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This latest Bolide, however, features some big changes. We’ll come to aero touches in a moment, but the most easily noticeable feature is that the Bolide is now a disc brake frameset. Whether this is a move that has been taken for handling or aerodynamic purposes is unclear, but given the high development costs and low sales generated by TT bikes, we wouldn’t expect Pinarello to be producing a rim brake model as well.
Rather interestingly, the Most bar extensions start narrow on the base bar before curving outwards. They then come back into where the forearm supports sit. This could be an effort to disrupt airflow prior to it coming into contact with the knee, though it could also have a positive impact on comfort.
Most of his rivals would argue that the Ineos Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna doesn’t need any extra help to go fast against the clock. But we’d expect Pinarello to say that this new bike is faster than ever before.
The last update to the Bolide came way back in 2016 when Pinarello took lessons from Wiggins’ hour record to reduce drag over the original 2013 machine. But take a look back through the 9 years of Bolide bikes and you would see much of a change in the overall design.
Moving on to the aerodynamic touches, Ganna’s bike appears to feature some heavy contouring on the down tube. The bulge that sits in front of the top of the bottle cage area is likely there to smooth the transition around the bottle
The head tube seems to start with a rather sharp edge before staying narrow through the whole depth.
The fork legs bow outwards rather dramatically, possibly in an effort to clean up or direct the airflow around the down tube.
> Tour de France pro bikes: Geraint Thomas’s Pinarello Bolide TT
While we can’t see the insertion point, the angle of the seat stays suggests to us that they connect to the down tube well below the top of the wheel. Whether they turn sharply and connect to the seat tube at a right angle is unclear, but we have seen this done with a number of other TT bikes.
That’s about all that we can see for now, but with Ganna having won the TT at the recent Criterium du Dauphine aboard the old Bolide, we’d expect to see the Italian on the new machine come the first stage of the Tour de France.
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