Argon 18 Equation road bike review

The designers of the Argon 18 Equation faced a tricky balancing act: make a well-performing carbon-fibre bike at a lower price than its top-end counterparts. Keeping the costs down involves concessions in some areas. To be fair, all bikes come with their compromises. For example, if you increase stability, you’ll likely slow down the handling. Or, if you spec an integrated seatpost for a speedier ride, packing up and travelling with the bike will be more difficult. So, in the case of the Equation, how did Argon 18 manage its balancing act?

Behind the new frame

With most of Argon 18’s frames, you’ll notice they feature the Topological Compliance System. It’s the company’s method of ensuring its bikes are stiff where they need to be for the best power transfer and compliant to keep you comfortable. You see TCS used on the top-level race frame, the Sum, the endurance-focused Krypton models and even the gravel bike, the Dark Matter. The Equation is built with TCS, too. Yet, the TCS can’t be the same for each bike with its own specific requirements for stiffness and compliance.

I asked Carl Oliveira, product manager at Argon 18, about adapting TCS to the new bike. “There were some challenges in integrating the Topological Compliance System into the Equation,” he said. “While we did use a different grade of carbon fibre, the primary strategy for meeting our compliance goals was focusing on optimizing tube shapes. When the topology is effectively designed with compliance in mind, it helps in achieving the desired performance targets. For instance, we used R&D knowledge that we acquired from the Krypton’s development by using a new fork design that helps to add vertical compliance on the front end of the bike using our TCS technology.”

You’ll remember that when the Krypton relaunched in 2023, its new fork was noticeably different. The fork on the previous generation of endurance bike had a significant bend in it. (You can still see it on the Grey Matter.) The latest Krypton has straighter fork blades, a design drawn from the Sum’s, which provide the endurance bike with 15 per cent more compliance. That fork has now been adapted for the Equation.

The handling of the Argon 18 Equation

As I do with new bikes, I dove into the geometry numbers. The Equation has identical figures for its chainstay length and wheelbase as the previous generation of…