Indroducing: Pinarello
If you’ve dropped by Broad Street Cycles in the last week or so, one particularly fetching matte black road racer, with it’s swooping lines and aero tubing, probably caught your eye. That would be Pinarello’s new Gan model road bike, the first of the iconic Italian brand’s bikes to arrive in store. Pinarello is such a longstanding mainstay in ranks of the Pro peloton that no introduction is necessary. But, since we’re so jazzed to be carrying the superlative Italian brand for 2017, lets go over a bit about Pinarello and their new Gan model anyway.
Giovanni Pinarello started making bicycles under the name Cicli Pinarello in 1952 and started sponsoring pro riders shortly after that, as early as 1960. From modest beginnings, the Pinarello name has grown through sponsorship of some of the most storied names and teams in cycling history. Pedro Delgado, Miguel Indurain and Jan Ullrich all rode their way into history aboard steel Pinarello’s, like this colourful Vuelta, while Wiggins and Froome continue to write the brands modern, carbon based history. At various points, Banesto, Team Telekom, Caisse d’Epargne, Fassa Bortolo, Movistar, and now the crushingly dominant Team Sky have all relied on Pinarello. And you know if it’s good enough for the numbers obsessed nerds at Sky, these bikes are doing more than looking good.
The first to arrive is the newest addition to Pinarello’s stable, the Gan. Closely related to the purebred Dogma, both in pedigree and appearance, the Gan takes lessons learned from the no-holds-barred, win at all cost Dogma and puts together something a bit more flexible. While it’s more than capable of racing at a high level, the Gan will also happily tackle all day adventures, Fondo’s, or just casual riding without the sacrifices of a pure race driven design. While the shapes are simpler, the Gan features tubing that clearly benefits from aero lessons Pinarello gleaned from the Dogma F8’s time in Jaguar’s wind tunnels. Guess sky got more out of their partnership with Jaguar than just flashy team cars.
While the Dogma continues to sharpen the razors edge of cycling technology, the Gan takes what Pinarello learned there and applies it to a wider range of bicycles: Gan is available in builds from Dura-Ace to 105. A perfect display of trickle-down technology’s first steps that would make even Thatcher smile, if she’d ever done something as fun as riding a bike.
F.P. Design, if you’re wondering, refers to Fausto Pinarello, who has been working with his Father, Giovanni, since the age of 17. Fausto has overseen the manufacturer’s modern era, from the shift to carbon frame materials to the introduction of disc brakes to road cycling. Both the Dogma and the Gan are available with disc options.
While the Gan is offered in a number of different price-point builds, it also comes in a range of geometries, from more endurance oriented to race driven, and levels of carbon. T-600, all the way up to the Termanator-esque T-900, which is just this side of futuristic. All models benefit from the aero tubing design, but with slight differences in weight and ride characteristics.
