PINARELLO DOGMA F8 TEAM SKY
£8499 › Reigning Tour de France champion
The F8 might be the reigning Tour de France winner, but its place at the top of the Pinarello tree has been taken by the latest F10 with its electronic-optimised frameset and design tweaks over the F8.
The F8 stays in the range, and in the WorldTour too, for good reason. The F8’s race-ready geometry is aero enhanced, using flat-backed airfoil-shaped tubes (Kamm Tail) that get around the UCI’s 3:1 aero ruling. This design, as used by plenty of designers at rival brands, conditions the air as if the airfoil tail was there.
Pinarello doesn’t call the F8 an out-and-out aero bike, but it has plenty of the genre’s traits, from the tube profiles, the bow-leggedshaped fork that reduces turbulence from the spinning front wheel to the flush-fitting fork crown/headtube interface.
The sculpted, smoothed back end blends perfectly to the aero seattube, and we love that Pinarello has used standard brake placement – no fussy under-bottom bracket designs here. The one-piece Talon bar is also aero-shaped, and from the work by the likes of Trek and Specialized, we know bars and stems have a huge effect on aero performance.
Where Pinarello has scored over plenty of aero rivals is the combination of relatively low weight – our 56cm test bike hits the UCI 6.8kg limit bang on, including a couple of bottle cages – and ride quality. The bike is stiff and very, very quick, but this is mated to a smoothness at the rear that’s as welcome as it is surprising. The front end is firmer by comparison but we like the bar’s drop shape and the flats on the top are comfortable to hold when grinding it out on a long extended climb, even if it means hassle fitting a Garmin.
At speed the F8 is brilliantly stable, and the 35mm-deep C35
The F8 stays in the range, and in the pro tour too, for good reason
Dura-Ace carbon tubular wheels are hardly affected by crosswinds. The 23mm Veloflex tubular tyres are top quality, though we would prefer 25mm for UK roads. Outside of racing we do wonder about the userfriendliness of tubular tyres for general riding, as it’s not that easy to fix a puncture on a tub, and carrying a spare is a bit of a faff. Thankfully Pinarello offers myriad wheel options on F8 builds.
The C35s are seriously smoothrunning hoops; braking in the dry impresses and the drop-off when riding in the rain isn’t too bad. They can’t quite match the latest brake tracks from ENVE or Zipp but they aren’t the worst we’ve tried. They do look a little dated compared to the latest carbon rims, a little narrower than we’d like, but you can’t fault Shimano’s legendary build quality.
The Dura-Ace Di2 drivetrain is no more than you’d expect on a bike of this calibre, but the gearing selection left us puzzled. The compact 50/34 is the endurance rider’s choice but the 11-25 block is very much the elite racer’s domain. We’d like to see either a 52/36 to appease the racing snakes or an 11-28 to satisfy endurance fans. At this price, however, you’ll get the choice when it comes to ordering.
The handling is sharp without being twitchy and that’s just what we want from a pedigree race bike like this. The F8 climbs with the best of them, furthering our opinion that this bike is far more a top-class all-rounder than a highly focused aero machine.
The front end is harder by comparison but we like the bar’s drop shape