Cyclist
Pinarello changes the Dogma F’s recipe to get lighter and a touch faster
The new Pinarello Dogma F has been raced by Ineos Grenadiers for the past couple of months and Pinarello has now given its latest race bike an official introduction.
Thanks to a new type of carbon fibre included in the frameset’s construction, Pinarello says the Dogma F drops 108g in weight despite achieving a CdA (the figure that measures aerodynamic drag) that is said to be 0.2% lower than the outgoing models.
The claimed aero gain has been obtained by extending the surface area of frame junctions at the head tube and bottom bracket, as well as making the front of the bike narrower. A new, elliptical steerer has allowed cables to be routed in front of it and correspondingly narrower bearings used, reducing the bike’s frontal profile.
The new Dogma F is the first to be disc brake only, although the old rim brake model will continue to be offered for now. Prices for full builds start from £12,600 / €14,500 / $14,500 while the disc frameset will cost £5,500 / €6,700 / $6,950.
Rapid development
The typical life cycle of a high-end bike these days tends to be around 3-4 years, but the Pinarello Dogma F gets revised at a significantly faster rate. That means there have been plenty of updates in the platform’s 22-year history.
‘We were a formation partner of the Ineos Grenadiers – then Team Sky – and the team needs a new bike every two years,’ says Fausto Pinarello, Pinarello’s CEO. ‘Our starting point for new projects is always asking, “What does the team need?”, which is so valuable. For example, they’ve always said they don’t want to change bikes mid-race, and we knew we could build a well-rounded race machine, so we shunned the trend for separate race categories. Now other brands are recombining their lightweight and aero bikes, coming back to where we’ve been all along.’
The 2022 Tour de France was another example of Pinarello’s use of pro-derived data mining.
‘We measured Geraint Thomas’ performance data at the race, trying to assess his energy expenditure against the four main contributors to speed: weight, aerodynamics, rolling resistance and comfort,’ says Massimo Poloniato, Pinarello’s road bike R&D manager. ‘Then we weigh that data against where we could make gains in the Dogma’s design.’
Unsurprisingly given how well understood its effects are these days, aero efficiency proved the biggest area that Pinarello could improve in the Dogma F.
‘We found that over the course of a Grand Tour, just a 0.2% improvement in the bike’s coefficient of drag [the measure of how aerodynamic something is] equates to saving 175g in weight,’ says Poloniato. ‘That weight would normally be incredibly hard to find, but a better CdA was achievable.’
That said, Pinarello says the new Dogma F drops 108g versus its predecessor as well getting faster, thanks to the inclusion of a different type of carbon fibre, Toray’s Torayca M40X. This is used in the Dogma F’s layup in place of the T1100G fibres that were introduced in the F8 and used up until now. M40X was developed by Toray in 2018 and has been used in Pinarello’s Dogma X-Light models (lightweight, exclusive versions of previous Dogmas generally only used by pros) for several years, but it has taken considerable development for the brand to exploit its advantages while keeping framesets robust. Reportedly, X-Light framesets were fragile in certain areas and weren’t really suitable for normal-weight riders.
‘M40X has a far higher tensile modulus than anything we’ve used before,’ says Poloniato. In layman’s terms that means it’s stiffer, so less material is required for the same stiffness, dropping weight. Pinarello says that a fully built size 53cm Dogma F weighs 6.63kg.
Dragging down drag
The Dogma F’s distinctive design language is stronger than ever in the latest F – indeed, Pinarello himself often declares with no little amount of passione that his bikes will always be beautiful machines – but the bike’s tube junctions are visibly altered this time around, with more pronounced webbing making areas like the bottom bracket and head tube junctions much larger.
‘Filippo’s [Ganna, Ineos Grenadiers’ time-trial specialist and current Hour record holder] Hour record-winning Bolide informed the new Dogma profiles. The down tube has been made steeper by 3.5°, bringing the front edge of the bottom bracket junction forward and the rear of the head tube backward,’ says Poloniato. ‘The larger bottom bracket also recaptures any stiffness lost by having to make the chainstays slimmer, in order to bump tyre clearance up to 32mm.’
Claims of the keel-like shape of the BB smoothing airflow are echoed to a greater degree at the head tube, but the bike’s main aero benefit comes from slimming the front of the bike down laterally.
The head tube has been narrowed by 8mm courtesy of some reimagined cable routing, which was allowed by making the fork steerer elliptical. The new steerer cross section – which is oval left-to-right when viewed from above, creates space for the cables directly in front of the steerer rather than to the sides of it. This meant smaller bearings could be used, and the corresponding tubes and components that make up that area of the bike could all be narrower too.
Details matter
The slimmer thinking was carried through to the skinnier Onda fork (which also has a longer rake to create less trail and quicker handling) and new Talon Ultra Fast cockpit, which is made by Most, Pinarello’s in-house component brand. It’s 40g lighter than previous, now slightly flared and comes in widths down to 40cm (measured outside to outside, which is actually 38cm centre-to-centre). Crucially, it angles the hoods inwards such that the rider’s hands can be just 34cm apart.
‘An aero body position is such an important part of going fast, so the new bars help achieve this in a comfortable and safe manner,’ says Poloniato.
At the same time as helping optimise the bulk of the total system drag, Pinarello hasn’t overlooked even the tiniest supporting details. The thru-axle threads are now captive and smoothed over on the fork and rear dropout, and the seat post clamp is smaller, lighter and now fully integrated into the back of the seat tube, for a clean look. The Ineos Grenadiers will know better than most, it’s the details that matter and in the latest Dogma F Pinarello doesn’t seem to have left any stone unturned.
Pinarello Dogma F specs and prices
The new Dogma F will be available in seven specs: there’ll be Shimano Dura-Ace Di2+PM (ie, with power meter), Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and SRAM Red AXS builds, each with a choice of DT Swiss ARC 1400 wheels or Princeton CarbonWorks Peak 4550 wheels. Then there’s the all-Italian Campagnolo Super Record WRL build with Campagnolo Bora WTO wheels. All builds are available in six colour options and 11 sizes.
The new Dogma F is disc-brake only, but Pinarello will continue to offer the old frameset in a rim-brake option for now.
Prices for the full builds start from £12,600 / €14,500 / $14,500 and the frameset will cost £5,500 / €6,700 / $6,950.
- For more information on the new Pinarello Dogma F visit pinarello.com
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