New Pinarello Bolide time trial bike breaks cover at Tour de Suisse

As rumoured ahead of Filippo Ganna's upcoming World Hour Record attempt, Pinarello has been working on an all-new time trial bike, in what will be the first major update to the Bolide TT in almost a decade. 

After being spotted on social media in the past week, it wasn't the Italian world time trial champion, but his teammates Geraint Thomas and Dani Martinez who broke the cover of the new bike, both piloting it during the final stage of the Tour de Suisse on Sunday. Thomas, who finished second on the stage and won the overall, is pictured above. 

The Bolide TT was initially launched in 2013, and in the nine years since, it has only seen small improvements. Even by time trial bikes' often-longer product cycles, the fast-moving landscape of aerodynamic understanding and the industry's faster-moving shift to disc brakes meant that the Bolide TT was due a refresh, even despite the current model having been atop the podium of two world championships, five stages of the Giro d'Italia and numerous other races in the past two years beneath Ganna alone.

 We have also featured this bike in our Geraint Thomas bike archive in an overview of all the Welshamn's race machines over the years. 

Compared to the previous Bolide TT, there's no question that this new bike is a total redesign. The main switch is one from rim brakes to discs, which, given this has been the trend in recent years, is far from unexpected, but a notable decision nonetheless, given the previous iteration's lack of disc compatibility. 

For the frame, Pinarello has employed a tactic often found in the world of testing unreleased cars. This sees black and white camouflage wrap applied to the body of the car (in this case, the frame, fork, seatpost and wheels) as a means to distort the design, shape and contours from prying eyes and spy photographers (that'll be us, then). Cleverly, the camouflage has been created from a series of black and white 'Bolide' wordmarks in a sticker bomb effect. What it also achieves is an unmistakable lack of subtlety, so it was clear for all onlookers that this was indeed a new bike. 

Luckily for us, despite the camouflage wrap, it appears Pinarello hasn't strayed far from its already-published playbook, otherwise known as the Dogma F.

The new Bolide sees dropped seat stays with junctions that appear to mimic those of the brand's latest flagship road bike. The down tube they join appears deeper, and there is a step down on the down tube as the frame wraps around the front wheel, before widening to engulf the bottle it holds. 

Both the head tube and fork legs are also deeper than both the previous iteration of the Bolide and the Dogma F, and given the switch to disc brakes, the rim brake cover that was fitted onto the front of the head tube is now gone.

Interestingly, Thomas and Martinez' wheels were also wrapped in the stickerbomb camo. Thanks to the wave profile, we can conclude that the front wheel is the Mach 7580 from Princeton Carbonworks, while we can only assume the rear wheel is the brand's matching Blur 633. 

No launch date has been shared by Pinarello yet for the new bike, and as such, pricing and availability are unknown, but with the Tour de France just weeks away, we'd be surprised not to see a launch coinciding with that.