Pinarello

Gan RS Ultegra Road Bike - 2018

Pinarello makes premium race bikes often with price tags reflecting it. You simply don't attain those Tour palmarès without leading edge materials and technology to build these world class frames. The downside to this is high overhead associated in the development, and to recoup this, the bikes are often well out of a typical privateer racer's budget. Pinarello realizes this, and to help get more riders on its bikes, it created the Gan RS Ultegra Complete Road Bike.

The frame is based heavily on the Dogma F8 and F10, maintaining a very similar ride quality and performance but with carbon material that makes pricing much more aggressive. It's still not thrifty, sure, but certainly in line with the race bikes from the more ubiquitous brands. Shimano's latest Ultegra componentry and Fulcrum Racing wheels build a bike that is every bit as capable of tackling long climbs and big days in the saddle without squandering the kid's college sayings.

Aesthetically, the Gan RS is a near clone of the Dogma F8, and from a distance it could easily be mistaken for one. Underneath the paint, the Dogma F8's Toray T1100 1K Dream Carbon with Nanoalloy Technology is substituted for a slightly more compliant T900 carbon, gaining a tiny bit of weight and stiffness but dropping the overall cost significantly. While this carbon is slightly less rigid than the T1100 1K, it still possesses very good strength to weight ratios and not too long ago would have been the material of choice for top-end frames. We doubt many will notice much of a difference in the ride quality and will appreciate the money saved opting for the Gan RS.

As with the Dogma, this frame incorporates Pinarello's trademark asymmetric design, which Pinarello credits with improving power transfer and comfort. While the asymmetry isn't quite as extreme in the Gan RS as the Dogma line, the compliance and road feel is there in spades, and if you didn't know about the F8 and F10, you'd swear you were on the brand's best frame. At the top of the seatstays, a wishbone shape offers a great anchor point for the rear brake, improving feel and contributing to better aerodynamics and clean lines.

Pinarello also incorporates Flatback technology found in the Dogma F8 and F10 into the Gan RS. The oval-front and flattened-back tubing throughout the frame and fork creates an aerodynamic profile that slices cleanly through the wind. The design effectively tricks the wind into thinking the tube shapes is deeper than they are. Other advantages to this design are better ride quality and lighter weight. The "no-profile" seatclamp and aerodynamic seatpost further contribute in cheating the wind—they also happen to look pretty damn cool.

The Gan RS complete comes with Ultegra cable and housing carefully routed in the internal cable ports, and it's fully compatible with electronic shifting systems if you choose to go that route in the future. We're happy that the threaded Italian bottom bracket continues, as we're big fans of the ease of installation and creak-free performance. The CNC threads provide a more consistent and solid platform, doing away with PressFit creaking and longevity issues.