The dust has now settled, the bell-lap completed, and after many months of testing and hours of discussion, the results are in for Cycling Weekly’s 2023 Race Bike of the Year award – but we won’t be giving them away quite so quickly.
First, let’s back up to the criteria for entry. Our first stipulation for Race Bike of the Year was that each model must be among the 2023 WorldTour bikes. Vitus, for instance, produces some excellent bikes – and at particularly keen price points – but none of its models met our first criterion.
Second, where a brand produces multiple models that are raced at WorldTour level (Trek has no fewer than three, for example) we’ve chosen the platform we find most notable. This has seen us include the new Giant Propel over the venerable TCR, for example, and the new Cannondale SuperSix over the similarly ‘mature’ SystemSix.
Which brings us neatly on to the topic of bike design, or rather the dichotomy between aero bikes and climbers’ bikes. Over recent years, aero bikes as a category have seen some huge shifts in their remit. The tropes of aero bikes being anchors on the hills and shopping trolleys on anything but the smoothest tarmac are long gone. The latest crop of the best aero bikes have haemorrhaged excess weight and boosted comfort levels – all bikes on test can be built to the UCI weight limit and can fit 28mm tyres as a minimum, some going up to as much as 34mm.
Convergent design
(Image credit: Future)
Likewise, climbers’ bikes haven’t missed the march of progress. Naturally, weight is still a prime concern, as is vibration dampening comfort enhancement and geometries designed to see riders down the mountains as well as up. But alongside that, many of the learnings from aero bikes are being applied – thicker, kammtail tubes, dropped seat stays, hidden cables and more are all now appearing on these lighter weight models.
Muddying the waters further are aero bikes which have eschewed the orthodoxy of ‘big tubes equals fast’ and are seeing (reported) aero gains with skinnier frames – and reaping the benefits of a lower weight and better compliance as a result. The Giant Propel, Colnago V4RS and Wilier Filante are all aero bike platforms, but their profiles don’t look much different to the climbers’ bikes of the Cannondale SuperSix and the BMC Teammachine. With that in mind, we’ve held the door open to both aero and lightweight models in our Race Bike of the Year grouptest. But,…