PINARELLO DOGMA XC - £12,000 Designed by and for Elite racers, with a ride feel to match

STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX & ONTO THE TRAILS

FIRST RIDES

The Dogma XC marks Pinarello's return to mountain biking after more than a decade with no fat tyres in their line-up and there are plans in the pipeline to further extend the range.

Designed with Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot of British team INEOS Grenadiers, it's a race machine through and through. After a year of being ridden by the pros, the bike is now ready for commercial release, just in time for the Olympics.

It's remained largely the same as the prototype, with just a few tweaks to the linkage, although it has been made lighter, at Ferrand-Prévot's request. The bike you can buy is similar to the one the two world champions are riding, but with some component changes.

THE FRAME

Constructed from Pinarello's premium Toray M40J carbon fibre, the full-suspension bike (confusingly, there's a Dogma XC hardtail, too) has a distinctive shape. The rear triangle has a patented asymmetric design, designed to increase rigidity on the non-drive side, to compensate for the power applied by the rider on the driveside and create an incredibly stiff platform for efficient power transfer. A cut-out triangle down by the bottom bracket shell is again said to optimise stiffness, while also providing space for an oversize BB and a strong pivot point for the back end.

As is common on modern crosscountry bikes, the Dogma XC has flexstays instead of a rear pivot.

These are said to cut weight, improve stiffness and allow for a better connection between the rider and the rear wheel. Despite the lack of a pivot, the back end isn't a single-piece swingarm, but is made up of separate driveside and non-driveside sections, with no seatstay or chainstay bridge to join them. Pinarello call this their 'Split Rear Triangle, and say it enables them to reduce chainstay length and improve handling and pedalling.