Pro Bikes of the 2019 World Tour

[merckx]

If the beginning of the end of civilization has not yet occurred, it has now.

[EDS]

Originally Posted by zzy

so many boring black bikes this year.

The all black Giant TCR is my favorite!

[KonaSS]

If you want a classic looking frame, Ridley, Canyon and Giant get my vote.

For new school disc/aero frames, BMC and Specialized rise to the top.

[MisterMurray]

The Canyon, Ridley, and Giant are pretty good if not a little boring. The Merckx and the Cervelo are especially bad. The rest are meh. They are all look basically the same. That's what happens when you have design optimized by wind tunnel testing.

[nooneline]

Some of these bikes suffer from photography with a noisy background, and a photo angle that makes setups and dimensions look somewhat awkward.

The Specialized Venge looks great, as do the Trek bikes - wish there were better pictures of the Trek. BMC, Canyon, and Argon 18 also look like clean, modern classics.

I want to like integrated bar/stems, against my better judgement, but a lot of the ones on those bikes look wrong - particularly the Deda one, which ruins the Ridley for me.

The Cannondale looks particularly awkward with the standard stem and bar - as do most bikes designed for integrated, stem-routed cables. Nice to have the option, but it doesn't look great.

[oldpotatoe]

Since everybody has disc brake groups, surprised there are any who don't have them...

[Black Dog]

The Argon was the one that didn't make me cringe immediately.

[Jad]

I would love to ride any of these around the block. Wonder if some of them feel as screwed up to ride as they look...

That Ridley is the best classic look. The Merckx looks almost disjointed, but in a mean, racy way. The seat stays and hunched TT do that partly, I think.

The C'dale shows how much font can interrupt. The bike looks bad to me anyway, but the stolid font bums the entire bike out more.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Since everybody has disc brake groups, surprised there are any who don't have them...

The article implies that disc brakes are for domestiques, whereas team leaders use rim brakes. Okay, it doesn't actually imply that - it says it outright. In the description of the Bahrain-Merida bikes:

The Merida Reacto and Merida Scultura remain in use for 2019, with a few more disc brakes seen where riders choose the aero Reacto III. It’s likely we’ll see more and more riders in the team move to disc brakes as the season progresses, while “team leaders” are expected to stay with rim brakes.

[93KgBike]

If bikes didn't need riders, Cervélo and cannondale would win everything.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Since everybody has disc brake groups, surprised there are any who don't have them...

The article shows both disc and rim brake team bikes for 18 teams, and the descriptions indicate that some teams will be using both types of brakes, depending on bikes selected for each event. Based on these descriptions, here are the number of teams using exclusively disc brakes, exclusively rim brakes, or a combination of both (when no preference is given in the description, the actual bike shown is used for this accounting):

Teams on disc brakes only: 4

Teams on a combination of disc and rim brakes: 4

Teams on rim brakes only: 10


It seems the pelOton (spelling for the benefit of oldpotatoe) is not switching to disc brakes as fast as some predicted.

[Jaybee]

The Cannondale typeface is a callback to the old train station logo. It also isn't that different (to my untrained eye) than the Gaulzetti typeface that everyone seems to be fawning over. It fits the minimal aesthetic of the EF team in general.

Personally I like it compared to all the swoopy slanted too-big typefaces on all the other bikes.

I also find "all the bikes look the same" to be an odd criticism. When everything was skinny steel tubes and downtube shifters, it looked the same. Modern carbon has a remarkable variety of tube shapes, bends, curves.

[R3awak3n]

Originally Posted by Jaybee

The Cannondale typeface is a callback to the old train station logo. It also isn't that different (to my untrained eye) than the Gaulzetti typeface that everyone seems to be fawning over. It fits the minimal aesthetic of the EF team in general.

Personally I like it compared to all the swoopy slanted too-big typefaces on all the other bikes.

I also find "all the bikes look the same" to be an odd criticism. When everything was skinny steel tubes and downtube shifters, it looked the same. Modern carbon has a remarkable variety of tube shapes, bends, curves.

funny, my least favorite part of the new gaulzettis is the logo (specially since the HT logo is pretty great). Helvetica or some sort of modified version of it is a big no for me

[azrider]

Welp.....one thing is for certain. My days of riding a Cannondale are numbered........blech.

[old_fat_and_slow]

The future of road bike design looks bleak.

Fat head tubes are fugly. Swoopy-loopy frame tubes are fugly.