Opinion: Fast bikes shouldn’t have to be pretty as well, and to demand that they are holds the sport back

The new Colnago Y1Rs is certainly eye-catching, I’ll give it that. As new bikes go, the intersection of ‘brand new Colnago’ and ‘brand new bike for Tadej Pogačar’ is a surefire way to generate comments across the various social media platforms. While the new machine may not be to your tastes visually – it is challenging, and certainly non-traditional – I’d argue that for a bike solely focused on winning races, it doesn’t matter a jot what it looks like.

I have argued in the past, again to much furore in the comments, that cycling should take a leaf out of the F1 book and have pro-only bikes. Given that the Y1Rs is only available in team colours, and is so prohibitively expensive that it’s not a realistic purchase at any level for the vast majority of riders, I’d wager we’re well on our way to that being a de-facto reality anyway. 

Sadly cycling has slowly moved away from riders winning on panache, courage, guile, determination and the rest to a place where everything is analysed and optimised. Yes, some of the ‘soul’ has been stripped away, but on the flip side, it means riders are no longer doing insane things like riding all day, taking sleeping pills, and only eating watermelon to drop their weight. Carbs per hour is the new watts per kilo, and the coefficient of drag is the easiest thing to control from an equipment standpoint. 

People don’t like change