Aurum Magma first ride review: Have two Grand Tour winners produced a solid all-around race bike?

Alberto Contador casually dropped the chain down several cogs and accelerated out of the saddle within the first kilometre of my test of the Aurum Magma with just enough intent to make me think to myself, “You better hold on to your hat”. Thankfully for me, the winner of all three Grand Tours, multiple times, was simply getting up to speed and setting the tempo for the opening downhill section of the test ride at the Aurum Magma launch event.

Aurum has achieved quite a lot in a short space of time. The range is three bikes strong now, and the brand, founded by Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso, has today rolled out a new version of their range-topping race bike, the Magma, itself raced on by the Polti-Kometa ProTeam. 

The Magma, the brand’s range-topper is in the words of Aurum ‘capable of being the fastest uphill, downhill or on the flat’. In a nutshell, the Magma has been designed to do everything well. It has received more aero attention, more integration and the carbon construction has been improved. A few other things like the bottom bracket and rear hanger standard have also been tweaked. Check out our news piece for an in-depth dive into the design.

I was able to attend the bikes press launch in Madrid, Spain and spent a few kilometres testing out the latest version of the Magma to see if the input of riders of the calibre of Basso and Contador has produced something special.

Design and Aesthetics