Pinarello is the most decorated bike manufacturer in the history of professional cycling. There’s simply no competition. No other company comes close.
The Treviso-based brand has grown to dominate the pro peloton since its birth in 1952.
Its cutting-edge race bikes have achieved a staggering 30 Grand Tour victories, carried countless cycling greats to the podium and helped to push the evolution of road-bike tech forward.
Racing roots
Founder Giovanni ‘Nani’ Pinarello was raised in Italian cycling’s halcyon days. He went pro in 1947, rubbing shoulders with superstars such as Fausto Coppi, Alfredo Binda and Gino Bartali in the Giro d’Italia peloton.
However, Nani’s professional career was short-lived.
After leaving the pro circuit in 1951, the newly retired cyclist turned his focus to making bikes instead of riding them.
Pinarello began sponsoring amateur teams in the early 1960s, and by the end of the 1980s, the brand had become a podium regular.
In the decades that followed, Pinarello signed pivotal sponsorship contracts with Banesto, Team Telekom and Team Sky respectively. And for the next 30 years, the wins came in thick and fast thanks to the likes of Miguel Induráin, Jan Ullrich, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
Here are some of the iconic bikes those big names and their Pinarello peers rode to victory.
Miguel Induráin’s 1995 Espada
If one rider could be credited with taking Pinarello’s success stratospheric, it’s Spanish powerhouse Miguel Induráin.
Big Mig won the Tour de France on a Pinarello every year from 1992 to 1995, and that final victory was achieved on this very bike.
The Espada was developed with help from Lamborghini Formula 1 expert Marco Giachi. It was Pinarello’s first carbon-fibre frame.
In 1994, Induráin set the hour record on his Espada, raising the bar to a mind-blowing 53.040 kilometres (32.958 miles). The next year, Pinarello created this virtually identical version for him to use on the road.
Sadly, UCI rules introduced a few years later saw these unconventional frame shapes and non-uniform wheel sizes consigned to the history books. But at least we still have the photos.
Jan Ullrich’s 2000 Galileo
When Jan Ullrich rode to victory at the 1999 Vuelta a España, he did so on a Pinarello Galileo. It was the last aluminium bike to win a Grand Tour.
Ullrich was famous for pushing big gears. And substantial power output calls for substantial aluminium tubing.
The Galileo’s down tube and seat tube taper out towards the bottom bracket to increase stiffness, featuring ridged sections reminiscent of a telescope – an instrument invented by the Italian astronomer of the same name.
This particular version, ridden by Ullrich in 2000, features Dedacciai tubing, carbon-fibre seatstays manufactured in France by Time, and deep-section Campagnolo Bora wheels. Despite the relative beefiness of the alloy tubes, the weight still came in at under 8.5kg.
Oscar Pereiro’s 2006 Dogma FP
Oscar Pereiro won the 2006 Tour de France by default following the disqualification of Floyd Landis amid the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.
This is the Pinarello Dogma FP that carried him across the finish line and to the podium. It was the last metal bike ever to win the Tour.
The Dogma FP featured carbon seatstays and a carbon fork, but the bulk of the frame was made from magnesium alloy.
Magnesium is lighter than aluminium, so it’s possible to have larger-diameter tubes without incurring too much of a weight penalty. This enabled Pinarello to make a bike that was stiffer yet more comfortable than its aluminium equivalent.
Sadly, Magnesium is notoriously tricky to work with and has an unfortunate habit of bursting into flames. As a result, bikes like the Dogma FP are few and far between.
Miguel Induráin’s 1995 Banesto-branded steel racer
Miguel Induráin made history on this bike, adding a fifth consecutive Tour de France victory to his already impressive list of achievements in 1995.
Built with high-end steel tubing from now-defunct Venetian manufacturer Oria, it was the last steel bike to win the Tour de France.
This was during a time when legendary Italian framebuilder Dario Pegoretti was contracted by Pinarello. This road racer and the steel TT bike Induráin used to win the Tour that year were both the work of the Verona-based TIG-welding pioneer.
Jan Ullrich’s’ 1997 Telekom TT bike
With its unusual step-through design, Pinarello’s Parigina time-trial bike was unlike anything else at the Tour de France.
Team Telekom’s Jan Ullrich took stage 12 on it, going on to win the general classification. He was followed closely by teammate Bjarne Riis and Banesto’s Abraham Olano, both of whom were riding Pariginas of their own.
The frame takes its design cues from the Italian track-team bike used in the Atlanta Olympics the previous year, albeit with a few revised details in order to comply with UCI requirements. In fact, it’s essentially the same bike with the aero fin over the rear wheel cut off.
Egan Bernal’s 2019 Dogma F12
In 2019, Ineos Grenadiers’ Egan Bernal became the first Colombian to win the Tour de France.
The seventh of the UK team (formerly Team Sky) to win the Tour, he rode into Paris on a custom-painted Dogma F12, complete with Fausto Pinarello’s signature on the top tube.
Launched a few months ahead of the 2019 Tour, the Dogma F12 helped Ineos to win 24 victories in its first year, followed by the 2020 Giro d’Italia courtesy of Tao Geoghegan Hart.
Instantly recognisable by its unusual wavy lines, the Dogma F12 is arguably the definitive ‘superbike’.
Its unconventional asymmetric design (the left-hand side of the frame is beefed up to balance out pedalling forces from the driveside) was divisive, but it’s exactly the kind of innovation that keeps bicycle-frame evolution moving forwards. Particularly in a world where designers are so often held back by seemingly arbitrary rules and regulations.
Jhonatan Narvaez’ 2024 Dogma F
Stage one of the Giro d’Italia, 2024. Ineos Grenadiers’ Jhonatan Narvaez outsprints race favourite Tadej Pogaçar to take first place, adding yet another Grand Tour stage victory to Pinarello’s palmarès. Between his legs, the result of over 70 years of innovation and boundary pushing design: the cutting-edge Dogma F.
The Italian brand’s original all-rounder, the Dogma balanced aerodynamics and climbing performance long before this became the standard for WorldTour bikes. It was ahead of the game when it first launched in 2009, and it has continued to be with each of the seven iterations since.
The Dogma F is the most refined version of Pinarello’s flagship race bike to date, featuring subtly redesigned tube shapes for enhanced aerodynamics, an improved carbon-fibre layup and a new integrated cockpit with a natural twisted lever position that enables riders to get more aero than ever before.
