Road

Road

Born at the end of the 19th century and available on the market in multiple configurations and equipment, the racing bike is designed to ride on the road and ensure great performance at high speeds. In a racing bike, the frame material, components, low weight and aerodynamics play a key role. A perfect machine that continues to evolve without ever changing its essence. The greatest evolution certainly concerns the materials used in its construction, the gears, the wheels, the saddle and other more or less indispensable accessories, all aimed at making the bike ever lighter and more efficient, but the unmistakable diamond shape of the frame, although optimized to allow cyclists to push themselves ever further to the limit, retains the charm of its origins. The constant evolution of materials began in the early 1980s with the development of new technologies for the mechanical processing of steel, the main material used to make most of the racing bicycles of that period, and aluminium, whose use exploded in the 1990s, thanks to the development of new tube sections with this material and the greater lightness of the frames made. In the 2000s, carbon fibre and titanium frames began to be made, and also very stiff ones, to reduce the dispersion of forces in advantage of performance. Today, the material with which most bicycles are made is carbon, which makes it possible to create frames that are rigid in the areas where stress is greatest, but also light and elastic in other areas, increasing the comfort of the bike. The groupset is a further component that has seen various evolutions determining the road bikes on the market, from mechanical to electronic and now also wireless. Campagnolo and Shimano are the historical brands, with Sram, an American brand that has made a strong entry into the market of bicycle groupset constructors and was the first to launch a totally wireless groupset, revisiting the ratios that had been used until now in the bike. The main difference between the various groupsets lies in their weight, silence, reliability and price. As for the brakes, there is a double version of the braking system, a traditional brake and a disc brake. The lightness is to the advantage of traditional brakes, the reliability of braking is to the advantage of disc brakes, which certainly in extreme conditions such as rain or mud, do not change the braking. Disc brake bikes are slightly heavier than bikes with traditional brakes, but the increase in performance is shifting the market and the pros towards disc brakes as the ultimate solution.


Under the umbrella of 'road bikes' there are several categories, which differ in terms of features, frame shape and materials, and equipment, but mainly in terms of their intended use. Today the main types of road bikes on the market are: cyclocross, e-bike, gravel, fixed-gear, time trial, aeroad, endurance. To each his own, but the important thing is the leg!