Video first look: Cipollini MCM

This is the Cipollini MCM, which is short for ‘Mario Cipollini Custom Made’. It’s a carbon-fibre road bike that can be made to fit you perfectly.

Unlike most carbon-fibre bikes, the MCM isn’t produced in a mould as a monocoque. Instead, it’s built tube to tube, a little like a metal frame. The individual T800 carbon-fibre tubes are cut to length and then joined together.

What’s the advantage to doing it this way? Well, although you can buy the frame in a standard off-the-peg geometry, you can also have it custom sized according to measurements given to you by a professional bike fitter, for example. If you need a shorter than normal top tube or a longer head tube, that’s perfectly possible. You can have the frame built to your exact requirements.

We’ve not been through that process here, though, we’ve got a stock medium/large frame that’s built to a race-orientated geometry. This one has a 470mm seat tube, a 548mm effective top tube and a 143mm head tube. The head angle is 72.5°, the seat angle is pretty steep at 73.8° and the chainstays are short at 405mm.

Check out our review of the Cipollini NK1K frameset

The down tube is enormous, reaching across nearly the full width of the bottom bracket, while the head tube is tapered, as it is on most performance-type bikes these days. Cipollini uses a 1 1/4in upper bearing and a 1 1/2in lower bearing, so the MCM is pretty chunky up front.

The fork that slots in there comes with straight, skinny legs and the crown is integrated into the frame.

The seatstays are flattened, the idea being to allow a little up/down movement at the rear, while the seat tube is cutaway slightly around the leading edge of the rear wheel. 

The seatpost is made to the same shape as the seat tube and uses a ghost clamp design that we’ve not seen before. There’s a slot running down the front of the seatpost and a small metal piece goes inside it. Two bolts from the outside of the seat tube go through and thread into that piece. You don’t get as much height adjustment as normal but if you go down the bespoke geometry route you don’t need it.

As you can see, the MCM takes standard rim brakes. This version is built up with Shimano’s second-tier Ultegra groupset and is priced at £4,700. If you’d rather have Ultegra Di2 electronic shifting, that takes the price up to £5,300. The frameset, which includes the seatpost, is £3,100.

For more info go to www.mcipollini.com. The UK distributor is Paligap.