Cyclist
The complete history of the Pinarello Dogma
There’s a sense of poetic justice about the fact that a rider famous for wearing the maglia nera – the black jersey awarded to the Giro d’Italia’s last place finisher – went on to found a company that has produced some of the most successful race bikes in the sport’s history. After coming last at the Giro in 1951, Giovanni Pinarello was paid 100,000 lire by his Bottechia team to step away from the sport as an athlete, so he used that money to set up Cicli Pinarello in 1952.
It didn’t take long for Pinarello bikes to taste success. Since the early 1980s they have exerted Grand Tour dominance unlike any other brand, winning 30 Giros, Tours and Vueltas to date. It’s a figure to which its nearest competitor doesn’t even come close. The company’s Dogma model has been the most successful of the lot, though the world-beating iterations of the past decade or so stem from comparatively humble roots.
Stumbling start
‘We released the first Dogma in 2002,’ says Fausto Pinarello, Giovanni’s son and company CEO. ‘It was the first, and I think remains the only production race bike that used a magnesium alloy for the frame.’
Under Giovanni, Pinarello was a manufacturer firmly grounded in tradition, but when Fausto took over in in the late 1980s he quickly learned that innovation would be key to the company’s continued success as technology developed.
‘Almost as soon as I took over the company, the first Grand Tour was won on an aluminium frame,’ says Fausto. ‘It was a Cannondale, and I knew then that the traditional Italian brands that had controlled the performance end of the market would have to adapt to survive, so we’ve always tried to push forward with new technology. The first Dogma was evidence of that.’
The bike’s frame material actually helped inform its name, he adds: ‘We liked the word “dogma” due to its definition of being an incontrovertible truth or the end of discussion. The second half of the word being a partial anagram of the first part of “magnesium” sealed the deal.’
The Dogma’s performance in its more recent life has justified its bold etymology, but initially the quirks of working with magnesium meant the platform was less ‘end of’ and more ‘up for’ discussion.
‘It wasn’t really light enough and, because magnesium is so chemically reactive, fabricating with it was very challenging. You can imagine that welding together a metal that is explosively flammable is a pretty delicate operation. We could never make it work for mass manufacture. That said, I still think it is one of the best materials to make a frame from in terms of ride feel. It’s super-stiff and responsive like aluminium but offers brilliant vibration damping like titanium,’ says Fausto.
The initial Dogma was hardly a flop though. After Floyd Landis was stripped of his victory at the 2006 Tour de France, the model got its first big win under Óscar Pereiro, and remains the last metal bike to win the Tour.
‘This era was a time for material exploration, however,’ says Fausto. ‘Even that Dogma used carbon seatstays and a carbon fork, and we were discovering even bigger gains could be made by making full carbon frames, which is why the Dogma sat underneath our carbon fibre Prince model for the next few years.’
Ironically, it was the late-noughties Prince that convinced the still-forming Team Sky – a team that would go on to become synonymous with the Dogma – to partner with Pinarello.
‘In 2009 Shimano released its first Dura-Ace Di2 generation, R7970,’ says Fausto. ‘We were prepared for it and we released the world’s first bike with proper electronic cable integration. Other brands just made do with tapes or straps for the wires on the outside of the frame tubes.
‘I met with Carsten Jeppesen, who Dave Brailsford had not long appointed as Team Sky’s operations manager. He was, and still is, in charge of choosing the team’s equipment and sponsors, and it was little touches like the cable integration that really appealed to him, as it fed into the team’s marginal gains philosophy.’
The beginning of something
Fausto says that even in the early days of the team there was an atmosphere of something special being created, so the company decided it was time to reinvigorate the Dogma name for the first fruit of the Pinarello-Team Sky partnership in 2009, launching the Dogma 60.1. That was the year before the collaboration was officially announced, as both parties were keen that the team hit the ground rolling once it joined the WorldTour.
The following couple of years were a whirlwind, with Team Sky embarking on a steep learning curve and Pinarello following suit with equally quick updates for the bike. In 2011 the Dogma 2 was released, which was followed quickly by the Dogma 65.1 Think 2 just one year later.
‘One of the main things we were working through in those Dogmas was optimising the frame asymmetry,’ says Fausto. ‘Well before the Dogma, in the early 1990s, it became my philosophy that this concept was so important in performance.’
He was convinced of this when working with Miguel Induráin. Pinarello outfitted the Spaniard’s Banesto team when Big Mig was grinding his rivals into the tarmac at the Tours between 1991 and 1995.
‘He was so powerful that when we were developing frames with him it was plain to see that the forces transmitted through them were different between left and right, due to the drivetrain. In our metal bikes from then on, we worked with Columbus to reinforce the driveside tubing in the rear triangle,’ says Fausto.
With the advent of composites and the design freedom they unlocked, it made more sense to change the architecture of the frame.
‘But to be honest we didn’t get it so right in that 60.1 Dogma. We went a bit far,’ says Fausto. ‘We refined it quickly though and improved stiffness without undermining the bike’s ride quality. Our “Think Asymmetric” concept is an integral aspect of our brand and still used in all our bikes.’
Lift off
Back-to-back Tour wins in 2012 and 2013 with Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome ensured Pinarello saw success like never before, and the Dogma 65.1 Think 2 became its best-selling bike ever. But then 2014 rolled around.
That year’s F8 was the most significant overhaul of the platform since the switch from magnesium to carbon. Extensive aerodynamic analysis done in collaboration with fellow Team Sky partner Jaguar changed the bike drastically, with Pinarello claiming a 47% increase in aerodynamic efficiency versus the 65.1 Think 2.
‘I think the F8 changed our image,’ says Fausto. ‘It modernised us because it showed our capacity for innovation as well as quality. The generations since have been updates, adding extra bits of performance without a total overhaul. It just hasn’t been necessary. Post-F8 the Dogma has been fast but still very light with confident handling. Simple shapes that flow together naturally without sharp angles; an iconic all-round race bike.’
That last phrase is significant because around the time the F8 was released rivals began branching out with more specialist frames geared towards light weight and aerodynamics respectively. By contrast, the Dogma has remained Team Sky’s and Ineos Grenadiers’ one-bike solution through the F8, F10, F12 and now two generations simply labelled ‘F’. In that time, companies such as Trek and Specialized have divided their race bike ranges up and then come back to offering one all-round solution.
‘Splitting frames up makes their design much easier as you have to account for fewer competing attributes,’ says Fausto. ‘But it makes things harder for the rider. Pros and amateurs alike question which bike is best for them. We’ve always known we have to make a bike that does everything because bike racing always has a bit of everything in it. Finding the perfect balance is the art of bicycle design, and I think the Dogma has always done it best.’
Pinarello Dogma timeline
The Dogma’s developmental journey
2002: Dogma is introduced. It’s the first and only GC race bike to use a magnesium frame.
2009: Reimagined as a full-carbon bike, the Dogma takes over the Prince as Pinarello’s flagship race platform.
2011: Dogma 2 builds on previous Dogma to refine asymmetric frame design.
2012: The 65.1 Think 2 takes asymmetry further, becoming the first Dogma widely raced by Team Sky. Bradley Wiggins uses it to win the Tour de France.
2013: The 65.1 Think 2 continues to usher in Team Sky’s era of Grand Tour dominance as Chris Froome wins the Tour de France.
2014: Sky misses out at the Grand Tours but gets the new Dogma F8. It’s the first to properly consider aerodynamics and remains the design upon which modern versions are based.
2017: Team Sky’s Michał Kwiatkowski shows off the aero prowess of the newly released F10 by winning the sprinter’s Classic, Milan-San Remo.
2017: Aboard the F10, Froome wins the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. The F10 becomes the first Dogma with a disc brake alternative.
2018: Pinarello offers the F10 X-Light to its pros, which drops even more weight at the expense of robustness, and the K10, which is geared more towards endurance riding.
2018: Froome wins the Giro to become the first man in 35 years to hold all three Grand Tour titles simultaneously. Team Sky follows up with another win at the Tour, with Geraint Thomas.
2019: Egan Bernal makes it five Tours in a row for Team Ineos.
2019: Dogma F12 launches as Team Sky becomes Team Ineos. The F12 further refines the F8 formula, becoming stiffer and faster by co-designing finishing kit with the frameset.
2021: New Dogma drops numbers to become simply ‘F’. Rim brake bike is still offered, but updates centre on the disc brake version. Pinarello focusses on the frameset’s small components to help drop 265g.
2021: Richard Carapaz takes gold in the Olympic Road Race.
2022: Dylan van Baarle showcases the Dogma F’s well-rounded qualities by winning Paris-Roubaix.
2024: Latest Dogma F launches as disc-only using the same material as older, pro-only X-Light frames to drop weight, but now without fragility.
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