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Pinarello introduces two new road bikes to performance and endurance ranges... and they're (slightly) more affordable

The new Pinarello F and X models offer a blend of comfort and performance for a bit less than the flagship Dogma F, with prices ranging between £4,500-£9,500

Pinarello has shaken up its range with the introduction of two new road bikes: the Pinarello F, which is all about performance, and the Pinarello X, designed for endurance. Each of them owes a lot to the top-end Dogma F, as ridden by Ineos Grenadiers, but at less expensive prices. Don’t go thinking they’re cheap though, as you'll still be paying at least £4,500 to get your hands on one. 

Just a word on how Pinarello organises things first. Rather than having a road bike range, a gravel bike range, and so on, Pinarello uses F to denote bikes designed for competition – so you have the Dogma F road bike, the Bolide F time trial bike, the Grevil F gravel bike, and now the Pinarello F9, F7 and F5, which you’ll find out about in a second.

Then Pinarello uses X to denote endurance bikes. There’s already a Granger X gravel bike and now there are X3 and X1 road bikes.

Got it? Right, let’s crack on…

Pinarello F Series

Website hero-@Roberto Bragotto - Photographer

The Pinarello F Series bikes are primarily designed for racing, with the new bikes intended to be accessible to a wider range of cyclists than the Pinarello Dogma F that’s ridden at the top level by Ineos Grenadiers. These are still high-end bikes, though. Pinarello knows that many F Series bikes won’t be raced but that many customers want the high level of performance.

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“The Pinarello F is designed to excel on all terrain and is as adept at climbing as it is on a high-speed descent,” says Pinarello.

Unlike many other brands, Pinarello has never gone in for separate aero bikes and lightweight/climbing bikes. Ineos has always raced everything – apart from time trials and cobbles – on the Dogma F and its various predecessors.

2023 Pinarello F DURAACE_ULTRAFAST_PART5

The F Series bikes are built to their own geometry, although it’s very much based on that of the Dogma F. They aren’t available in as many sizes as the Dogma F – nine versus 11 – but that’s still more than most brands. Pinarello says that when combined with an extensive range of handlebar sizes and stem lengths from its in-house Most brand, this means that everyone can get their perfect fit.

2023 Pinarello F series geometry - 1

In terms of weight, Pinarello says, “It is both restrictive and reductive to weigh the frame in isolation. For that reason, Pinarello believes that it’s imperative to consider the entire system: frame, seatpost, fork, handlebar, and dedicated assembly components such as our 3D-printed titanium seat clamp.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but tell us anyway.

The claimed frame weights are:

F9 and F7 950g

F5 990g

These figures refer to a size 53 raw frame.

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Loads of the aero features associated with the Dogma F are present on the F Series bikes too, the most obvious being the Flatback truncated airfoil tube profiles (where the shape is essentially designed with a long tail but then squared off in a more bike-friendly way).

2023 Pinarello F 105_ULTRAFAST_PART7

Like the Dogma F, the F Series bikes feature Pinarello’s TiCr full cable integration, an aero seat post and a tapered seat tube. The head tube is shaped for aerodynamics too, and the down tube features a recess that’s designed to work aerodynamically with a water bottle in place.

Again, like the Dogma, F Series bikes use carbon fibre from Toray. The difference is that the Dogma F uses T1100 while the F9 and F7 use T900 and the F5 uses T700.

Pinarello says that T900 (on the F9 and F7) offers “the ideal balance between reactivity, low weight, and vibration absorption” and that the T700 (on the F5) “maintains excellent responsiveness and performance but with a greater capacity to absorb road vibration”.

2023 Pinarello F ULTEGRA_ULTRAFAST_PART2

“Carbon Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) is used to optimise every section of the frame to achieve the desired stiffness and lightness,” says Pinarello. “For example, in areas where the stiffness is favoured, a high modulus fibre (HM) is chosen, while in areas where strength is essential, a high strength fibre (HT) is preferred. This choice contributes to increased impact strength, helping to prevent breakage.”

The Pinarello F offers space for tyres up to 30mm wide while keeping the chain stays between 406mm and 410mm long, depending on the frame size, to keep the rear triangle compact and responsive. It says that this is the best compromise between versatility and performance.

The F Series frame features an integrated seat post clamp that’s designed to keep the weight down and improve the aerodynamics. The seat post is straight off the Dogma F.

2023 Pinarello F

The asymmetric frame design has been part of Pinarello’s design philosophy for years – “to balance the greater torsional force imparted by the chain” – and this continues here.

“For the F Series, we push the boundaries again, to have an asymmetric chainstay design, improving lateral stiffness, reducing watt dispersion, and providing overall better handling,” says Pinarello.

“Asymmetry has also been applied to the seat stay design. The disc brake’s position on the left, together with the drivetrain forces on the right side, brought us to the conclusion that to balance the frame better, we needed asymmetric seat stays. The result is a more responsive, better-balanced frame.

“Even the F’s head tube is asymmetric, as it progresses from an aerodynamic shape to allow more lateral room on the right side for cabling to pass through the frame.”

For builds that use one, Pinarello positions the electronic groupset battery within the bottom bracket shell. It says that this allows for a reduction of the thickness of the seat post which in turn improves the aerodynamic performance of the frame, as well as lowering the centre of gravity in order to improve.

Here’s the F Series range available in the UK:

F9 Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
Wheels Most Ultrafast 40
Price £9,500

F7 Shimano Ultegra Di2
Wheels Most Ultrafast 40
Price £7,000

F7 Shimano Ultegra Di2
Wheels Fulcrum Racing 500
Price £6,500

F5 Shimano 105 Di2
Wheels Fulcrum Racing 800
Price £5,250

Pinarello X Series

2023 Pinarello X riding

Whereas Pinarello’s F Series bikes are all about competition, its X Series is intended for endurance and comfort.

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“Too often, bikes in this sector are heavy and unresponsive,” says Pinarello. “Our goal was to develop a frame that could deliver the pure joy of cycling, one with a racing spirit, but also the ability to remain comfortable on even the longest rides.

“Alongside our partners at Toray, we’ve developed the perfect carbon layup for endurance and comfort, with significantly reduced vertical stiffness when compared to our top race model.”

2023 Pinarello X frame

Not surprisingly, the X Series bikes have a more relaxed geometry than the F Series bikes. Pinarello calls this its Endurance + geometry. On the model with a 530mm seat tube, for example, the X Series has 13.1mm less reach (the horizontal distance from the centre of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube) and a 33.2mm taller stack height (the vertical distance between those points). That makes a big difference to ride position. As with the F Series, there are nine bike sizes on offer.

2023 Pinarello X series geometry - 1

Pinarello says that the new rear triangle is designed specifically to dissipate vibrations for increased comfort.

“The Pinarello X seatstays are slightly curved, allowing our engineers to take full advantage of the T600 carbon fibre’s special lay-up to absorb vibrations on even the roughest of roads,” it says.

“This means serious comfort, without needing to resort to the addition of a mechanical damping system, which would increase weight and drastically reduce performance.”

2023 Pinarello X rear triangle

Oooh, catty! You get clearance for 32mm tyres.

“The last two editions of Paris-Roubaix have been won on conventional road frames with 32mm tubeless tyres,” it says*. “This proves definitively that when it comes to balancing speed and control on difficult terrain, tyre clearance is the answer.”

Okay, we get it. We’re not going to see a Pinarello version of the IsoSpeed system that Trek specs on its Domane endurance road bikes any time soon.

Pinarello reckons that even without anything like that the X Series frame has 21.1% less vertical stiffness than the Dogma F – or put another way, 21.1% greater compliance – in order to offer comfort and shock absorption.

2023 Pinarello X RIVAL-AXS_FULCRUM_PART5

As mentioned, the X bikes – both the X1 and the X3 – are made from Toray T600 carbon fibre which Pinarello says is “the ideal carbon fibre for an endurance frame, with a lay-up that offers the ideal mix of low weight, responsiveness, and damping ability”.

Like the F Series, the X Series bikes come with an integrated seat post clamp, the idea being to save weight and improve aerodynamics. The full carbon aero seatpost that slots in there is derived from the Dogma F12.

Speaking of aerodynamics, the X Series shares many F Series features ultimately derived from the Dogma, such as Flatback tube profiles, an aero seat post, an aerodynamically optimised head tube, and a tapered seat tube. Pinarello’s TiCr integrated cable system is also designed to save watts as well as look clean.

Geometry and curved seatstays aside, the X Series looks a lot like the F Series and not a million miles from the Dogma. You can tell them apart easily enough but they’re clearly all from the same family.

2023 Pinarello X _RIVAL-AXS_FULCRUM_PART7

In terms of weight, Pinarello claims 1,070g for the frame and 470g for the fork.

Here are the X Series bikes available in the UK:

X3 Shimano 105 Di2
Wheels Fulcrum Racing 800
Price £4,500

X1
Details and price to be confirmed

Get more details at Pinarello.com.

* As Miller has quite rightly pointed out in the comments, and for clarification, Pinarello is talking about the men's Paris-Roubaix race when it says: "The last two editions of Paris-Roubaix have been won on conventional road frames with 32mm tubeless tyres." The first two editions of Paris-Roubaix Femmes were actually won by Lizzie Deignan (2021) and Elisa Longo Borghini (2022) riding... Trek's Domane, featuring the Isospeed system. Maybe Pinarello's proof isn't quite so 'definitive' after all! 

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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11 comments

Avatar
ShutTheFrontDawes | 1 year ago
1 like

But can they take 38s and panniers front and rear?

Avatar
a1white | 1 year ago
1 like

Be good if they could offer a cheaper mechanical version of the x-series, though I guess the target audience is perhaps only interested in the pricey Di2 offerings.

Avatar
PRSboy | 1 year ago
1 like

Blimey, £4.5k for a 105 equipped bike.

A 'proper' Ultegra Di2 Dogma is £9500, so the F7 does represent quite a saving at £7,000

Avatar
pkaro | 1 year ago
1 like

Pinarello is one of the few manufacturers who offer frames in many different sizes including for long legged people. In a day and age where most manufacturers will be hard pressed to bring even four different frame sizes to market, Pinarello is really exemplary in offering 9 or more, depending on the model.

This review would benefit a lot from plotting the stack to reach ratio of the various frame sizes and offering a comparison to other major manufacturer's bikes.

Avatar
joules1975 | 1 year ago
1 like

Quote:

Unlike many other brands, Pinarello has never gone in to design separate aero bikes and lightweight/climbing bikes. Ineos has always raced everything – apart from time trials and cobbles – on the Dogma F and its various predecessors.

Not strictly true - Pinarello built the K8-S 'softail' race bike some years back for racing over the cobbles, although it didn't catch on.

Avatar
Surreyrider | 1 year ago
1 like

Looks pretty much like the same bikes as before with a different name.

Avatar
FlyingPenguin | 1 year ago
1 like

Bargain, I'll take two!

Avatar
Miller | 1 year ago
4 likes

“The last two editions of Paris-Roubaix have been won on conventional road frames with 32mm tubeless tyres,”

Yebbut Lizzie Deignan won P-R Femmes 2021 on a Trek Domane with isospeed suspension. Not that I'm suggesting it didn't occur to Pinarello that women race bikes too.

Avatar
Jack Sexty replied to Miller | 1 year ago
3 likes

Thanks for spotting that! We've amended the article for clarification. 

Avatar
Miller replied to Jack Sexty | 1 year ago
2 likes

Cheers! I loved that ride of Lizzie's, seeing her going sideways on the muddy cobbles but holding it upright was a 2021 standout moment.

Avatar
NotNigel | 1 year ago
3 likes

For all them wannabe dentists called Fred.

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