BIANCHI ARIA DISC 105
£2750 › Is this classy Italian as fast as it looks?
Opinions on a bike’s looks are personal and subjective, but the Aria got more than its fair share of complimentary cosmetic comments.
It manages to blend contemporary and classic really nicely. Subtly curved and tapered fork legs bow out around the wheel to reduce conflicting airflow, in a trick first used on the Aquila time trial bike. They then sync neatly with the teardrop base head-tube at the prow with a fork notch and curved wheel-tracking scoop in the ovalform down-tube. Separate brake and gear cable insertions behind the head-tube keep control lines low and neat and the short head-tube has flat-back ride position potential.
There’s a flush-fit seat clamp for the teardrop seatpost and the upper part of the seat-tube uses a smoothed diamond section before cutting away for wheel room above the broad, bulged bottom bracket. Deep rear rectangular chainstays end at 142x12mm dropouts with neat axle recesses for easy wheel location. Seriously muscular seatstays follow a fork-matching flared curve up to a low level junction with the seattube. The big rear stays also hide the brake calliper sitting in the angle between them for a very clean look.
With the Ultegra bike (£3150) unavailable when we were putting the test together, our Aria came with a Shimano 105 spec. Functionally there’s very little to tell between them but 105 is around 300g heavier, and the 505 shifter levers have a different shape with an awkward lump under the palm.
Bianchi upgrades to brake-cooling RT81 IceTec rotors to the colourcoded Fulcrum aero wheels, which are wrapped in 28mm Vittoria tyres. The Selle San Marco saddle is colour coded too with a Bianchi logo cockpit supplied in size specific proportions.
While the reach and stem dimensions aren’t radically long on
Subtly curved and tapered fork legs bow out around the wheel to reduce conflicting airflow
paper, the Aria feels stretched for speed. The longer shifter hoods naturally pull you further forward, which is good as the shallower hand angle makes the lumpy bits less noticeable. Add a 72.5-degree head angle and the large diameter tyres, and the Bianchi likes to take corners with grand sweeping gestures of confidence that feel fantastic at speed. It’s stubborn and slow to correct if things go wrong or you need to tweak your line for traction or surface trauma reasons. There’s enough weight at the front to make it lurch from side to side if you come too far forwards out of the saddle too.
You’ll adjust to the handling quickly though and it suits the overall character of the bike really well. While it will get a spirited shift on if you dig the spurs in for a climb, the Aria’s natural character is a high-speed cruiser, where it performs beautifully.
With none of Bianchi’s vibration damping Countervail technology deployed in this affordable frame, bigger hits and sharper edges can come through with a slap and a sting. Smaller chatter and buzz is muted well by the frame and bigger tyres though, and combined with the low drag tube profiling it carries speed over flat or rolling terrain with a real flywheel feel. Frame tubes and rims aren’t so deep that it gets sketchy when the wind gets gusty and the Bianchi is a great, cultured feeling place to be when you’ve got a few hours to spend in the saddle and want to cover plenty of miles.