Are we seeing the beginning of the end for consumer-level race bikes, and does it actually matter?

The dust had just settled after Stage 1 of the Criterium du Dauphiné, at least when I began putting these words on a page. The big race story of the day was that Tadej Pogačar had won the stage, though perhaps the actual story is that Jonas Vingegaard was second to him in a bunch sprint, and that both of them outsprinted an admittedly slightly injured Mathieu van der Poel. 

For me, though, the biggest story yesterday was the surprise entrance of a wild-looking new Factor prototype aero bike. It has incredibly wide-set, and tall forks, a minute head tube for such a large frame, and all the usual trappings of a hyper-aero machine, the likes of which we have seen in recent times (though to not quite the same severity) in the form of the Colnago Y1Rs, the Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, and actually going back a fair way the Cervélo S5. 

While the bike itself is undoubtedly interesting in and of itself, I think it speaks to a growing trend in the sport towards a divergence of pro bikes and bikes that are actually designed for sale as part of the mass market. 

Pro bikes for the pros, normal bikes for everyone else?

Before I continue on with this piece, I should set out my stall with some previous pieces I’ve written on the subject. Last year, I wrote that pro cycling needs to learn from Formula 1, with pro bikes for the pros only. I was roundly hounded in the comments, but on the whole, my opinion remains unchanged. I think there’s a good case to be made that the pros should have their own tier of race machines unavailable to the rest of us.

I also think that fast bikes shouldn’t have to be ‘pretty’, by whatever standard the commenterati decide a bike’s attractiveness should be judged. This new Factor, like the Colnago Y1Rs, is probably very, very fast, but all anyone in the comments seems to care about is how it looks. 

This is the problem with producing race machines that have to be sold to the public, due to the UCI’s ruling on the public availability of equipment. In order to appeal to the mass market, the bike has to be marketable, and so to some degree, it has to look like a normal bike. 

The Specialized Tarmac and the Factor Ostro VAM are both very fast bikes by the numbers, and review well, but to my mind, neither is particularly exciting. When the new Tarmac came out, it was also lamented in the comments for being an ugly duckling (even though now it seems that everyone has forgotten that), and this was for the groundbreaking development of… having a little pointy out bit on the head tube.

Stories and social media posts about this new Factor have done excellent traffic, so I know it’s interesting. I am also almost certain it’s been designed solely to be as fast as possible, and not with the consumer in mind, but rather the professional riders who will ideally (from Factor’s point of view) ride it to race victories and help to sell its other bikes.

The ‘publicly available’ rule for bikes is meaningless if nobody can buy them anyway

It’s happened in the world of track racing already, but there’s a danger that the UCI’s rule that every piece of equipment has to be available to the public is going to become meaningless on the road, too. Track bikes and equipment often carry ludicrous price tags, lead times measured in years, or simply ‘email us to ask if you can have one and we will give you more hoops to jump through’, meaning they comply with the letter of the law but not the spirit. 

When the Colnago Y1Rs was launched it was clear it was designed for UAE Team Emirates, and specifically for Tadej Pogačar, and while one can buy one, you can only do so by joining a wait list. How long that list is, I’m not sure, but if the wait doesn’t put you off, then the €16,500 price tag might. It is, to all intents and purposes, a pro-only bike, and I welcome that because it’s technically interesting and visually striking.

The same goes for the Factor, though it must be said, no one yet knows at this point whether the bike in this form will be easy to purchase or not. When I went to test the Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, I was told the geometry and setup are such that it’s made for pro racers. The 36cm bars, long stem, and very steep seat angle made it amazing to ride, but in my review, I suggested that it’s not necessarily all that ideal for joe public. 

A new arms race

Cycling is a sport of marginal gains, and now that some brands are investing in creating this new breed of more or less unavailable hyperbikes for their respective teams, there will be an inevitable knock-on effect, and other brands will follow. 

I want to see a new arms race in bike design, and I know some of you do too. The most innovative and interesting bikes of the last 12 months have been really quite extreme when viewed in the context of the whole road bike segment of the market, but there’s every chance this could continue as brands vie for top spot, team partnerships, and ultimately race wins. 

The plus side is that we could well see a real boom in the number of objectively interesting bikes out there on the market, but the downside may be that these bikes become more expensive and more exclusive, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing because I’m honest enough with myself to know they aren’t for me anyway. 

And for those of you who will, I’m sure, get really upset about me suggesting you shouldn’t necessarily be able to buy these crazy hyper-bikes, to me, that argument is a little like those of you who berate bands for changing direction and not making music like they used to. You can still listen to the old stuff; you can still have Bob Dylan before he went electric, or the Arctic Monkeys before Alex Turner decided he was from the 50’s. Those records still exist. 

You’ll still be able to buy a relatively normal, high-performance race bike because brands need to sell bikes to stay in business, but at least you’ll also have something more interesting to pore over in the forums, too.