This year’s pre-Tour de France plethora of bike launches has been a wild one so far, and among the flurry of feasts for our eyes, Pinarello went public with its all-new time trial bike, the Bolide F.
We first spotted the new Bolide F beneath Geraint Thomas and Dani Martinez at the Tour de Suisse. In a bid to camouflage the bike’s contours, Pinarello had covered it entirely in a repeating ‘Bolide’ wordmark to create a sort of camo pattern more often found on unreleased cars. It was anything but subtle.
Despite the camo, we were able to discern many of the bike’s aesthetic details. The switch to disc brakes is the most noticeable change, but according to the brand, this meant its engineers started on the back foot with regards to the bike’s aerodynamic performance. To offset this, it looked to the Dogma F for clues and the resulting bike bears a striking resemblance to its new stablemate. Nonetheless, it paid off, as the new Bolide F is the fastest bike Pinarello has ever made, according to the brand’s claims.
Its first chance to prove its credentials will fall on the stage 1 prologue of this year’s Tour de France, where Dani Martinez, Geraint Thomas, Filippo Ganna and Adam Yates – in that order – will ride it around the 13.2km Copenhagen circuit. Given the rain is due to come in the latter half of the afternoon, three of the four will be hoping to beat the clouds in order to maintain a strong position on GC. Ganna is the hot favourite to take the stage, and with it the yellow and green jerseys of the race leader and sprinter’s competition, before he settles into a domestique role.
Ahead of the stage, we headed to the Ineos Grenadiers hotel and spent some time with Adam Yates’ bike to uncover as many of the new bike’s details as we could. You can find them all in our gallery below.
The all-new Pinarello Bolide F time trial bike (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Oh, and some prototype Princeton Carbonworks wheels too (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Wrapped in some new Tour de France edition Continental GP TT tyres (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The frame’s head tube is sculpted to work with the custom cockpit from Pinarello’s component brand, Most (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The aero time trial extensions mount cleanly onto the base bar (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Here you can see that join more clearly (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The down tube transitions from narrow and high, helping the air to flow off the rear wheel, before it kinks downward and widens to engulf the small bottle housed behind it. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The top tube kinks at the halfway mark too, while the seat tube takes full advantage of the UCI’s relaxed rules around aspect ratios of frame tubes. This will not only help with the aerodynamics of the bike, but the stiffness too. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Yates will run a 60-tooth aero chainring during Friday’s prologue, mounted onto an 11-speed Shimano Dura-Ace chainset (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Those cranks are 170mm in length. It’s not uncommon for time triallists to run shorter cranks to help open up the hip angle at the top of the pedal stroke, but given his height, we suspect this is just what Yates uses on all his bikes (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Despite the pan-flat nature of the course, he will still run an inner chainring and front derailleur. It’s commonly accepted that removing the derailleur can save drag and weight, but it’s not a tactic widely employed by the pros (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The Fizik Transiro saddle takes ‘short-nosed’ to the extreme. So much so, it looks like someone cut it in half and sewed it back up. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Valves aren’t aerodynamic, so this one is hidden almost entirely in the rim of the wheel. We predict Ineos mechanics will thread an adaptor onto this valve when they need to add some air. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
While others use a sandpaper-like coating for their TT bars, Yates has instead opted for a small amount of bar tape (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
A small rubber sleeve is fitted to the derailleur hanger, keeping the Di2 cable from getting into any trouble – it’s probably a little more aerodynamic this way too (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Ganna’s bike: A few details
During our time at the Ineos Grenadiers hotel on Thursday, team mechanics had Ganna’s bike in the workstand, putting the final touches in place. Thankfully, we were allowed into the truck to get a few photographs while they worked.
Ganna’s bike in the workstand inside the Ineos Grenadiers truck. As the world champion, he gets a different paint job than the rest of his team (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
These time trial extensions reportedly cost between €17,000 and €20,000 (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
A couple of layers of sponge padding has been added to increase comfort, and no doubt help offer a ‘locked-in’ feeling too (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Ganna’s preferred saddle is the Fizik Ares, which is a little more like a normal road saddle than the Transiro used by Yates. Naturally, as world champion, he gets the rainbow stripes on this too (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
The rainbow stripes on his bike are fairly minimal, with this section on the fork leg being one of them. The accompanying brake caliper is from Shimano’s latest Dura-Ace series too. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
Filippo’s ‘Top Ganna’ nickname is included too, stylised in the ‘Top Gun’ design. (Image credit: Peter Stuart)
