boardman's spec

‘This is an exact copy of the one that Boardman rode in the World Time-Trial Championships in 1994,’ says Edwards.

‘All the components are Mavic originals from the 1990s. The most difficult thing to track down was actually the Mavic handlebar. There are lots of old tatty ones but finding a clean set was really hard.’

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Image 8 of 10

Despite being 25 years old, much of the componentry looks surprisingly modern. ‘The really innovative stuff back then is the mainstream now. For instance, the concealed cabling was pretty new at the time.

‘The previous owner modified the seatpost to put a normal round seatpost in it,’ Edwards adds with a wince. ‘So I had a carbon specialist remake it, as it was an integrated seatpost before.

‘We made a stub out of it and then the seatpost is actually just a standard Cervélo seatpost that slots over the top. Like a tooth crown.’

Unlike his fellow 110 owners, Edwards doesn’t use the bike for racing. ‘I just have it for pleasure,’ he says.

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Michael Porter's Lotus 110

Produced by Aerodyne, Porter's bike is a practical racer

‘I can’t remember how much it cost,’ Porter says with a laugh. ‘I bought it a long time ago off a guy who used to race cars with my dad.’

Porter races his bike regularly, but it was something of a journey to get to the point where it was competition-worthy.

‘It had quite a few cracks. Mercedes repaired it. It cracked here,’ he says pointing to the top tube. ‘It cracked there,’ he says, pointing to the head tube.

‘Mike Burrows repaired the front fork but made the gap above the fork crown a little big. It kept coming loose so we’ve riveted it now,’ he adds.

‘Fibrelite made the chainring and they also did the logo for it. They asked Lotus for permission to reproduce the logo. It’s nine-speed but I always have it set up for friction shifts.

‘My favourite time-trial distances are 10 and 25 miles. My personal best time on it is 50 minutes and 20 seconds for 25 miles. I’ve also done a 20 minutes and 14 seconds for 10 miles – both just below 30mph.’

It’s plain that Porter can make his 110 move quickly, but does he ever ride it purely for pleasure? ‘No, not much. I worry I look like a bit of a knob when I do!’

Cyclist meets Factor’s Rob Gitelis in Taiwan to find out what makes his bikes tick
This article was originally published in Issue 85 of Cyclist Magazine

Words James Spender Photography Mike Massaro

Twenty-five thousand pounds… you could buy a nice car for that. Or 2.2% of a really nice and really expensive car, such as the £1.15m Aston Martin One-77. Or for £25,000 you could have bought that car’s companion piece, the Factor Aston Martin One-77 road bike.

Made by British motorsport specialists bf1systems, when the Factor One-77 appeared in 2012 it was easily the most expensive, most advanced production road bike of its day.

It had hydraulic lines ‘baked’ into the twin-down tube monocoque frame, and a computer moulded into the one-piece bar-stem that measured everything from humidity to lean angle.

At 9.1kg the One-77 was also rather heavy, the front rotor was on the wrong side and it had all the handling characteristics and comfort of a barn door.

‘We’re car guys,’ its makers told Cyclist when we featured it in the magazine. Yet we couldn’t help but be impressed. It was an engineering marvel. In time, Factor presented a slightly more ‘realistic’ proposition, the £10,000 Vis Vires.

It bore many hallmarks of the One-77, including the split down tube, but by now it was no longer in the hands of a motorsports firm, but was created by a man with significant bike building experience already, honed in the bike producing hub of China.

That man is Rob Gitelis, and we’ve travelled to Taichung City, Taiwan, to take a peek behind the carbon curtain.

Boy from the black stuff

‘I’ve worked in the carbon fibre bike industry for a long time,’ says Gitelis, whose voice carries a twang of film-noir detective that hints he’s not from around here. ‘Four years ago I found myself involved with Factor, one thing led to another and I purchased the brand.’

Brands changing hands isn’t new, but usually they sell to an investment group or bike-related conglomerate and relinquish some control to a higher power. When Gitelis took on Factor, however, the inverse was true.

‘My factory was the manufacturer for the Vis Vires, which is how I got to know bf1,’ Gitelis adds. ‘I set up my first factory in 2002 with a partner, and have owned several out here over the years, big factories making for lots of different brands.

‘I worked with Cervélo, Enve, Zipp, Canyon, Argon 18, Scott… many big brands. But eventually I decided to move away from that contract work and focus on Factor.

‘Rather than having 1,000 employees we now have 100, and we’ve built a small and very specific factory just for Factor Bikes.’

That might not sound unusual, but in the modern mass-production of bicycles, brands making their own products are actually few and far between.

‘So many companies started as manufacturers but have lost touch with manufacturing,’ he says. ‘Trek was a manufacturer, and I think does still make some top-end frames in the US, but it now has a relationship with Giant, just like Specialized does with Merida.

‘There are very few still in control of their own destiny like we are.’

Gitelis believes this is what makes Factor stand out in a crowded market. Although heavy hitters such as Giant and Merida own their own factories, they make for others too, turning out millions of frames per year. Factor, by contrast, seeks to operate in the thousands and control every aspect of manufacture.

Striking changes

Factor’s set-up is indeed small and specific, yet this is not its sole premises. While we are looking around Factor’s HQ in the Taichung Industrial Park, a few hundred kilometres away lies another arm of the business.

‘Our frames are made in our factory in Xiamen, China, 259km from here. In Taiwan we do the research and design, testing, sanding, paint and assembly, but Xiamen is where our factory makes our raw product.’

To that end, the Taiwan HQ comprises everything but the production line. The design and sales offices are here, the showroom, the warehouse full of sparkling new framesets and components all lined up to be inspected, boxed for shipping or assembled into full bikes.

It looks not unlike a pro team’s service course, which is apposite given that at the time of our visit Factor is still sponsoring AG2R La Mondiale.

One room is filled with Meccano-esque machines connected to computers. Next to them sit piles of pristine white bicycle frames alongside boxes of smashed and cracked parts. This is the test lab.

‘With AG2R we were seeing a number of failures in our seatstays – not the frame breaking on its own but as the result of a pile-up crash. So here we quantified how strong our current frame was with our own pendulum drop test – a weight swung from 90° onto the side of the seatstay.

‘Our original frame cracked after one strike, so we re-engineered the stays to be able to sustain eight strikes before a crack occurs, but we did so without adding extra weight or changing the ride characteristics of the bike.’

Smoke and mirrors

If you own your own business you can do what you want, and it’s this philosophy that Gitelis says differentiates Factor from his previous work as a factory for hire, and from the majority of his current competition.

‘A lot more work goes into our products than into products I have made for brands in the past. Back then, many times I wanted to do something better for my customers, but better always comes with a cost, and they wouldn’t accept that.

‘I would want to charge $50 more [to make improvements to a frame], but for them that means they have to add $500 at the retail level. To my mind that doesn’t need to be the case – just add $50 into your cost calculation and it all moves through. But they couldn’t imagine it that way.’

To illustrate this, Gitelis returns to the example of the seatstays. Where other brands may have simply used more of the same material, Factor changed the carbon fibre for a more expensive type pre-impregnated with tougher resin.

‘It’s not just about the carbon fibres, because about 30% of a carbon fibre frame is the resin. Carbon fibres are just very fine filaments, stiff per weight but very easy to snap individually.

‘The resin allows the carbon fibres to become usefully stiff by binding the fibres together, and adds toughness itself.’

Materials are crucial to a bike’s properties, yet Gitelis believes that within the industry there’s a lot of bluff and misdirection when it comes to the black stuff. 

‘You hear so much about high-modulus carbon fibre,’ he says. ‘That doesn’t necessarily make a good bike. Or ultra-high modulus, which in engineering terms doesn’t even exist!

‘Then you have “aerospace”. That just means your carbon fibre comes with a certificate saying it has been approved for aerospace use, but you can buy exactly the same carbon fibre without the certificate for 25% less.

‘There’s so much marketing speak that isn’t rooted in reality. On top of that, you have companies buying three different materials with three different resin systems and mixing them in one frame.

‘I question that, because those resin systems may not bind together well. You can have the best fibres in the world but if they don’t have the right resin system you’ve wasted your money.’

Therefore, instead of buying off-the-shelf material to make its bikes, Factor gets its carbon fibre yarn from Japan from companies such as Toray and Mitsubishi, and has it sent to Korea to have a specific resin system applied.

But if that’s a better model, why aren’t other companies copying?

‘A company like Toray has a salesman who says to the factories, “This is our new fibre and we’re supplying so and so,” and the factories say, “OK, we want the same.” So everyone ends up with the same material and no one necessarily questions what has gone into it.

‘You hear all this T700, T1000 talk, but really those are very standardised materials. High-modulus material is so stiff it will break if you try and lay it into acute angles in a mould, so it’s not good for every part of a frame. It’s also so brittle a worker can break it as they’re placing it into a mould, without even realising.

‘Then you hear talk of other materials like Kevlar,’ he adds. ‘Now, Kevlar is useful for impact strength, but it has been around for a long time and it doesn’t fuse well with carbon fibre.

‘Or nanotechnology. When I worked making for Zipp we developed a handlebar with nano, but to use it in a way that made a noticeable difference added $200 to the cost of a handlebar.

‘So it’s like graphene now – there is potential but it hasn’t been commercially realised yet. But that doesn’t stop brands from sprinkling it in and saying it’s there.’

Primarily, though, it all comes back to money. Better materials cost more and require a skilled workforce working at a time-consuming pace. Then on top of that there is some considerable waste that also needs to be accounted for.

‘We use more complex shapes for the individual plies in our layups to create lighter, stronger, stiffer frames. I hate to say it, but around 25% of the material we buy in ends up in the garbage as scrap.

‘Other companies can’t fathom that idea, so they use much simpler shapes for their plies to keep waste at around 5%. But their frames won’t be as optimised as ours.’

Gitelis rues this aspect of carbon fibre manufacture, but he does point out that Factor’s waste is taken away by a company that grinds it up and adds it to concrete as reinforcement.

It’s still not ideal, ‘but unfortunately you can’t recycle carbon fibre, so at least this way it’s not simply going to landfill’.

The long game

Over the course of our tour it becomes evident that Gitelis has a wealth of experience in carbon fabrication, which begs the question: why swap a lucrative trade as a contract manufacturer for the more risky business of owning your own brand?

‘The industry I started in was exciting, working directly with people like Phil White and Gerard Vroomen [Cervélo founders], Andy Ording [Zipp] and Jason Shiers [Enve], but it all changed when companies were sold and the bottom line was price. It became sterile.

‘I look at Factor as a chance to prove a point about what bikes should and can be. For example, our O2 bike went through more than 60 iterations of different rideable layup designs.

‘There’s no way I could have done that for another brand – they would never have been able to account for that level of research and development in their margins.

‘It would take a contract vendor two weeks to get an iteration out to a brand for them to test, because they are working for lots of brands all at once. Focussing on just Factor, we can make an iteration in a single day.

‘Manufacturing our own brand means we can combine the manufacturing and margin with the retail price, so it still works out financially but we can offer a better product than our competitors at the same price.

‘The scary thing of course is it’s all your own money invested. But it’s not a gamble, it’s a calculated risk. I’ve got 23 years of experience in this industry. I live here. I know it.’

What’s in a factory?

Not all carbon fibre bikes are created equal

Most names on the down tube haven’t actually made that bike. Rather, that bike was designed by the brand name then executed by a contract factory, most likely in China. It’s a good enough model, but there are pitfalls, says Gitelis.

‘You have about five really big players [factories] in carbon fibre, then about 50 smaller players. To be part of the big five you have to be a Trek, Specialized, Scott, Cervélo… You need to be doing significant volume.

‘If you’re a smaller brand you’re with the 50, and there’s a significant gap between the big factories and small ones. If you’re in the 50, you really need to keep an eye on what’s going on in terms of quality control and expediency.

‘Then there are open moulds [where anyone can order a batch of blank frames from a stock catalogue]. Those are one step away from the copies, the fake Pinarellos.

‘If you read anything like, “This comes from the same factory as Cervélo,” that simply isn’t true. No premier factory makes open moulds – it would put off their premium customers.

‘I know it seems odd that a big manufacturer like Giant makes bikes for its own competitors, but it’s in everybody’s interests. It’s economy of scale. The Giant brand plus the Trek brand enables everybody’s costs to go down.’

Colnago will always be best known for its tube-and-lug C-series bikes but that doesn’t mean the brand has tied itself to one construction method. Spending time with the brand and its founder, Ernesto Colnago, it becomes clear that as much as Colnago celebrates its heritage it also embraces innovation.

This was why the brand decided to tap into its long-standing relationship with Ferrari several years ago to explore monocoque frame design. Released in 2014, the V1-r was the result.

Colnago says it improved upon that bike a couple of years later with the V2-r and has now released the final stage of the V-series project, the V3Rs. Available in both rim and disc versions, the new design brings with it the standard set of claims: it is apparently 70g lighter, 12% stiffer at the bottom bracket and 6% at the head tube.

Aerodynamics and comfort have not been quantified but Colnago explained thse areas have been given significant attention too.

First ride review: Colnago V3Rs

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Image 2 of 12

‘In our V-series we have always aimed to achieve a balance between lightweight and aerodynamic efficiency to create the best all-round bike,’ says Davide Fumagalli, Colnago’s lead engineer on the V3Rs project. ‘We were very happy with the V1-r and the V2-r, but in the V3Rs we think we have perfected the design.’

The frame has had an overhaul that brings it much more in line with several of its newly-released competitors - dropped seatstays, integrated cables, aero flourishes, disc brakes and increased tyre clearance are all in evidence on the V3Rs.

This is not to suggest that Colnago has released a copycat product - brands can only work within the confines of UCI-governed rules.

As a convergence seems to be occurring in bike design it could be suggested that the perfect recipe given current limitations is close to being achieved. My experience of the V3Rs would certainly point towards this being the case - despite my limited time aboard it there’s no mistaking that this is a well-rounded performance machine.

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Image 6 of 12

The V3Rs’s weight is a standout feature. A small disc frame is said to weigh just 790 grams. It sheds almost 100g over the equivalent V2-r, despite claims of increased stiffness at the bottom bracket and head tube. Colnago’s staff suggest builds well below the UCI’s minimum weight limit can be easily achieved - no mean feat for a disc bike.

‘We worked on all the small details in order to accrue a large net reduction in weight,’ says Fumagalli. ‘The seatpost clamp has been made lighter, the cable guide under the BB has been moulded in to the carbon, even the carbon around the bottle cage threads has been optimised. All these few-gram savings add up to an impressive final figure.’

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Image 7 of 12

There are no specific figures regarding aerodynamic performance, but there are plenty of truncated Kammtail tube profiles in evidence in key areas like the head tube, down tube and seat tube. Colnago made it clear that aerodynamics was a priority in the V3Rs, and the most important area given an aerodynamic boost is the cockpit.

The V3Rs uses something Colnago dubs its ‘TFS’ Integrated fork system, which allows the bike’s cables to pass into the bike almost completely internally from the bars - first nestled in a cover formed by an extended spacer under the stem, then through the fork steerer and into the frame.

First ride review: Colnago V3Rs

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Image 5 of 12

The V3Rs has clearance for larger tyres than its predecessors. Officially Colnago is saying 28mm is the maximum but unofficially it suggests 32mm can be fitted without issue. As a result of the likelihood of users running bigger tyres the V3Rs’s geometry has been revised: among several minor tweaks, the BB has been lowered (BB drop is now 72mm) in order to promote better stability.

Other geometrical changes include a longer fork and shorter head tube - done to accommodate bigger tyres and to facilitate better airflow around the front tyre in the aid of aerodynamics.

Incidentally, these changes create the welcome illusion of the bike being more aggressive despite the stack remaining the same, which does nothing to hurt the bike’s racey pretensions. Colnago is aiming for the V3Rs to be ‘the complete bike’, and it certainly looks the part.

The V3Rs will be available from August. Disc framesets will cost £3,999.95 and the rim counterparts £3,599.95. A complete build with Sram Red eTap AXS and Vision Trimax 40 carbon wheels is going to be £9,499.95.

Colnago chose the rolling hills and sterrati roads of Tuscany to launch the new V3Rs - the latest iteration of its monocoque, do-everything race bike. You can find all the details on the new release in our launch article.

An 80km loop of the area provided the perfect test conditions to get an initial feel for the bike’s performance.

Over the gravelly, chalk roads Tuscany is famous for the V3Rs’s stability stood out. While it was no doubt ably supported by the bike’s capacity to run wide tyres (our test bikes were specced with 28mm tyres) our route immediately took us on to a 6km section of white gravel and I was able to navigate the unfamiliar, loose surface with confidence.

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Image 3 of 9

After several prolonged ascents with some fast rolling sections in between it became apparent that Colnago seems to have achieved its goal of stiffness and low weight. The bike was always quick to react no matter the terrain and I accelerated up to a given speed very well.

Aerodynamic efficiency is always far more nuanced (certainly at the average speeds most cyclists - myself included - ride at) but based on my experience of holding similar speeds in similar circumstances on other bikes, paired with Campagnolo’s excellent Bora WTO 45mm wheels I can’t say I felt in any way impaired by the V3Rs in my ability to hold good speeds on flat and rolling roads.

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Image 4 of 9

There is no doubt the new Colango V3Rs is an accomplished bike across the board. However, performance of this quality should be par for the course at this price point, so there are only small areas where bikes can differentiate themselves. At this level discrepancies are minute and often subjective but for me, the V3Rs’s handling shines.

Tackling the twisting, rutted gravel roads at a decent speed left me unfazed because the bike behaved so intuitively. Likewise on Tuscany’s winding descents - they have few true hairpins, so many bends can be cornered at high speed.

I quickly learnt that I could tip the V3Rs into a flowing bend smoothly and trust it would track the line I took. It wasn’t even thrown by the frequent sections of broken tarmac mid-bend that would have prompted harsher bikes to lose traction.

Given my limited time with the bike, I won’t begin to dissect what attributes are the result of which design features. All considered though, my initial opinion is that Colnago has achieved its objectives with the V3Rs. It does provide an ideal blend of attributes that lend it to a variety of riding environments, while also including all the mod-cons a performance bike now requires.

The V3Rs is a polished example of what can be done using a conventional monocoque construction, and proves that Colnago is a master of bike design regardless of construction method.

Simon Yates' Tour de France victory on the mountainous Stage 12, over the  Col de Peyresourde and Hourquette d'Ancizan, was a perfect showcase for the brand new top-spec Scott Addict RC.

Playing super-domestique to his brother, Adam, we may not have expected to see much of Mitchelton-Scott's Simon Yates on the podium this year, but sprinting to a win from a long break, he showed his incredible form. 

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Image 14 of 21

170mm cranks

Yates' bike is a size small, roughly 52cm top tube, befitting his 5'8" frame. With that in mind, it's no surprise to see rather short 170mm Shimano Dura-Ace cranks being used. The non-standard spec attests to meticulous attention to bike fit.

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Image 20 of 21

Perhaps more surprising is the use of several spacers below the stem, lifting the front end. However, the deep drop classic bar shape suggests that Yates sides for a low position in the drops but a relatively relaxed position when sitting on the tops.

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Image 3 of 21

Scott will no doubt be happy that he sided for the Syncros spec saddle rather than going for an unbadged Fizik saddle, as many in the peloton have. Indeed, the Syncros Creston IC SL stem-bar combo is also an off-the-peg option, with a bit of minor customisation for length and drop.

Aero and discs

Many super-domestiques and GC contenders have opted to stay with rim brakes. Yates' new Addict RC is disc-brake only but still comes in only 50 grams above the UCI minimum weight at 6.85kgs. The bikes use 140mm rotors as standard.

The disc integration has helped the bike's aerodynamics, which are now much closer to the standards of Scott's top tier Foil, with complete integration of cables and dropped seatstays.

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Image 8 of 21

The handlebar-stem is also incredibly neatly integrated into the headset, and should couple stiffness and front end aerodynamic efficiency. There's also a subtle set of Di2 satellite sprint shifters tucked into the inside of the handlebar drops, which no doubt came in handy in his sprint finish.

Yates has sided for Pirelli tubular tyres, which are fairly new the WorldTour peloton but are clearly proving themselves. On Yates' bike, they've been paired with a set of Shimano C35 Dura-Ace wheels.

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Image 12 of 21

That's all complemented by a Shimano Dura-Ace power-meter integrated into the chainset, which is bulky 53-39 standard double. Yates clearly has no trouble striking a cadence uphill.

We'll hope to see plenty more of Yates, and his bike.

Launched originally in 2008, the SuperSix has always been considered a standout endurance racer, historically pegged as an ultimate do-it-all racer. Education First’s setup shows how well the bike can be put to the demands of modern racing.

Cannondale has boasted massive aerodynamic improvements for the SuperSix. In its wind tunnel testing, Cannondale claimed a saving of nine watts at 48.3kmh (30mph) over the Specialized Tarmac, and more than 40 watts saved over Trek’s Emonda.

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Image 3 of 13

For long turns on the front of the peloton for domestiques or fast paced descents by GC contenders like Rigoberto Uran, that could prove a significant advantage.

The use of deep section wheels will help that all out speed, and the entire team will be using Vision Metron wheels, as specced with the commercially available bike. Major climbing contenders in the team have opted for shallow section Metron wheels in the mountains, though.

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Image 8 of 13

The team has gone for wide 26mm Vittoria Corsa tubular tyres, which have proven a favourite in the peloton this year. 

Interestingly, the team is continuing to use rim brakes, where many of the major teams are now siding for disc brakes, even major climbers such as Simon Yates.

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Image 7 of 13

EF are using wider clearance and more powerful direct-mount Shimano Dura-Ace brake, which with a 10mm lower profile than a traditional single-mount brake offers slightly better aerodynamics.

For a domestique like Alberto Bettiol, it looks as though fast flat pace is an objective - aided by the rather sizeable 55-42 FSA chainset providing a massive 132 gear inches.

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Image 4 of 13

That chainset has an integrated Power2Max power meter, which is provided at the point of purchase to buyers of the top tier SuperSix Evo, but raised some controversy as Cannondale charge €490 to activate it.

Bettiol has also opted for a long negative angle 120mm FSA stem, and a Garmin 820 head unit, which will offer Garmin’s highly detailed Cycling Dynamics data on top of traditional power metrics from the Power2Max power unit.

This year has been a special one at the Tour de France, with some of the most dramatic stages and general classification battles in recent history. The bikes that have been ridden by some of the biggest names have also been some of the most exciting we've seen in years.

The main attraction, as per usual, is Peter Sagan – and more specifically his custom-painted Specialized Venge, complete with a supremely sprinty 140mm stem, and a set of concealed sprint shifters on the handlebar drops.

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Image 1 of 222

We only managed a passing look at Geraint Thomas' Pinarello Dogma F12, but with the Welsh dragon emblazoned on the top tube, it screamed of national pride and a fighting spirit. 

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Image 11 of 222

In terms of spec, Thomas's bike was near-identical to Wout Poels' F12, although both were switched from Shimano Dura-Ace carbon wheels to lightweight Meilienstein wheels for the Tour's mountain stages.

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Image 117 of 222

Pinarello equipped the entire team with rim brake Dogma F12, that is except for a single bike in the fleet – Dave Brailsford's Pinarello Dogma F12 Disk (that's how they spell it, not us). Given his strong form in recent sportives, it doesn't seem to be slowing him down much.

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Image 33 of 222

Quirky choices

While it will hardly steal the limelight on the Champs-Élysées, we were pleasantly surprised with some choice shoe styling from Astana. With these Panchic yellow trainers, the team members are well coordinated for sign-on and post-race interviews.

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Image 37 of 222

Back to bike tech, many teams stuck religiously to the components of its main sponsors. Ag2r-La Mondiale, however, have been refreshingly divergent by fitting Ceramic Speed Oversized jockey wheels on their Shimano Dura-Ace rear derailleurs.

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Image 222 of 222

Shimano was certainly the groupset of choice from the main teams, but we did spot Campagnolo's newest 12-speed Super Record EPS groupset on Team UAE's Colnago fleet.

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Image 89 of 222

Unlike in past years there was little evidence of rebadging of equipment by pro teams, aside from saddles – many of which seemed to be Fizik models with the logos removed. Trek-Segafredo and a few other teams sided for rebadged Zipp sub-9 disc wheels for their TT setups, as many wheel makers do not offer a specific disc wheel option.

Behind the mechanic's curtain

The team vans were hugely varied at this year's Tour. Team Ineos and Deceuninck-QuickStep had vans that resembled showrooms amid their considerable fleet of vehicles. The mechanics themselves, however, seemed for the most part to be operating in much the same way from team to team.

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Image 40 of 222

Park Tools and Beta tool sets seemed to be the favourite tools of the trade for the mechanics, while Morgan Blue and Muc-Off cleaning and degreasing products were rather common.

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Image 81 of 222

The number of spares is often startling, with several hundred sets of wheels kept by each team, not to mention several dozen team bikes too.

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Image 52 of 222

The vans abounded with spare cranksets, chainrings, crank spiders and all variety of cassettes. Given the number of spare wheels, it was encouraging to see that most teams still had a traditional truing stand – suggesting that they prefer to mend spokes than replace wheels.

Power meters and head-units

Mechanics will no doubt be happy to see the general phasing out of SRM power units, which used to be common across most of the Grand Tour teams. The systems once needed a wired-in PM6 head unit, which made for extra cabling headaches.

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Image 137 of 222

This year teams have largely used Shimano's integrated chainset power meter, but several have also used the S-Works system, while Cannondale has sided for Power2Max.

The trend has certainly been toward smaller and more lightweight head units such as Garmin 820 or Bryton Rider units. That does away with the need for cabling, as the power meters broadcast data in ANT+ signal, but also makes for more aerodynamic and neater front ends to the cockpit.

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Image 22 of 222

Aerodynamics and disc brakes

While there are many new and interesting technological developments, the most ubiquitous step forward seems to be that all the major players are using aerodynamic frames and wheels regardless of the profile of riders.

Vincenzo Nibali, for instance, has sided for Merida's rather chunky aerodynamic Reacto, which is as well equipped for fast sprinting and descending as it is for long and punchy climbs.

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Image 107 of 222

The Specialized S-Works Tarmac and Venge are the most common bikes in the peloton, and both are amongst the most aerodynamic bikes on the market. 

However, even previously less aero-focussed options such as the Cannondale SuperSix Evo have been updated. Cannondale now claims that its bike is more aerodynamic than the S-Works Tarmac, which itself was more aerodynamic than the original Specialized Venge.

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Image 214 of 222

Cannondale have yet to embrace disc brakes for its pro race fleet, while the likes of Specialized and Scott have furnished their entire teams with discs. Ineed, Simon Yates' bike comes in at just over 6.8kg (the UCI legal minimum weight) despite its disc brakes and aero wheels.

Stunning paint

While bikes look a great deal faster than they did five or 10 years ago, the technology around painting has also come forward in leaps and bounds.

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Image 177 of 222

Sagan's bike certainly showcases this, but there was little argument from the sidelines that Trek's custom Project One paint-scheme for the Trek-Segafredo team was the most stunning.

While it may detract from the stock colours of a bike, or even team colours, it would be our humble prediction that more brands will opt for ambitious eye-catching custom colourways in future years to allow their bikes to take centre stage.

Fingers crossed for a fantastic finish to the Tour this weekend, but from a tech standpoint, we've already been spoiled.

Trek has just revamped its Domane endurance bike, making it comfier, more versatile and significantly more aero. The tube shapes have been redesigned to such an extent that the bike looks like a ‘Lite’ version of Trek’s aero race bike, the Madone SLR.

It also adopts similar levels of cable integration in a bid to smooth air flow around the bike’s cockpit.

If the brand is to be believed these aero modifications have done the trick - while the given power output and speed required were undisclosed, the new bike is apparently one minute faster per hour than the outgoing model.

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Image 6 of 12

‘This is by far the fastest Domane we've ever made,’ says Jordan Roessingh, Trek's director of product for road bikes. ‘The new design improves on all the best-loved parts of the previous generations. It's smoother, more integrated and more capable than ever, and it brings better performance to a broader audience.’

The front and rear ‘Isospeed Decoupler’ features remain from the previous bike, although the rear has been changed to the same L-shaped leaf spring design of the newest Madone SLR, as opposed to the straight design used on the previous Domane.

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Image 3 of 12

It is commonly regarded that these features work well to improve rider comfort but further help will come from the new Domane SLR’s massive 38mm tyre clearance.

That is with Trek’s recommended 4mm of clearance between tyre and frame, so provided consumers are willing to push the boundaries of clearance the new Domane could house tyres wide enough to make it a capable gravel machine as well as an endurance road bike. New models come stocked with disc brakes and 32mm tyres.

Versatility was well-considered in the new design. The frame has an integrated storage compartment that allows riders to stowaway tools and gear internally.

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Image 5 of 12

‘A jersey pocket or saddle pack can do the job, but these solutions don't always look or feel great,’ said Roessingh. ‘The Domane's new integrated storage keeps these essentials protected, while still allowing for a water bottle cage on the down tube.

'The new models also feature a saddle-integrated mount for a Flare R tail light.’

The new Domane SLR - and the lower spec SL - models are available now.

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Image 8 of 12

UK Pricing

(P1 denotes Project One custom paint inclusive)

Domane SLR 9 eTap P1  -  £9,650
Domane SLR 9  -  £9,000
Domane SLR 9 P1  -  £9,550
Domane SLR 7 eTap P1  -  £6,550
Domane SLR 7  -  £6,000
Domane SLR 7 P1  -  £6,550
Domane SLR 6 P1  -  £5,400
Domane SL 7 eTap  -  £5,000
Domane SL 7  -  £4,900
Domane SL 6  -  £3,200
Domane SL 5  -  £2,450
Domane SL 4  -  £2,100
Domane SLR Frameset  -  £3,000
Domane SLR Disc Frameset  -  £3,000
Domane SL Frameset  -  £1,900
Domane SL Disc Frameset  -  £1,900

The Colnago C64 is the first bike that made me blush. One Saturday morning I pulled into a cafe, placed the C64 beside a dozen other bikes and looked up to see a flock of club riders ogling it shamelessly.

It made me a little self-conscious, and almost embarrassed for the poor inanimate object being, well... objectified.

But then, the C64 is built to attract cafe stares. What matters, though, is whether it’s more than merely a trophy bike. For those unfamiliar with the C64’s lineage, the C-series is a handmade carbon bicycle dynasty.

It’s iconic for its crimped tube shapes and carbon lugs yet harks back to the stylish looks of classic steel builders. All C-bikes have always been available in custom geometry, and they’ve been at the forefront when it comes to technology, too.

The C59 was the first custom carbon road bike to feature disc brakes, way back in 2012.
The bottom bracket junctions of the last few generations have been technological marvels,
if a little incomprehensible.

Colnago introduced the ThreadFit 82.5 bottom bracket with the C60, offering a ‘stiffer pedalling’ platform and a unique BB-standard. The C64 has been further redesigned with ‘more complexity than ever’.

‘It’s even more complicated than the C60 because the cable guide is modelled into the lug itself,’ says Colnago designer Davide Fumagalli.

Instead of a small plastic guide, the carbon shell has a cable channel modelled within it. While some have complained that the C64 looks very similar to its predecessor, a major visual change is in the seat tube and seatpost.

Where the C60 used a lug to join the top tube, seat tube and seatstays, the C64’s lug and seat tube are moulded as a single piece. It means the frame is a little more like a monocoque carbon frame and can use the same aerodynamically shaped seatpost as Colnago’s V2-R.

To my eye, this has modernised the entire look of the bike.

One of the biggest changes is a very simple one, though – the widening of tyre clearances. 

Where the C60 struggled to fit 25mm tyres, the C64 boasts clearance of at least 28mm. Overall the bike features some thoughtful design and savvy engineering, but it’s time to look beyond the stats.

Thin end of the wedge.

In years past, I rode the C59 and C60 and found both to offer a rare balance of comfort, speed and agile handling that the best Italian builders do so well, and I can’t deny that I was more excited by the C64 than the recent monocoque offerings from Colnago, such as the V2-R and Concept.

Unfortunately, my first encounter with it left me grumbling. To assemble the C64 I had to tighten a bolt tucked behind the aerodynamic wing of the handlebar, but it was placed in such an awkward position that I could only get an allen key partially into the bolt hole at an exteme angle.

This meant I risked rounding off the bolt, which would have rendered the bike unusable at a stroke. With tentative care, I did manage to tighten the bars, but it’s still a poorly conceived aspect of the bike, and I’d recommend a conventional handlebar and stem over this aero design.

However, like all classic romcom storylines, from an awkward and frosty start the C64 began to charm me on all fronts, and I felt a beautiful relationship begin to emerge.

Gone with the wind

From the outset, the stiffness Colnago has targeted shines through. The bike responds to power input with decisive bursts of speed, but they’re coupled with a natural smoothness too. I first rode this bike on the well-maintained roads of Lanzarote, where the C64 simply glided over the tarmac.

Yet I also found that the stiffness through the back end of the bike let me feel the
road beneath and make sharp, accurate steering corrections, all while filtering out any nasty shocks.

Not many bikes achieve all that at once. It bestowed a confidence that saw me get up to 88kmh on one descent (I don’t risk such speeds very often).

That’s possibly partly down to the bike’s front end, where Colnago uses an elastomer polymer in the headset that offers a very small but detectable degree of compression and suspension within the head tube. It means that while the fork is extremely stiff, the headset filters out some of the jolts.

On the lanes of Surrey, that type of compliance is pushed to the limit, where small road scars
become gaping potholes and smooth tarmac is an abstract fantasy. I’d say on that terrain, the
C64 is on the harsh side, but bearable.

I believe that with a set of 28mm tyres it could even be put to work on a cobbled Classic. 

The frame comes in at just over 900g, which I found agreeable and noticeably lighter than the C60 (1,050g). A 7.12kg build with deep section wheels and Campagnolo Super Record EPS feels plenty light enough on a steep climb.

As for aerodynamics, the C64 isn’t specifically designed as an aero bike – Colnago has the Concept for that – but it does include more aerodynamic features than we would usually expect of a bike available in custom geometry.

While it’s hard to assess a bike’s aerodynamics outside a wind-tunnel, the C64 certainly holds
speed well on the flat, and just feels fast.

Partly, if I’m honest, that sensation of speed is down to the sound resonance that the C64
achieves – it produces a perfect hum as it glides over the road. The Campagnolo Bora wheels also do a great job of holding speed, and it seems to take little effort to accelerate into a fast sprint.

But there’s something else about the C64. The way it reacts to input from the rider is so sharp,
so tuned, that it just made me want to turn the screw on my efforts whenever possible.

The C64 is a bike that manages to stand out even among rival superbikes for that very reason.

That’s quite possibly why Colnago has endured in popularity – the bike manages to foster a feeling of innate speed coupled with sharp, agile handling as if it were designed by sensation alone. Step back from that fantastic ride quality and there’s a stunning bike, with a historic story and home-grown, custom-built Italian appeal.

A dream bike, some might say.

Buy the Colnago C64 now from Sigma Sports

Colnago launches the C64

The Colnago C-series is a kind of royal family of the cycling world. It is prized as one of the archetypal Italian racing bikes. The new Colnago C64, launched today, marks the latest development in its history.

Iconic for its crimped tube shapes and standout carbon lugs, from the original C40 onward the C-bikes were a type of carbon bike that harked back to the stylish looks of classic steel builders.

The C64 comes with some of the DNA of its predecessors but also represents a careful technological focus on materials and shapes, all of which have been updated compared to the previous C60.

Like all the C40, C59 and C60 bikes before it, the C64 is handmade in Italy despite Colnago’s surprisingly small size, with only 28 employees. ‘This one is still made in Italy,’ says Colnago designer Davide Fumagalli. ‘That means we are the biggest Italian-made carbon frame makers, and we are very proud of this fact.’

The attention to detail shows, and Colnago is quick to praise the neatness of the internals of its tubing. ‘We use a polymer mandrel that disappears at room temperature,’ says Fumagalli. ‘It’s expensive but has the best result.’

However, the Colnago C64 isn’t simply an updated ‘stiffer, lighter, more comfortable’ story with only minimal changes. The bike has been redeveloped far more than a single glance suggests.

64 years in the making

The C64 is so-called as it marks the 64th anniversary of the company, since Ernesto officially created the brand in 1954. Amazingly, the 86 year-old Ernesto is at the launch in person, and taking an energetic hands-on lead in presenting the new bike.

‘We are calling the new C64 a sort of revolution of the C60, but we have really changed everything,’ says Fumagalli. ‘Starting from the shape, but also the kind of carbon fibre and the process behind the bike. It’s a completely new project and it’s completely different.’

The first sign of the stark difference to the bike’s traditional persuasions is the new approach to tyre clearance. Where once the C60 struggled to fit 25mm tyres, the C64 now boasts clearance of at least 28mm.

‘The standard for us is the 28mm Continental GP 4000, which actually measures around 30.5mm in width,’ says Fumagalli. ‘So we designed it for this tyre, but we have enough space for 30mm tyres.’

He adds that the rim brakes themselves are a limiting factor. ‘Of course the disc version has much more space here,’ he says. ‘But both bikes share much more space than the C60.’

Lugs and seatpost

While the tyre clearance is a surprise, in pure design terms the most considerable difference from the traditional C-series bikes is not immediately obvious – this is no longer a purely tube-to-tube lugged construction.

Where once a lug joined the seatube, seatstays and toptube together, now the seattube moulds into bond for the top tube and seatstays (which is actually a ‘mono-stay’ at the joint). It’s one of numerous features that cuts weight efficiently, but also plays an important role in overall performance.

‘This technical feature increased the stiffness of the frame,’ says Fumagalli. That is because removing the extra bonds necessary to create a lug around the tubes is likely to reduce the flex around the junction.

Another important consequence of the redesign of the seattube is that Colnago has now included a custom shaped seatpost – the same as that used on the V2-R.

‘For the C-series we had a 27.2mm post, then 31.6mm for the C60, and but we’ve now decided on this shape which we use for the V2-R and V1-R but we have a 15mm setback, or a 30mm setback or 0mm,’ says Fumagalli.

The goal has been improved aerodynamics but also increased vertical compliance, and by a measurement of N/mm, it has gone from 205N/mm to 170N/mm, with the lower number representing more comfortable flex.

Head-tube

‘The headtube, even though the shape is quite similar to the C60, uses completely different technology,’ says Fumagalli.

The headtube itself has been widened for greater stiffness. As bike design enthusiasts will know, the headtube stiffness influences handling accuracy, but also affects the possible flex conducted from the bottom bracket – making for a more rigid power transfer.

However, the more intriguing technology is what sits inside the headtube, with Colnago’s new headset system.

‘We call it a partial suspension headset,’ he continues. ‘On the upper part we use the same technology as on the Concept.’ That comprises a special polymer made from carbon fibre and a mix of nylon and elastomer, which offers some degree of compression in order to filter out some road buzz.

As well as the advantages in terms of road buzz there’s gains in weight from the new design. ‘The headset on the C64 is lighter than on the C60 while also reducing the vibration from the road,’ Fumagalli says, while also clarifying that this isn’t a true suspension system.

‘It’s not a suspension system like from other brands but you will feel the effects of the system on the front end of the bike.’

The bottom bracket line

As has become standard since its introduction with the C60, Colnago has used a ThreadFit 82.5 bottom bracket. With the C64, the bottom bracket area has been further redesigned in what Colnago calls ‘more complex than ever.’

‘It’s even more complicated than the C60 because the cable guide is modelled into the lug itself. The cable guide is the biggest radius possible to make for better shifting performance.’

While the intricacies of BB standards are like anaesthesia to all but the most pious bike nerds, the developments on this frame are worthy of some consideration.

The chainstays are made asymmetrically, to balance the forces on the bike. ‘The left chainstay is bigger than the right side chainstay because we used all the space we had to make the stiffest possible frame,’ says Fumagalli.

Weight-saving

The integrated cable routing is an impressive measure to save a small amount of weight, and matched other minor tweaks in the frame that aimed to shed grams with a little and often approach.

One of the subtler but more significant changes for the C64 compared to the C60 is the switch to carbon fibre dropouts front and rear. Previously the frame used aluminium inserts and the result is a lighter but also stronger package.

The fork has also shedded weight, meaning that the overall package sheds considerable weight compared to the C60, a full 205g in a size medium.

Buy the Colnago C64 now from Sigma Sports

Disc-equipped

Colnago’s C64 Disc has really made seismic leaps since the brand first flirtation with disc brakes on the C59 way back in 2012. To Colnago’s credit, it was by far the first high-end road bike to even consider the use of disc brakes.

With the C64, we’re offered a fully internal wiring setup for aerodynamic efficiency as well as an agreeable aesthetic neatness. It can fit a custom bar to route the cables entirely internally from the levers or be fixed to any traditional sized bar with a conventional setup. 

The use of threaded thru-axles is another technological update for the C64, which has considerably increased the stiffness of the overall build. Indeed, to match the level of stiffness the rim brake version uses wider chainstays.

The threaded thru-axle also reduces the weight of the fork and rear-dropout considerably. The disc package has made big gains in weight, with the overall package coming in 270g lighter than the C60 disc, and startlingly only 15 grams heavier than the rim brake version.

As is increasingly proving to be the standard, Colnago has stuck with 12mm radius thru-axles.

It’s worth noting that the disc version will not be available as soon as the rim version, set for distribution this month, but will instead be available in May.

Both frames come in an impressive selection of 14 sizes - 9 with a normal sloping geometry and 5 with a high-stack for a more comfortable setup.

‘Of course, as with any other C product in the past you can have custom sizes,’ Fumagalli adds, crucially.

The price of the rim brake version looks to be around £3,500 (tbc). It promises to be a relatively reasonable price for an historic and fully customisable Italian-made carbon frame.

On paper the new C64 certainly seems exciting, but we’ll have to wait and see whether theory matches function with its performance on the road.

Colnago C64 first ride review

A thoroughly modern design with all the classical allure. On first impressions, it climbs with ease, descends with immaculate accuracy and makes riding hard fun.

While Colnago does impressive work across the range, I can’t deny being far more excited about the flagship C-series than the newer monocoque carbon bikes.

I rode the C59 and C60 and found both to represent the rare balance of comfort, speed and agile handling that the best Italians do so well. Expectations were high for the C64, then.

The disc version, set to come out in May, was in short supply, so I opted for the more classic C64 rim for this first test, complete with a perfectly matched Campagnolo Super Record groupset.

Indeed, while the pictures may speak for themselves, it’s worth clarifying that this bike looks striking. The major visual change is in the seattube and seatpost, and certainly modernises what some may have seen as a slightly outdated classical round-tubed seatpost design.

The C64 isn’t a piece of jewellery, though, and needs to behave on the roads just as well as its looks imply.

Gone with the wind

From the outset, the stiffness that Colnago has prioritised shines through. The bike responds to impulses of power with decisive spurts of speed. Rolling out the first few kilometres on the bike was simply gliding over the tarmac.

Admittedly the roads of Lanzarote, where Colnago’s launch was based, are immaculately smooth, and so the bike felt naturally more comfortable than I recall of its predecessor. Nevertheless, this is certainly a frame that balances the back and front end well in terms of filtering out road buzz.

One of the merits of Colnago’s design of the headset is that while the fork is considerably stiffer, the headset filters out much of the nasty jolts of the road but still communicates the road texture well. It makes for a confident ride.

I can’t say whether the fork, the increased BB stiffness or geometry were at play, but I hit nearly 90kmh on my first descent on the C64. I topped 80kmh several times.

While speed is specific to the rider, of course, the significance is that often I’ll feel too much disturbance and instability to feel confident creeping over 80kmh. Even with Lanzarote’s blistering wind, the C64 felt so planted and solid at speed, that I was having to fight my instincts to accelerate even more.

Steering inputs were also deeply predictable, and I found myself easily able to aim for any apex and take on a sharp tight corner well within my comfort zone.

When floating in the tailwinds of the island, the C64 felt like a missile, and just begged me to stand on the pedals and sprint whenever possible.

Hard going

The C64 probably won’t be the top choice of sprinters, as while aerodynamics has been taken into account more, it lacks the pure top end speed of a V2-R.

However, against the strong headwinds of Lanzarote the bike certainly didn’t seem to be giving away watts. Crucially the stiffness of the rear end meant that I never experienced that running on sand sensation that some bikes can deliver uphill or into the wind.

In terms of the weight changes, they were certainly palpable aboard the C64 compared to the previous generation.

Admittedly, this certainly isn’t as light as the S-Works Tarmac or Trek Emonda, but for me it fell well into the category of weight that I’d class as considerably light – while falling short of the ‘super light’ sub 750g club. It feels light to lift and went unnoticed below me on steep climbs.

As Colnago draws attention to, the weight of a frame isn't everything, and with a lighter fork the overall package sheds considerable weight compared to the C60, a full 205g in a size medium. Importantly that hasn’t come at the cost of rigidity, or pure ride quality.

Heir apparent

Of course, the C64 is certainly a very nice bike, but it has strong competition from brands both new and old.

But it shows that Colnago has not rested on its laurels, both the rim and disc version of the bike show a sharp focus on keeping up with the latest technological improvements on the market. For the rim brake version that seems to ring true in the quality of the ride.

First impressions are certainly strong, but we’ll need to get this on home turf for a longer test period before we can confirm that it lives up to the weight of one of cycling most famous names.

While France and Italy will be forever locked in battle for the crown of cycling’s spiritual home (while Flanders looks in on mock amusement, no doubt), it should not be overlooked that in modern times cycling has enjoyed a worldwide renaissance courtesy of burgeoning cycling scenes around the globe, each with its own unique flavour.

Take the US: it has pushed the off-road envelope and in so doing sewn its laid-back gravel seeds across The Pond.

South East Asia has a near-insatiable appetite for classic steel racers and ‘looking pro’, right down to team kits being de rigeur.

And Australia? Well, Australia is possibly best summed up by Baum Cycles, which for nearly two decades has been pushing the custom-handmade model to its limits from its home in Geelong, on the outskirts of Melbourne.

It would seem Aussies like real, specialist stuff, so long as the bike has something to say for itself.

‘This might look like a relatively simple bike – the custom paint aside, of course – but it’s anything but,’ says Baum’s European importer, Martijn Knol of Bureau Fidder.

All about the ride

Knol represents a host of top-drawer brands, from Italian outfit Sarto to 3D-printed-ti-lugged-carbon-tube-maker Bastion. But it’s the Baum Orbis that draws Cyclist’s eye.

That name on the down tube comes from Baum’s founder, owner and master welder Darren Baum, who first picked up a brazing torch aged 16, having accepted that custom bikes were out of his price range but figuring he could just learn and do as good a job himself.

That was 1989, and that love of fabrication eventually took Baum into aircraft engineering, but bikes remained his passion, and by the early 2000s he was selling his titanium frames internationally, of which the Orbis bike now tops the tree.

‘The Orbis R is a road bike, but this is the gravel Orbis, which specifically means it has clearance for 34mm tyres,’ says Knol. ‘It’s fully custom, including the painting, which Baum also does.’

The tubes are chunky, like an aluminium bike’s. They blend smoothly into one another like carbon. The finish is glossy like painted steel, and yet the Orbis is none of these things.

It is made from titanium, but not just any titanium. 

‘All the tubes are custom-drawn by Baum,’ says Knol. ‘This is to suit the rider, to give the bike the specific level of stiffness and flex in the right areas.’

Stiffness is something Darren Baum is quite passionate about, explains Knol.

In broad strokes stiffness, thinks Baum, has been too highly prized for a number of years, with manufacturers putting it on a pedestal that is detrimental to other ride qualities such as handling and comfort.

Time was when framebuilders just had off-the-peg tubesets and a narrow band of tyre widths to play with when it came to ‘tuning’ the ride, but with the advent of more advanced manufacturing techniques and disc brakes, that has all opened up.

‘Now tyre choice is huge. We’re no longer stuck rolling on 23mm tyres because disc brakes mean frame space can be opened up to accommodate wider tyres with varying treads,’ says Knol.

‘By shaping things such as the chainstays, and reassessing geometry, there is a lot more for a builder like Baum to play around with.’

Nowhere else in the Orbis’s frame is that idea better encapsulated than in the chainstays.

At a glance they appear normal, but they are in fact quite heavily asymmetric and they run with girder-like girth from the T47 bottom bracket, starting oval then ending in a round-edged square profile at Baum’s own designed and made dropouts.

It’s a neat trick that’s far more than just aesthetic. First, a huge degree of a frame’s power transfer is derived from the chainstays, with wider usually meaning stiffer and more efficient.

Second, the square-end profiles maximise the surface area of the dropout welds and provide a neat mounting area for the flat-mount disc callipers.

Third, the asymmetry is due to the fact the driveside chainstay is lower than the non-driveside, which Baum says helps limit chain slap (important for an off-road machine), as there’s more space between the stay and the chain than on most other bikes.

It all helps give the Orbis a unique look and ‘exceptional cornering’, and the tube profile is rather endearingly called ‘squircle’.

Naturally, it’s all custom drawn and shaped in-house.

All about the details

Although the Orbis is a tough, gravel-ready bike, Knol is keen to stress it’s also highly adept on the road as well.

Full builds happily come in around 7.5kg and the frame is stiff, ‘but not too stiff’.

While geometry is, of course, custom, there are a few racing tweaks Baum has made based on what one might call a ‘fresher’ approach to framebuilding.

‘The bottom bracket is lower because pedals have changed, so it can be,’ says Knol, pointing to an idea some independent framebuilders have identified – but not necessarily as many mass manufacturers have adopted – that pedals are ever more compact in size, meaning pedal strike in cornering is less of an issue than it once was.

So the idea goes, a lower BB makes for a lower centre of gravity, and thus a racier, more planted bike.

Details like this might seem minor – millimetres in difference and imperceptible to the eye – but they are indicative of the holistic and forward-thinking approach that marks Baum out as a master builder.

A bike that impressed in all areas and surpassed all its competitors, read Stu Bower's review of the Trek Madone disc 2019.

We’ve never had it so good. Recent road bikes launched for 2019 really do feel like they have taken giant strides forward. Disc brakes have revolutionised stopping power, and are no longer a hindrance to aerodynamics and weight.

Just look at the likes of the new Specialized S-Works Venge and the Cannondale SystemSix. I’ve tested both bikes recently, and they’re both incredibly fast, light and relatively comfortable to ride – at least as far as super-stiff aero road bikes are concerned.

Trek may not be happy with me mentioning two of its biggest rivals in a review of its own new flagship race bike, the Trek Madone, but it’s necessary in order to put it in context. My point is, the Venge and the SystemSix have set the bar very high, and not only has the Madone reached it, it has sailed clean over it.

One step beyond

I’ve been riding for more than three decades now, and have reviewed hundreds of bikes in my years on different cycling titles. During that time, I’ve written frequently that you ‘can’t have it all’ – it’s not possible to combine all the positive attributes you’d like in one bike. Well, the Madone SLR 9 Disc has made me eat those words.

We have now reached the sixth generation of the Madone, and few would argue that the previous version, launched in 2015, was a great machine but not without its foibles.

Issues around the complexity of the shrouded rim brakes (remember those little flaps on the head tube that opened so the brake didn’t interfere with steering?) and bike fit limitations imposed by the one-piece bar/stem were common gripes levelled at that model.

But it was also widely proclaimed as the new benchmark in comfort-versus-aero, mostly thanks to the inclusion of the IsoSpeed decoupling technology in the seatmast, which Trek borrowed from its endurance-focussed Domane.

Look at the present model and you’ll see a lot has changed, although it might not appear so at first glance (aside from the disc brakes, of course, although unlike Specialized and Cannondale, Trek does offer the new Madone in a rim brake version). Take a look underneath the top tube and you’ll notice something that definitely wasn’t there before.

A redesigned L-shaped version of Trek’s IsoSpeed concept is a brand new feature, bringing adjustable levels of compliance to the seatmast to tune the amount of shock absorption/flex/compliance/comfort – call it what you will – on offer.

Trek claims at the stiffest setting (with the slider all the way back) the new Madone is 21% stiffer than the old, non-adjustable version, for those who like it more racy. With the slider all the way forward, the Madone is 17% more compliant, Trek says, for added comfort. Which brings me nicely to my first test ride. 

In a hurry

So keen was I to get out on the Madone that I forgot to note the setting of the IsoSpeed. I merely went through my usual checks, setting my seat height, tweaking the bar position – which you can at least now do thanks to the neat two-piece bar/stem – and rode straight out of the gate. It took less than 2km for the ‘oh wow’ sensation to kick in.

I was blown away by how well the Madone delivered speed with not a hint of the jarring at the rear that has historically been the trade-off with full aero rigs. The IsoSpeed does its job superbly, turning the solid-looking seat tube into a pillowy, cushioned ride.

When I returned home I was convinced I must have been testing in the softest setting, but to my amazement it was set closer to mid-range.

Switching to the softest setting I subsequently found it to be even a little too squishy. It felt like I’d fitted a 32mm rear tyre and halved the pressure, whereas in reality I was running 90psi in a 25mm.

While that meant even the harshest surfaces were smoothed out – a cattle grid was barely noticeable – there was always palpable movement in the saddle, which I was less keen on.

Having worked my way right through the adjustment range, I found my optimum to be not far off the point where it was set on that very first ride, somewhere close to the mid-point. What’s important to note is that no matter where the adjustment is set, the smoothness of the ride is all that the IsoSpeed alters.

There’s no discernable loss of performance. The Madone SLR 9 Disc still feels every bit the lightning-fast race bike across the range of settings.

I’d even argue pedalling was improved on rough surfaces, aided by being able to stay seated and keep the power on when I might otherwise have had to slightly unweight the saddle to reduce jarring.

There is an element of the rear-end cushioning being so good that it exposes the Madone’s front as being overtly stiff, but that’s necessary to ensure the handling is unfaltering and the solidity of the frame holds true against big pedalling efforts.

Anyway, a little softening of the wrists and elbows and, voila, Mother Nature’s in-built suspension system can take care of a bit of front-end chatter.

All good things

The Madone SLR 9 Disc is without doubt the most comfortable road bike I’ve ever tested. And I’m not just talking about aero road bikes – I mean any road bike. I haven’t even ridden a gravel bike this good at absorbing bumps.

Is it the fastest too? Well, it’s close. I’d say the new S-Works Venge wins in the pure speed stakes, but only by a tyre width. For some people, speed is everything, but for me I’d plump for being able to go fast and still ride all day long. For that, the new Madone is knocking its rivals out of the park.

It was Keith Bontrager – whose brand Trek now owns – who came up with the adage about bikes: ‘Strong, light, cheap, pick two.’ To that list we might now add stiff, fast, aerodynamic, comfortable and usable in all conditions. With the Madone it really does seem like you can have it all. Except, of course, ‘cheap’.

How much can you get for a kidney these days?

Price

The Trek Madone SLR disc is currently on sale at Evans Cycles for £10,500 available tobuy here.

Spec

The Madone SLR Disc is the latest superbike from Trek, one of the biggest bike brands in the world. And yet its paint options have generated just as much of a buzz as the frame design itself.

According to Trek, half of all the previous-generation Madones it sold were through its Project One custom programme, where customers could spec the components and paint scheme they wanted.

This time around, the route to purchase has been expanded with the Project One Icon option – a more premium level that includes six pre-configured colour schemes that are even flashier, such as the ‘Prismatic Pearl’ paintjob seen here.

Buy the Madone SLR 9 Disc bike from Evans Cycles

Yet Trek’s road product manager, Jordan Roessingh, assures us the Madone’s new exterior is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what has been improved in this sixth iteration of the Wisconsin brand’s aero bike.

‘The fifth Madone we released in 2015 was such a quantum leap in technologies for aero road,’ he says.

‘It had things like the hidden IsoSpeed decoupler to improve comfort, fully hidden cables and integrated proprietary brakes.

‘But inevitably, as we do at the end of the development of any bike, we almost immediately had a sense of what we wanted to improve on with the next iteration.’

Most obviously that included a move to disc brakes. Unlike several of its competitors, Trek is still committed to rim brake design, having released the new Madone in both rim and disc guises.

However, the brand recognises that the market direction towards disc brakes opened some interesting opportunities that it was able to exploit with the SLR Disc.

‘Adding disc mounts on frames, while they do require some structural reinforcement to manage braking loads, is a much simpler problem to solve than the challenges of rim brakes,’ says Roessingh.

‘The inclusion of the integrated front brake on the rim brake Madone was an incredibly challenging design feature, plus we had to reduce the section length of the down tube to fit in the UCI frame boxes.

‘It was handicaps like this that meant we could design the Madone SLR Disc to be faster than its rim brake counterpart.’

It isn’t even that much heavier, either. Trek claims the Madone SLR Disc 9 weighs 7.4kg, just 300g heavier than the rim brake variant.

We use OCLV 700 series carbon throughout the new frame,’ says Roessingh.

‘The material really is the best-performing composite in terms of strength to weight you can get, and is exclusive in the bike industry to Trek. However, it’s unbelievably expensive.’ 

Tuned cushion

The 2015 Madone included a version of Trek’s IsoSpeed decoupler technology, a consideration unheard of on aero bikes at the time.

Instead of moulding the seat tube junction as a single unit, Trek ‘decoupled’ the seat tube, fixing it to the rest of the frame with a pivot axle and cartridge bearings, so it was able to flex much more than a traditional construction.

Now Trek has totally redesigned the feature, shifting to an L-shaped design where a flexible leaf spring-style section is positioned in a groove on the underside of the top tube.

Buy the Madone SLR 9 Disc bike from Evans Cycles

‘We took inspiration from our Domane to make the IsoSpeed unit externally accessible, so it can be adjusted,’ says Roessingh.

‘It can be set to be anything from 17% smoother to 21% rowdier than previously.

‘It also allowed us to create a more consistent feel of compliance across frame sizes because the length of the bending component of the IsoSpeed is no longer proportional to the size of the frame.’

Roessingh says ride quality and rider/bike interaction were the areas where Trek saw the most potential for improvement in this latest bike, so the new Madone has undergone changes to its geometry to make it more versatile and adjustable.

‘The Madone SLR uses our new H1.5 fit. This sits exactly halfway between our old H1 and H2 fits in stack, but we now offer different stem angles to create a wider range of positions from the same frame.

‘As the cockpit is now two-piece, the bar width, tilt and stem length are all easier to change too. A comfortable rider is a fast rider.’

Look out for a full review of the SLR Disc in due course, where we’ll determine if this model’s performance really does match its looks.

Trek Madone SLR 9 Disc Project One Icon, £11,650, trekbikes.com

This article was originally published in Issue 87 of Cyclist Magazine

Words Peter Stuart Photography Matt Ben Stone

A laser fires and a blinding light begins to radiate over a pile of titanium dust. White-hot metal particles streak off the build plate like tiny fireworks.

The dusty pile seems to be growing as the laser moves very slowly back and forth over the powder.

Beneath that powder – almost magically – a titanium lug has grown from the base of the machine. It feels like some sci-fi vision of what the future of bicycle manufacturing might look like.

In reality, it’s how Bastion builds parts for its frames today.

Every element of the production process takes place at Bastion’s facility in Fairfield, in the green suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The showpiece is the 3D titanium printer, but it’s not the only technical marvel on display.

‘We’re engineers and we like to use technology,’ says Ben Schultz, Bastion’s founder and CEO, with a laugh as he shows us around the facility.

In one room sits a filament winder, which weaves ribbons of carbon fibre into tubes, all controlled by computers and robots. There’s an alloy CNC machine, a paint shop and a large heat-treatment furnace, as well as various ovens, industrial fridges and a blasting cabinet. It’s a bike geek’s paradise.

Image 2 of 18

Image 2 of 18

Bastion’s core staff all come from an automotive background, straight from Toyota’s R&D department. Their vision was to rethink bike design with far more control over customisation.

That meant considering not only the size and shape of the rider, but the ride quality and performance of the bike too.

Building by numbers

‘Technologically, our bikes are the most advanced out there,’ says engineering director James Woolcock. ‘Are they the most advanced in every aspect?

‘Well, no, because they don’t have any aerodynamic development.’

At Bastion, the focus is optimising ride quality through the manipulation of materials.

Back in the room where the carbon tubes are made, a strip of carbon fibre rolls slowly off a spool and is fed through a resin bath and wound over a mandrel to form a carbon chainstay, which will be attached to Bastion’s titanium bottom bracket.

Image 3 of 18

Image 3 of 18

The stunning chevron-weave pattern of the tubes is an unintended consequence of the production process, but has become an aesthetic signature for the frames. By creating its own carbon tubes in this way, Bastion can tune in any amount of stiffness it chooses.

To keep things simple for clients, the brand sticks to three options of torsional rigidity – regular, stiff or extra-stiff – but that’s just one aspect of the build that is customisable. The client can also decide how they want the bike to ride.

Once the customer has had a bike fit (done either in Fairfield or through a network of bike-fit partners around the world), Bastion can tweak a bike’s geometry to find a sweet spot of handling and performance that mimics other popular bikes.

In practice, that means a customer could ask for a sprinkling of Trek Madone mixed with a bit of Cannondale Synapse if they so desire.

‘Dean McGeary, our technical director, built our own simulation tool, mapping how certain material and geometry parameters influence the ride, based on parameters from other frames from other brands too,’ says Schultz.

‘Then we tested the first 30 to 40 bikes to see if they matched that simulation, and they did.’

Image 5 of 18

Image 5 of 18

These lugs are hysteretical

The custom-tuned carbon tubes are enough on their own to make Bastion stand out from the crowd, but there’s no doubt the real magic of Bastion’s frames is in the titanium lugs.

They are certainly stunning to look at, however the brand didn’t opt for them out of aesthetics.

‘Coming from a car background, we’ve done lots of work with suspension design,’ says Schultz. ‘Carbon fibre has what’s called hysteretic damping, or hysteresis.

‘What you normally have in a car is a fluid-based suspension system that will both spring back on large impacts and dampen smaller turbulence.’ Bikes made purely of carbon fibre don’t offer the same type of suspension because of their innate hysteresis.

‘The problem with carbon is when you vibrate it at 50-100 hertz it tends to lock out and doesn’t provide the same level of smoothness you get from a titanium or steel bike.

Image 6 of 18

Image 6 of 18

‘We found that by using just titanium at the joints you get the same effect on the ride quality as using a full titanium frame, so we still get that smooth ride but with the low weight, stiffness and vertical flex that carbon offers.’

Schultz adds, ‘Carbon lets you control the stiffness of the bike by controlling the layup of the fibre, so it’s the best material to use for the tubes. For the joints, though, we strongly believe titanium is the better option.

‘Aside from the hysteresis, carbon fibre has lots of quality issues in the joint areas. You have to use large amounts of it in lots of different directions to handle the loads.’

Bastion isn’t the only brand blending carbon tubes with titanium lugs, but it claims its process is unique.

‘Other custom builders make the titanium joints by welding tubes together,’ Schultz says. ‘That gives you the ride quality, but because it’s welded it lacks that torsional stiffness we get.’

Image 10 of 18

Image 10 of 18

Testy titanium

Bastion’s expertise in 3D titanium printing has provided it with a useful sideline in providing consulting services for other industries – ‘That’s growing quicker than the bike sales, to be honest,’ says Schultz – but while you may think the knowledge of 3D titanium printing came before bike design, it was actually the other way round.

‘We had zero experience of printing in titanium before Bastion, but we did have experience of additive manufacturing,’ says Woolcock.

‘We’d been using plastic printing for prototyping – just fitment trials and things like that. Then we heard about metal 3D printing. We thought the benefit would be that there is no real tooling [of moulds] so there’s no real cost.

‘Of course now we realise there are significant costs in time, with every bike being remade on the computer and pre-processed for printing, and there is a fair bit of labour in setting it up differently every time.

‘But there’s no tooling. We aren’t spending £20,000 tooling for each bike we make.’

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Image 12 of 18

The technology has its drawbacks compared to non-printed titanium, though.

Titanium has an underlying crystal structure, often called a grain, just like steel does. When you stretch, squeeze or crack those crystals it sacrifices the strength of the metal, and printing it from powder can interrupt that crystal structure.

However, the printers have come on significantly since their first inception. Where older machines sintered balls of metal together in a way that didn’t offer a huge amount of structural strength, the newest technology is very different.

‘The new machines now are melting or fusing the metal together,’ says Schultz. ‘The term “selective laser melting” is more accurate for our machine – really, it’s like a micro-welding process.

‘It starts on a plate of titanium and it welds the shape onto it and then it drops it by a tiny amount – 30 microns, less than a human hair.

‘The powder delivery system wipes a very thin layer of powder over the top of that and then the powder melts into the layer below it. It just keeps working its way up.’

Image 13 of 18

Image 13 of 18

The lugs also go through a heat-treatment furnace, to help create the grain structure that may have been fragmented by the printing process.

The result is titanium that isn’t as strong as machined billet titanium, but is much thinner and able to be controlled in more precise ways.

A close look at the finished lugs reveals the tiniest sculpted edges and even the thinnest-walled parts are effectively hollow, the insides made of an intricate latticework.

Straight off the printer, the lugs look like some kind of sci-fi set design, with thin towers of titanium propping up each part of the lug.

‘Those are supports,’ Woolcock explains. ‘The reason for those is if you’re building an overhanging shape and you’re melting each 30-micron layer it will eventually begin to sag under its own weight.

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Image 8 of 18

‘We design them [the supports] to snap in a structural way that doesn’t damage any part of the lug afterwards.’

With the supports snapped off, and heat treatment done, the lugs then travel to the blasting cabinet for finishing, and finally the titanium lugs and filament wound carbon are bonded together using aerospace adhesives to complete the frame.

From there it’s off to be painted in the paint shop, and then onwards to the customer.

Small is beautiful

The intricacy and customisation of the whole process means it is hard to envision Bastion scaling up its production. So is Schultz worried about a factory in the Far East picking up Bastion’s methods and doing it faster, bigger and cheaper?

‘The good thing is that the majority of the cost is actually the machine itself. Whether you get that in China or you buy that in Australia, the machine costs what the machine costs. It’s also still quite slow.

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Image 18 of 18

‘It’s well suited to a company building less than 200 bikes per year, but any more than that and it just doesn’t stack up. Those guys want the economies of scale where if you build 20,000 bikes, each one is a fraction of the cost compared to if you build 200.

‘So it’s not an attractive technology to the bigger manufacturers.’

With the patience and cost required for a build, it seems as though Bastion bikes will always target the niche, luxury side of cycling: ‘Whether it’s a Swiss watch or a supercar, I really believe that people yearn for something personalised and something unique,’ Schultz says.

‘Whatever the future holds for cycling, I really hope that there will always be a place for that in the bike market.’

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Image 15 of 18

Finished product

The Bastion Road can be built however you want it

With lugs printed in 6-4 grade titanium to any angles and dimensions, the Bastion Road can be adapted to any spec, physiological requirements and tyre clearance, opening a wide spectrum of possible ride qualities. What’s more, the lugs can be etched with any pattern or name.

‘People very regularly request their names to be etched on the bike, or their children’s names,’ says Ben Schultz, Bastion’s founder and CEO.

In terms of ride quality, the engineering team at Bastion tunes the geometry and stiffness to a specific ride criteria – or to match whichever type of bike you may be used to – and presents it in a ‘Custom Engineering Report’.

Back in issue 59 of Cyclist, we reviewed our own custom-made Bastion Road Disc (which has sadly long since been returned) and requested it to ride somewhere between a Cervélo R5 and Parlee Z-Zero.

The result, from our point of view, was impressively precise, with an engaging mixture of titanium smoothness and carbon rigidity.

The Pinarello Dogma K10S might not be the bike you were expecting. We may as well clear that up first.

The story starts back in 2015 when Pinarello unveiled the Dogma K8S, a road bike with a suspension unit at the rear that was designed to take on the savagery of the cobbled Classics.

Two years later the K10S was unveiled to much fanfare. It boasted an electronic version of the suspension unit, called eDSS, which used accelerometers and gyroscopes to control the behaviour of the suspension, adapting it to changes in terrain.

Now we have the K10S Disk (their spelling, not ours), which comes with disc brakes and is presented in Pinarello’s marketing blurb as having the eDSS as standard.

However, the bike we have here is the K10S Disk without the electronic suspension system.

It does have a suspension unit, but it’s the non-electronic DSS 1.0 version (as seen on the K8S).

What’s going on? It’s hard to tell.

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Image 4 of 8

If you look online for a K10S Disk, it will almost certainly have a picture of the bike complete with the eDSS, and a pricetag of £5,000 for a frameset.

But that price is actually for the non-electronic suspension version, as shown here.

Apparently the K10S Disk is available with the eDDS unit, but for £6,700 (frameset) and with a 90-day wait.

However, we couldn’t find anywhere that had one in the flesh, and Pinarello wasn’t willing to divulge how – or even if – we could get hold of one.

Moving on

Let’s return to the K10S Disk we have here.

It may not have an electronic ‘smart’ suspension system, but the original DSS 1.0 unit is still a fairly decent – and simple – solution for comfort.

The unit at the top of the seatstays contains a polymer that compresses under load, and it can be altered to increase or decrease the level of compression.

It was created for Team Sky’s Classics riders, although in the event most of them preferred to use the version of the bike with no suspension at all, the K10.

Most likely, they disliked any sacrifice in stiffness that the junction could have created.

With that in mind, it’s interesting to see that the rear triangle on the new K10S Disk has been beefed up, with much wider, flattened chainstays.

It also shares the F10’s chunkier aerodynamic tube shapes. However, the most stark departure is the addition of disc brakes.

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Image 6 of 8

Much like the Dogma F10 Disk (Pinarello’s top-end race bike), the new braking system has been well integrated into the frame design.

Crucially, the front fork and rear stays have not been overbuilt, despite no doubt needing extra strength to tolerate the disc brake callipers.

The whole assembly looks discreet and understated, with the aerodynamic ‘fork flaps’ going some way towards covering up the front wheel disc rotor.

In terms of geometry, the K10S frame has more fork rake than the F10, longer 415mm chainstays and a slacker head tube angle.

This makes for a longer wheelbase and so more stable behaviour on rough terrain or descents.

Suspension of disbelief

In the time I spent riding the K10S Disk, I kept a close eye on the rubber O-ring  that measures travel on the DSS1.0.

Most of the time it moved within a range of around 3mm during a ride, and over really tough terrain around 6mm or 7mm.

That isn’t actually a huge amount of travel, and I would describe it as taking the edge off a super-stiff aero bike such as the F10 rather than transforming the ride.

It’s more like a dash of soda in your whisky than it is a full-on cocktail. It does deserve praise, though.

Pinarello’s system isn’t meant to turn a race bike into an easychair.

It aims to diminish harshness while retaining road feel, and it does so very well.

The bike remains stiff from front to rear, and if I were blindfolded I would have a tough time telling it apart from the F10 (granted, I’d also crash quite a lot).

The K10S Disk really is a blazingly quick bike.

While perhaps the minor weight and geometry differences between this bike and the F10 Disk give the latter the edge when it comes to sharp handling and steep climbs, the K10S Disk is still very much a race bike and not a Sunday cruiser.

The K10S also feels a little more stable than the F10, which can sometimes be a tad skittish over rough surfaces.

It tracked the road with more certainty, as if glued to the tarmac.

Perhaps that’s down to the rear shock unit; perhaps it’s due to the longer chainstays.

Whatever the reason, it works.

Overall, the sensation of riding the K10S Disk is an almost perfect marriage between sharp and smooth.

It seems to coast over cobbles and rough roads, yet rumbles just enough to remind me of the road terrain and give a sense of speed.

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Image 7 of 8

Like most top-end Pinarellos, the ride quality is what sets it apart from many competitors – it almost feels reverse engineered from the instincts of a WorldTour racer.

However, as much as I love the ride, I feel the real merit of the K10S Disk over the standard K10 is the use of disc brakes rather than the suspension.

Clever as the latter may be, I feel I could achieve the same improvements in comfort simply by adjusting tyre width and pressure.

Certainly the DSS 1.0 doesn’t offer the game-changing level of comfort that, for example, Trek has managed with the Madone’s IsoSpeed decoupler.

Another issue I have with the Dogma K10S Disk is the price.

To some extent, price is irrelevant for a dream bike like this, but even if you’re happy with paying £5,000 for the frameset, I’m slightly at a loss as to how the overall price hits £10,500.

I reckon I could put this bike together for a little over £8,500, buying the frame and sourcing the same components separately online.

And I’m pretty certain I could find someone to put it together for less than £2,000.

Still, these gripes shouldn’t detract from the fact that Pinarello has created a bike that rides superbly in a wide range of conditions.

I just wish that I’d had the chance to try out that elusive electronic suspension.

Spec

This article was originally published in issue 85 of Cyclist magazine

The RaceVox is the all-new platform for SwiftCarbon, drawing on the pro-race geometry of its original Ultravox but adding disc brakes, fully internal cabling, dropped seatstays and aero-led tube profiles.

At a glance the RaceVox is a clean looking bike, if possessed of a similar silhouette to almost every flagship racer going. But that’s no bad thing, the dropped seatstays, hidden cables and one-piece bars have been adopted by the industry for a reason, as too discs.

One thing that did set the RaceVox apart, though, was the iridescent paint, a deep sparkly blue that changes tone in the light. It’s a class looking act that’s also available in a similarly pleasing red.

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Image 2 of 7

Spec is up there on the top-line Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 model I tested, and shows Swift’s racing intentions. Deep-profile 58mm front and 62mm rear Reynolds AR wheels and FSA ACR Metron 5 one-piece bars fulfil the speed brief, while an in-house seatpost, Fizik Antares R1 Versus Evo saddle and Vittoria Corsa 2.0 25mm tyres round things off.

This build (Dura-Ace Di2) will set you back £6,290, which is very competitive in today’s £10k flagship-bike world. On spec alone, the only major difference between the RaceVox and any of the mega-brands’ top-tier bikes would be the wheelset.

The Reynolds AR wheels are fine enough, but with 19mm internal/21mm external width profiles and a 1,730g claimed weight, they will seem slightly underwhelming to some riders. But happily the RaceVox frame does plenty to flatter its rider and its components, and in that, appears to punch well above its pricetag.

Pricing

• CarbonSwift RaceVox with Shimano Ultegra Di2, Mavic Ksyrium Pro wheels, FSA Metron 5 bars and Fizik Antares R5 saddle, £5,299
• CarbonSwift RaceVox with Shimano Ultegra mechanical, Vision Trimax Carbon 40 wheels, FSA Metron 5 bars and Fizik Antares R5 saddle, £4,099
• CarbonSwift RaceVox with Shimano 105 build, Vision Team 30 wheels and FSA Metron 5 bars, £3,099

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Image 5 of 7

The ride

I’ve tested a number of Swift bikes over the years and I’ve always rated the brand for its geometry, and for sticking with it. There is barely a millimetre or tenth of a degree between the first Ultravox and the RaceVox, and to my mind, nor should there be.

The original Ultravox blended fast handling with stable descending, and leant towards an aggressive position without alienating less flexible riders. The RaceVox retains this ‘all-rounder’ foundation, and indeed that’s how the bike is billed by Swift – a racer for all occasions.

Given I’ve been on various other models with the same geometry, it’s unsurprising that I felt immediately familiar with the RaceVox. But I’d hazard to say most riders will, as there is an almost neutral disposition to the bike that on the flat gives nothing away about its character. It just felt nice to cruise on, smooth but not exactly plush.

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Image 3 of 7

If there is a lack of overt comfort I’d level that at the wheels with their tall, stiff rims. You don’t see many wheels over a 55mm deep these days, and deep profile rims tend to be pretty unforgiving. But if deep is where you want to go, you could alleviate some of the high-frequency road chatter with wider, lower pressure tyres.

Swift says the RaceVox accommodates up to 30mm rubber, though there were mutterings from some Swift personnel that 32mm fits but can’t be recommended due to how different tyres sit on different rims.

The upshot with such high-siders, and of course the wind-cheating bars and narrow hourglass headtube, is that the RaceVox accelerated with ease. At 7.1kg it’s not exactly a lump, but with the bare-minimum on show to cause drag – Swift has even gone down the recessed water bottle route, although the RaceVox hasn’t been in a wind-tunnel – the bike glided along easily and pushed on to higher speeds without feeling like it was fighting the air.

All this meant a nice introduction to the bike on the flat, but an ultimately unremarkable one. Climbing came and went in a similar fashion too. I rode some pretty punchy inclines and the RaceVox took them in its stride, but I wasn’t left feeling like I was especially quick because of it.

But importantly, it didn’t feel like my climbing efforts were being undermined in any way. Highly satisfactory, but not outstanding. Until the descents.

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Image 7 of 7

Descending is where the RaceVox came alive, propelled from friendly companion to mate with murderous intent. Despite the low-for-a-disc-bike weight, I did feel like there was a lot of bike here; that is, the RaceVox ploughed more than it skipped.

But while some riders may look to a flightier ride in certain situations, on fast, twisting downhills, solid is exactly what I want and what the RaceVox delivered. Only solid with more than an edge of finesse.

I’ll still be looking for a longer review period to confirm this, but over several days and a few hundred kilometres of riding, my current take-home is that the SwiftCarbon RaceVox is one of those bikes that gives you more the more you push it.

Sedate and neutral at low speeds, but pointed and precise the faster you go. Well-honed, well rounded, but with a very aggressive edge if required.

Like I say, I need more time on this bike. Or strike that, I’d really like more time on this bike. It feels full of promise and racing intent; and I rather like looking at it too. An in-depth review will appear in Cyclist Magazine soon. See swiftcarbon.com for more details about the bike.

Photos: Ana Lidia Borba, flowsjournal.com

‘Game changer’ is a term you hear bandied around a lot, and mostly it is unwarranted. It should only really apply to innovations that truly alter our perceptions and expectations of the form or function of a product from that day forward.

Yet even by the very strictest of standards, Trek’s Domane undeniably fits the bill.

When the original Domane launched in 2012, Trek broke with convention by decoupling the seat tube from the top tube using a pivot point system it dubbed IsoSpeed.

In doing so it substantially increased the frame’s vertical compliance, taking road bikes into previously unchartered territory.

Over the seven years since, the Domane has scooped up plenty of accolades, and some prestigious race wins too.

The second generation, which arrived in 2016, took the IsoSpeed concept even further by adding a sliding adjuster to allow the rider to tune the rear end compliance, plus Trek’s engineers extended the technology to the front end too, by essentially allowing the fork’s steerer tube to flex within the head tube.

As a result, the Domane is often referenced as the benchmark for comfort in the endurance road sector.

Now for 2020 comes the third generation Domane, and as Trek’s Director of Product for Road Bikes, Jordan Roessingh, explains, it’s the smoothest and most versatile yet.

‘Over the past five years especially, we’ve really seen a change in the way people ride road bikes,’ Roessingh says. ‘They want to ride in different places and on a variety of surfaces. We have really embraced that in the new Domane.

‘We wanted to make sure the rider could do as much as possible on this bike and a big part of that is down to tyre clearance. You can fit up to [700c] 38mm tyres without affecting the bike’s geometry.

‘We also wanted to improve the overall ride experience,’ Roessingh continues. ‘A good example of that is the integrated storage. It means you don’t need to ride with over-stuffed jersey pockets or use a seat pack.

‘Those things can have a really positive impact on how a rider feels.’

The storage compartment Roessingh is referring to is neatly concealed within the down tube, beneath the water bottle mounts.

Stowed inside is a purpose-designed pouch for an inner tube, tyre levers, CO2 canister with head and a multitool, with enough room left over that you could even potentially stuff an emergency gilet or jacket in there too.

‘Speed was more of a focus this time around too,’ Roessingh says. ‘Everyone wants to go fast regardless of how they ride the bike, so there was a greater emphasis on aero with the new Domane.

‘We have used aero tube profiles, including a kamm-tail down tube and a much more aero fork. It’s certainly not a Madone in that it’s not fully optimised for aerodynamics, but we’ve made some pretty big improvements.’

Roessingh suggests that at speeds of 35-40kmh you’ll save about a minute over a ride distance that would have taken you an hour on the previous version.

Roessingh also suggests frame stiffness has increased, although so too has the weight. The new Domane is around 200g portlier than before, though this is mostly attributable to the additional features, and as such is a worthwhile trade. 

Top tube IsoSpeed

‘The last pillar of the new design is compliance,’ says Roessingh. ‘The front end IsoSpeed has not altered, but we now have the adjustable top tube IsoSpeed (identical to the latest Madone) on the new Domane SLR, which gives 27% more rear end compliance in its softest setting than its predecessor.

‘To put that in context, the new frame is almost as compliant in its firmest setting as the outgoing model is at its softest setting, which is really significant. The top tube IsoSpeed also has a damper built in, which gives the movement a much more controlled sensation.’

Trek’s neat hidden mudguard mounts are a carry-over feature but an important one in terms of the bike’s overall versatility. ‘You can still comfortably fit a 35mm tyre with mudguards. It makes a huge difference being able to stay dry from road spray when riding in the wet,’ Roessingh says.

New threads

A threaded T47 bottom bracket is a new addition and a move away from Trek’s longstanding BB90 standard. ‘It has a number of benefits,’ Roessingh says.

‘It’s fully compatible with every crankset out there, but doesn’t compromise our frame’s structure and the really wide stance width we achieved with our old BB90 system. Plus it’s much easier to instal and remove a threaded system versus press-fit.’

Mainly, though, most will be pleased to never have concerns over the perpetual creaks that were the bane of so many press-fit BB systems.

The top-flight SLR frame benefits from Trek’s premium 700 Series carbon, and will come in five variants, starting from £5,400. The next tier SL frame (again with five new models, from £2,100), uses 500 Series carbon and does not have the new top tube IsoSpeed, although it does share all the other new features.

Even with such a versatile product range, though, Trek’s Project One customisation service might well be the way many choose to go, offering an entirely personalised Domane SLR or SL for a modest £600 upcharge.

For more information on the third generation Trek Domane, see trekbikes.com

The men's elite individual time trial at the World Championships in Harrogate was one of the most eventful of recent years, with a resilient Rohan Dennis winning by 70 seconds to make amends for a chaotic season, but perhaps the unmarked bike he rode stole the show.

First off, however, we were captivated by Remco Evenepoel's stunning Specialized S-Works Shiv TT, a brand new frame that first broke cover at the Tour de France and sports a set of disc brakes and an intriguing new aero design.

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Image 7 of 44

Belgian 19-year old Evenepoel, who finished second behind Dennis, had a fetching custom paint scheme on his Shiv, showcasing the stars of the EU flag to commemorate his victory at the European Championships last month.

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Image 9 of 44

His Roval rear disc wheel, notably not a rebadged Zipp sub-9 as used by many competitors, was also decorated with the Riding for Focus logo, a charity set up by Specialized to encourage children to use cycling as a means of improving academic work.

Evenepoel's spare TT bike also caught our attention, which remained the old Shiv model and also used a 55-42 chainset. Interestingly, both Evenepoel and Dennis steered clear of the 1x setup used by other riders on the relatively flat course.

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Image 14 of 44

Rohan Dennis's mystery bike

To the world of cycling tech enthusiasts, it is no secret that Dennis opted not to use the Merida's time trial frame. Though we cannot confirm which bike Dennis was riding, we find it highly likely that it was in fact a BMC TimeMachine 01 FRS.

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Image 15 of 44

Dennis used a fairly standard Dura-Ace setup. We were unable to rotate the bike to get a good look at the gear ratio, though we suspect his front chainring would have been in the 55-58 tooth territory.

What really caught our attention was the incredible custom-moulded time trial extensions and cockpit at the front of the bike. 

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Image 17 of 44

These were created by Dutch company SpeedBar, which - contrary to our expectation - was not a 3D printed solution, but in fact custom-moulded carbon. The level of integration of elbow pads, Garmin mount and shifters really impressed us.

This would be a highly expensive solution, but as experts of aerodynamics will know, the benefits to be had from aerodynamic efficiency at the cockpit and handlebars is huge.

Dennis also rode in a high front end position, which seems to follow the recent trend of world-leading time triallists to move away from a hunched over low position, for both power and aerodynamic gains.

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Image 21 of 44

Dowsett's veteran TT setup

For fans of domestic UK time trials, Alex Dowsett was by far and away the biggest favourite. His Canyon SpeedMax CF SLX is highly-tuned to his riding style and aerodynamic idiosyncrasies, honed on domestic dual-carriageway time trial courses.

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Image 23 of 44

Dowsett embraced a 1x setup, using a single SRAM front X-Sync chainring, which alternates the thickness of the chainring teeth to ensure there is little movement of the chain and low chance of chain-drop.

He coupled that with a Sram Red AXS rear derailleur with a 12-speed rear cassette, ranging from 10-32 teeth sprockets. The lower 10-tooth sprocket means that Dowsett could opt for a relatively small 53-tooth front chainring and still enjoy a very large gear-inch - equivalent to a 58-11. 

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Image 37 of 44

One welcome flourish was the use of an oversized CeramicSpeed jockey wheel, which improves the efficiency of the bike's transmission.

Dowsett also used a set of custom-moulded bars provided by British brand Drag2Zero, headed by aerodynamicist Simon Smart.

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Image 24 of 44

Dowsett's saddle is unknown to us. We suspect it is an adaptation of Fizik's brand new Adaptive 3D printed saddle, with a shorter nose to accommodate the Dowsett's TT position.

We couldn't help noticing that Dowsett's front tyre had had its logo and brand name scratched out with a marker pen. A sign, we couldn't help speculating, that perhaps he has diverged from the tyre spec provided by his official sponsor.

The competition proves that time trial remains a rare refuge of individuality in pro cycling, with riders often not complying with components and kit provided by sponsors. Long may it last.

Mathieu van der Poel has seemed unstoppable this season after dominant performances at the Tour of Britain, Amstel Gold Race and Dwars door Vlaanderen, and he's proved far and away the bookie's favourite for this weekend's World Championships Road Race. His bike also fits the bill.

Riding for Canyon-sponsored UCI Continental team Corendon-Circus, it's no surpise to see the dutchan riding a Canyon, however the model and spec are a little intriguing.

Van der Poel has sided for the aerodynamically focussed Canyon Aeroad CF SLX over the lightweight Canyon Ultimate, and even gone for a disc-brake equipped spec, suggesting he is favouring stopping power and all-out speed over excess grams when climbing. 

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Image 3 of 14

That's confirmed by the impressively neat front end. Van der Poel has opted for a one-piece bar-stem combo, and complimented it with an aerodynamically optimised integrated garmin-mount.

Looking closer, we spotted a few other intriguing spec choices too.

Wide range

Van der Poel has opted for a wide-ranging 11-30 cassette, against a conventional 53-39 double chainset.

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Image 8 of 14

To put that in perspective, though, that offers the same easier gear as a compact (50-34) chainset with a 26 rear sprocket. It suggests that Van der Poel is fully anticipating that steep and challenging ascents could be pivotal in the race.

That's in stark contrast to fellow dutchman Bauke Mollema, who has sided with a single chainring for the race.

Disc brakes

Proving the success of the ever creeping transition to disc brakes, van der Poel has opted for the disc brake equipped option of the Canyon Aeroad.

That's in stark contrast to last year's winner Alejandro Valverde who rode a Canyon Ultimate CF SLX with conventional rim brakes. Given van der Poel's background in cyclocross, it's no wonder that he feels more confident with hydraulic braking systems similar to those used in his other disciplines.

The bike uses Shimano's Dura-Ace hydraulic brakes, and unsurprisingly siding for a pair of 140mm rotors. 

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Image 6 of 14

Elsewhere the commitment to Shimano is strong, and van der Poel even uses Shimano's own integrated Dura-Ace power meter system.

The wheels, Shimano's tubular C24 wheelset, is slightly at odds with the aero commitment of the frame, though the wheels still perform well in aerodynamic terms and give a weight benefit on the countless climbs.

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Image 2 of 14

The wheels are accompanied by a set of 25mm Continental Grand Prix tubular tyres – a predictably all-round grippy yet fast pair, which will be well-suited to Sunday's potentially unpredictable weather.

We look forward to seeing how van der Poel fares on Sunday, and whether his weapon of choice helps him to become one of the most dominant riders across on and off-road disciplines in history.