Pinarello has skipped a generation and announced the Dogma F12 as its new flagship road racer. Developed in collaboration with Team INEOS (Team Sky), the new F12 will be available in both rim and disc brake versions.
Despite the benefits of disc brakes being widely accepted, let's not forget in 2017, Fausto Pinarello said he wasn’t convinced high-performance bikes needed them, so it's significant that the F12 is coming with discs from the outset (the F10 did not).
The Italian outfit decided to develop each version separately in an effort to maintain the ‘all-around’ characteristics the brand strives for with its race bikes, combining a stiff and light bike with 'excellent aerodynamic balance'.
With this emphasis on braking, it’s also no surprise to see the rim-brake version of the F12 swap from single bolt to direct-mount brakes, which the brand says in its testing offered a 12.5 percent increase in braking performance in dry conditions and a 25 percent increase in wet conditions.
Aesthetically, the Dogma F12 doesn’t look that different from its predecessor. However, the brand claims an aero improvement of 8 watts at 40kph over the F10 frame. A good portion of this likely comes from the updated Most Talon bar and stem, which now routes the cables internally through the cockpit into the bike.
This also means you’re locked into the integrated bar and stem, although it’s available in 16 stem-length and bar-width combos. The rim-brake version does see the front brake cable exposed to the wind, while everything is hidden on the disc version.
With the cables internal, there is nowhere to put an inline barrel adjuster to tune the front derailleur for those that haven't made the jump to electronic drivetrains. The solution (similar to what Trek did with the Madone) is to design an adjuster located inside the E-Link slot, where you’d hide the junction box for Di2-equipped bikes.
Pinarello also says the fork profiles have been redesigned to increase stiffness without adding weight and claim a 40 percent reduction in twist under braking in the disc version compared to its predecessor, making for more precise steering.
Speaking of weight, the new Dogma F12 is claimed to weigh 820g unpainted in the rim-brake version and 840g for the disc, a claimed 10 percent improvement over the F10.
With further refinements to the asymmetric frame design and a swap to 'Torayca T1100 1K Dream Carbon with Nanoalloy Technology', Pinarello claims a 10 percent increase in stiffness over the F10.
According to the Italian brand, the new Dogma F12 has 37.5mm of tyre clearance, making it possible to fit 28mm tyres on rims with a 30mm external width (according to the ISO 4210 standard, there needs to be 4mm space between the tyre and frame).
Available in 13 frame sizes and three colours, it's no surprise the new Dogma F12 is anything but cheap, with framesets available for £5,000 for the rim-brake version and £5,200 if you want discs.
The new bar and stem combo will cost £750 on its own, and full builds will start at an eye-watering £9,000.
You can get a glimpse of the new Dogma in action beneath Chris Froome in this promo video from Pinarello: