Cinelli Pressure review

Open mould. It used to be a dirty phrase because it meant carbon product X came out of a mould that anyone could access, and hence it tended to be lower quality. Closed mould, by contrast, meant exclusive. Exclusive meant money, and money meant high levels of quality control and R&D.

Yet as technology has trickled down, open mould components are now often very good in quality terms and near identical in design. It’s hard to defend intellectual property in the Far East, so they say.

The aero-fied Pressure is unashamedly open mould, albeit Cinelli vice-president Fabrizio Aghito says it ‘is a shared project’ with the factory that makes it. Cinelli used its own research to pick this frame from many others on the grounds that its shape was specifically fast, he says.

Cinelli also specified it be built with a more advanced and more costly EPS moulding process – where polystyrene mandrels are used instead of air bladders to give better compaction, higher strength and lower weight.

I’ll accept all of this at face value, and certainly the finish of the frame is quite glorious – when turned, the backside of the fork crown even reveals a little smiley face. A claimed 990g for the frame and 390g for the fork is reasonable for an aero bike, and it’s also wonderfully clean to look at – all cables hidden – with room for 30mm tyres. But after this promising start I suddenly found the Pressure and me in conflict.

Heavy hitter

Whatever else an aero bike is, it needs to be noticeably fast, and in this build the Pressure isn’t. The reason? It is nearly 10kg – and feels it.

Out of the traps, accelerating and climbing, the Pressure felt somewhat anchored and the ride muted and lumpy. So where on earth was the Pressure hiding the kilos? It just had to be the wheels, and lo and behold, shorn of rotors and cassette they weighed in at a staggering 3,197g. The Pressure deserved a wheel swap.

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Image 2 of 16

Here a few people will groan, because the only wheels I had to hand were DT Swiss ARC 1100s, all 1,472g of them. Done up with 28mm Schwalbe Pro One tubeless tyres the set weighed 2,092g. Total cost just over £2,200. Of course these wheels would make any bike better, but let’s leave that at the door for now and focus on what the Pressure revealed itself to be.

The frame is a unit at the back, making for the kind of bike you can cause to skip a rear wheel in a sprint if you have a mind to. It’s also stiff up front, with little detectable flex from bars to fork tips.

In this regard it was great fun to go full-gas, and given the bike had dropped over a kilo in weight (down to 8.46kg) the Pressure and I were finally getting to where we wanted to be: fast.

Climbing still didn’t come naturally and geometry was stable if a touch slow on descents. However feedback through the controls was vastly improved by the wheel change, although front shifting still felt heavier than raising a barn.

But that’s often the price you pay for internally routed mechanical systems – all tight angles and long lengths of draggy cable outers – and crucially this mattered little, because the Pressure now felt alive.

Supply demands

As presented, the Pressure rides like a very average bike. Yet I have to be fair and look at it in the context of the current market situation. Brands and distributors are suffering at the hands of the supply chain and spiralling costs.

The Pressure is priced at £3,800 because that’s what it needs to cost to produce workable margins for its UK retailers, and the parts here such as the wheels and FSA chainset bring the bike in at a certain cost. Better wheels or an Ultegra chainset would add more to the RRP.

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Image 5 of 16

Then there’s the supply chain. A bike like this comes to the UK as a frameset and is built up by its distributor, so if the latest 8000-series Ultegra levers can’t be sourced older 6800s will have to do. No one in the trade could have foreseen a time when they’d struggle so much to source parts.

There’s one thing that I can’t understand here though: the tyres. These Impac Racepacs weigh 450g each and have a 24tpi carcass – a trolley wheel would be more supple. But in a twist of fate, all’s well that ends well. I’ve just had word from the UK distributor that the tyres will swap to Schwalbe One TLEs at no extra cost.

That’s a huge win for the Pressure and, if my own tyre trials proved anything, will begin to unlock this well-conceived frame’s true potential, making it a real head turner that’s also great fun to ride.

Pick of the kit

Ashmei 3 Season jersey, £198, ashmei.com

This is a real oldie but a goodie. I reckon on this being the 3 Season’s fourth season but the thing still looks and feels new and is still just as strangely warm. I say strangely because the material appears thin yet with a base layer under it the 3 Season feels almost as warm as a softshell, and is water-repellent too.

Ashmei says this is down to the high-density weave, which also gives the jersey its compressive properties – it does have a bit of a wetsuit feel. But it is comfortable and its low bulk, high-weather resistance make it a great spring jersey.

Alternatively…

Cinelli Nemo Tig Disc

The epitome of modern steel, the Nemo (£2,299 frameset) is made in Italy from Columbus Spirit tubing and possessed of aggressive geometry that can mix it with the best race bikes of any material.

Cinelli Superstar Disc

The Superstar (from £2,799) places handling at the forefront. A top tube kink helps keep the frame rigid and predictable under heavy braking forces, while the geometry is billed as ‘Italian racing’.

Spec

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Cinelli Pressure: new aero road bike from iconic Italian brand

Joe Robinson | 17th December 2020

Italian bike brand Cinelli is attempting to cut its teeth in the high-end aero road bike market with its newest bike, the Cinelli Pressure.

An out-and-out aero road bike, the Pressure presents something very different for a company that has made a name for itself by thinking outside the box. Back in the 1980s, Cinelli launched the iconic Laser series, a collection of bikes that are surely among the most beautiful and pioneering ever made.

However, these days Cinelli has fallen behind the likes of Bianchi, Colnago and Wilier in the Italian road bike sector, with its area of interest seemingly in the ‘fixie’ market with frames such as the Vigorelli.

The Cinelli Pressure aero road bike seems like an attempt to address those inequities in the road market and offer us riders a bike that is thoroughly modern and undeniably fast.

The first thing to note about the new Cinelli Pressure is that absolutely everything is integrated. While competitors such as Canyon and Specialized have recently turned its back on full integration, Cinelli has decided it to be the best way to ensure as much free speed as possible.

Starting from the front, the fork, headset and cockpit have been neatly designed to slot perfectly into one another, creating a clean, smooth surface for air hitting the frame front on. Through this combination runs the fully internal routed brake and shifting cables, starting from the custom-coloured Vision Metron 5D one-piece aero cockpit that is used on all frames.

Moving further back, Cinelli has also integrated its aero kamm-tail seatpost with the seatpost bolt neatly hidden on the rear of the frame, slightly above the seatstays, having little to no impact on aerodynamics.

Accommodating all that integration is a carbon monocoque frame made with T700 carbon. It has been shaped it seems to accommodate performance and comfort.

All the typical aero cues are present and correct – the bulky head tube, rear-wheel cut-out and kamm-tail seat tube. The geometry is tight and compact – 1,001mm wheelbase, 394mm reach and 560mm stack (size Large) – suggesting a nippy and responsive ride feel. By contrast, Cinelli has dropped the seatstays in an attempt to create some comfort.

Despite the full aero frame, Cinelli has managed to keep frame weight down to a respectable 990g, with the forks coming in at 390g. Considering the recent Canyon Aeroad frame tips the scales at 915g and the Trek Madone at 920g, it's an impressive achievement, especially considering the Pressure will be a disc-only road bike with clearance for 30mm tyres. It’s also worth noting that the Pressure frame can also accommodate mechanical shifting, too.

Specifications

With Cinelli targeting the higher end of the market with the Pressure aero bike, the specifications on offer come as no surprise.

The tree is topped with a Sram Red eTap AXS build finished with a set of wide, tubeless-ready Fulcrum Wind 55 disc brake wheels and 28mm Vittoria Zaffiro Pro tyres. Next to that option is a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 build, again with the Fulcrum Wind 55 disc wheels and 28mm Vittoria Zaffiro Pro tyres.

Next is a Shimano Ultegra Di2 build, the thinking rider’s groupset, finish with Fulcrum 600 disc brake wheels and the same 28mm Vittoria tyres as mentioned above. This build will also be available in mechanical Ultegra and all four options offer a Sella San Marco Short fit saddle and Cinelli’s own cork handlebar tape.

Unfortunately, for us purists, it seems as if Cinelli will not be speccing the Pressure with Campagnolo off the shelf, a disappointment if we are honest.

Being Cinelli, a brand that has often mixed art and bicycle manufacture, a word on the bike’s colour scheme is needed.

While predominantly white – a colour Cinelli is calling ‘Rock the white’ – there are hints of red, green and yellow across the frame as a nod to Cinelli’s winged logo designed by Italo Lupi back in 1979.

Cinelli helpfully tells us that ‘devil is in the detail, so this Pressure is diabolic in showing and hiding’ asking you to ‘check the bottom bracket to discover more about the origin of the name of this rock racing machine. Pressure, London Calling, a smashed white Fender P-bass’.

We are not fully sure what any of that means but we are buying into it plus the fork has a smiling face visible when cornering, which is enough to cheer anybody up.

Prices for the new Pressure are yet to be confirmed but all specifications will be available in sizes XS to XL.