Carbon may be the cutting edge these days, but interesting things are happening in titanium too. The Van Nicholas Astraeus is the world’s first production bike made from hydro-formed 3AL/2.5V titanium and is a very easy on the eye piece of kit indeed. Stiff too, reckons Van Nicholas’s top man, Jan Willem Sintnicolaas – who has a study from Delft University of Technology to back up his claims. Hydroforming has been used for years in the production of aluminium bikes, and allows tubes to be formed into a variety of shapes that you wouldn’t be able to make using other methods – so you can build in strength where you need it and drop weight where you don’t. Oh, and it looks nice too… 
With its hand-polished finish the Astraeus is certainly a very striking machine. Up until now to make a non-round tube profile in titanium you had to weld flat sheets of Ti together (the Van Nicholas Argon is a good example) which isn’t the most cost effective production method and still restricts the amount of shapes you can have. But, says Sintnicolaas, the Astraeus isn’t just about fluid good looks designed to appeal to those who might be tempted by carbon fibre, or even cost-effective production methods. The Astraeus is first and foremost a racer’s machine with an emphasis on super-direct power transfer. To that end a wide, flat chainstay bridge has been used which the makers claim ups stiffness by a whopping 25 per cent. That’s not the only stiffening touch either, wider dropouts make for a firmly planted stance at the back end so the Astraeus should be a sprinter’s dream. We’re going to try and get one, so we can find out. Other news from Van Nicholas was that they will be offering a fixed version of their popular Yukon bike, expect to see it as a special order option on their site in the next 4-6 weeks and lead times for those ordering will initially be, yes, you guessed it 4-6 weeks.
Van Nicholas Astraeus – first hydroformed Ti bike + fixed Yukon
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Erm - it has - as per the item above: (Technically, a 'budget cap' and a 'team salary cap' aren't quite the same thing, but given how much of the costs are paying riders, it would have a similar effect.)
A lot of pro sports leagues have team salary caps. Curious that hasn't been mooted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary_cap
Well your original comment did rather suggest that was your understanding. The bit 'critiquing' the pros and cons was sandwiched in the middle of railing against the makers. And the amount of ill-thought-out tripe that gets posted under some of these reviews, it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone thought the manufacturer provided the pros and cons.
JB may not bé Mr Nice but in this case he's 100% right. I thought when Lappartient was elected he knew sod all about pro cycling and his real ambitions were related to running thé Olympics.
@mdavidford Well duh, is a manufacturer going to put negative comments on their own products? did you really just try to explain that?
Surely Fred Wright's going to win a race in his career that isn't the national champs. He's been close so many times now.
Awful human slags off Machiavellian politician -shock horror.
The pros and cons come from the reviewer, not the manufacturer. And they do explain in the review why they think the lack of MIPS could be viewed as either/both a positive or a negative. Less so with the shape, but it's easy to see how that could be considered a good or a bad thing, depending on whether it suits your head shape. If anything, it's a deficiency of the review template - that it doesn't have a section for something like 'other considerations' that aren't pros or cons.
Could always reduce the size of Pogačar - shrink him down by about half - that might level things up a bit.
Why is the Cube Litening Aero, The Specialized Tarmac and the Van Rysel RCR-PRo marked with a (TBC) pricetag but the Canyon Aeroad isnt considering the teams will no doubt ALL be riding the new as of yet unreleased CFR? The price of a currently superceded (as far as the pro peloton are concerned) looks cheap but its a 2 year old model. The new one is as unreleased as the other 3 bikes.