The foundation of the Pinarello Paris project is the desire to create a versatile and comfortable bike that still keeps the famous Pinarello ride feeling. This goal was achieved in part by an experienced selection of tube sections and profiles. And partly by introducing a new set of bike geometries to ensure a comfortable and rational distribution of reach and stack values between smaller and larger sizes.
The Italian brand saw fit to make the Prince a race bike that could be driven by a wider range of riders. Part of that comes down to a less aggressive reach and stack numbers that put the rider in a more comfortable position. Also, stack and reach heights are more linear in size than before and add at least 10mm or more or by size. Reach measurements are also shorter by a few mm in size.
Pinarello’s approach to internal cable routing, unlike many other brands, is compatible with both mechanical and electronic drivetrains. The downtube of this particular bike is wider side-by-side but a 3mm shallower to increase vibration damping. The bottom bracket area sees an increase in size leading to a claimed 10 percent higher pedal stiffness. The bottom bracket area itself also sees chunkier chains increasing both the pedaling stiffness and the tire clearance.
For as much praise as Pinarello receives for their top-notch Pinarello Dogma F12, most do not realize that the same ability is largely present in the Pinarello Prince. Updated and revised for 2021, the new Pinarello Prince road bike is being overhauled, which Pinarello claims to make for a faster and more comfortable road bike.
BMC Nice Selection
Swiss bike geniuses, BMC, bring everything to the table: Swiss quality, Swiss mountaineering, and engineering as accurate as well, Swiss watches. Innovation has always naturally come to this innovative company. Building on the brainiacs in their in-house Impec Lab, BMC has consistently dropped some of the most stunning cycling advances in recent history to the unsuspecting public.
From their burly mountain bikes to their lighter-than-air road bikes, BMC has been delivering podium-topping frames and constructions for decades. That’s no joke—you’ll find BMC bikes winning Team Time Trials, Tour de France, World Championships of different flavors, and Ironman Championships. BMC also delivers top-notch adventure and leisure bikes that take you from A to B, just like the bike itself is powering you. Their electric Alpenchallenge line is one of the most fun ways to rip up the mountains and cover the road.
Performance and value aside, it wouldn’t be a BMC if there wasn’t a strong focus on aesthetics as well. Objectively speaking, looking fast doesn’t help you to go fast, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The engineers took their design inspiration from the F-35 fighter jet, and that influence is most evident when the seat stays meet the top and seat tubes in a fashion that resembles the backswept wings of the aircraft.
The sleek lines and the blocky, geometric shapes continue with the flattened top tube and the large, oversized down tube. The rear brake and shift cable tuck neatly inside the frame, and hidden inside the headtube, is a fork stopper that protects the frame from damage to the fork in the event of a crash.
These bikes roll on 25mm-wide DT Swiss tubeless aluminum hoops and are hung with a combination of SRAM GX and X01 Eagle parts. The rear shifter is from the newly redesigned GX Eagle family, and the improved, smoother feel of the lever is evident. It’s also helpful to move the X01 Eagle rear derailleur, yet another example of careful component selection to balance BMC’s price and performance.
As you would expect from a bike that boasts modern XC geometry, the BMC is longer, lower, and slower than the Team Elite hardtail it replaces. A 67-degree head angle is more relaxed by half a degree than a relaxed Specialized Epic, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that such a slack front end would negatively affect low-speed handling. It’s not. Conversely, the 75-degree seat angle is very aggressive, but it goes a long way towards keeping weight above the rear wheel on steep climbs.
That’s perfectly in line with the BMC goals set when designing their bikes—comfort and compliance were as high on the list as performance. With that level of comfort (keep in mind that’s a hardtail, so comfort is a relative term), there’s a lost edge.
