"You can buy a car for that!" It’s a comment we hear a lot when the subject of expensive road bikes comes up.
You certainly can spend the price of a small hatchback on a bicycle these days. To see just what exotica is out there for a price of a new Peugeot 108 and just for a bit of fun, we’ve rounded up some of the most expensive road bikes currently available.
Materials: all these bikes have carbon fibre frames, and usually carbon fibre almost-everything-else. That's no surprise: if you're trying to make the ultimate bike, you want it to be feather-light and that means very high-strength composites
Components: SRAM Red eTap AXS, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and Campagnolo Super Record EPS are the high-zoot groupsets of choice here, all of them electronic
Looks: if you've got it, flaunt it, right? Colnago and Wilier certainly think so with their Ramato and art decor paint jobs, and Trek will paint your Project One bike in pretty much any colour scheme you can imagine, but many others are surprisingly modest
Disc brakes rule okay? Not quite — there are several rim-braked bikes here because they're still the stoppers of choice if you're speccing with a gram scale
13 of the best and most expensive production road bikes for 2020
- Pinarello Dogma F12 Disk — £12,000
- Wilier Cento 10 Pro Disc 2020 — £9.900
- Canyon Ultimate CF Evo Disc 10.0 LTD 2020 — £7,449
- BMC Timemachine 01 Road One 2020 — £10,999
- Colnago C64 Art Decor — £10,299
- Trek Madone SLR 9 eTap Project One — £12,150
- Scott Addict RC Ultimate 2020 — £10,799
- Cervelo P5X Dura-Ace — £10,999
- Specialized S-Works Sagan Tarmac Disc 2020 — £10,000
- Bianchi Specialissima Super Record 12 — £8,549
- Storck Fascenario.3 Platinum Aston Martin — ~£16,000
- Cannondale SystemSix HM Carbon Dura Ace Di2 2020 — £9,000
- Giant Propel Advanced SL0 Disc Red 2020 — £9,995
The cheapest bike here costs just under seven and a half grand (trust Canyon to make a value-for-money superbike) while the most expensive is over twice that. Most of these bikes fall foul of the UCI's increasingly daft 6.8kg weight limit, but we don't think anyone who can afford one of these is going to care very much.
These aren’t crazy one-off bikes with expensive paint jobs, oh no, they're all standard production road bikes that you can buy online or from your local bike shop, though we doubt many shops will carry any of these bikes in stock.
Pinarello Dogma F12 Disk — £12,000
With the ten grand psychological barrier well and truly smashed in the last couple of years, brands like Pinarello are taking off into the financial stratosphere with ultra-high-tech frames and the latest electronic shifting, in this case SRAM's brand spanking Red eTap AXS 12-speed groupset.
Pinarello says the latest Dogma "achieves the best aerodynamic efficiency values of any Dogma model to date" and comes in two distinct versions for rim and disc brakes.
Read more about the Pinarello Dogma F12 and F12 Disk
Wilier Cento 10 Pro Disc 2020 — £9.900
SRAM's new 12-speed wireless Red eTap AXS group features at or near the top of many manufacturer's ranges, but none have garnered as much attention as Wilier's glorious Cento 10 with its sparkling iridescent Ramato paint. It's ten grand, but we can't think of a bike we'd rather have as a companion for long days in Italian mountain sunshine.
Canyon Ultimate CF Evo Disc 10.0 LTD 2020 — £7,449
Canyon is usually associated with value for money bikes, but with the Ultimate CF Evo 10.0 Ltd the German direct sales specialist has pulled out all the stops to create a stunning superbike. It has the same design and tube shaping as the regular Ultimate CF SLX, but a more advanced and costly carbon fibre layup. The result is a 665g frame and 270g fork.
There's a SRAM Red eTap AXS transmission hung on that feathery frame though unlike the previous version, this Ultimate CF Evo Disc 10.0 LTD uses otherwise sensible components instead of ultra-light carbon exotica, making this the cheapest of the current crop of top-of-the-range bikes.
BMC Timemachine 01 Road One 2020 — £10,999
Swiss manufacturer BMC has stepped up a notch with its top model for 2020, a design BMC says is "lightweight, fast, and incredibly integrated". It leads — literally — with BMC's sleek Integrated Cockpit System bar and stem that routes the brake hoses and gear wires routed almost-invisibly through the frame.
"The aerodynamic efficiency is what dictates the aesthetics to a large degree. So even though the visual integration of the bottles is a nice side effect, that specific integration is all about reducing drag,” says BMC.
Colnago C64 Art Decor — £10,299
If you meld modern materials with traditional Italian frame-building and design, this is what you get. The C64 is a deeply-refined carbon fibre frame that's constructed by bonding tubes into lugs. That might not sound as sophisticated as moulding a frame in one piece, but it makes possible a wide range of frame sizes for a better fit, and it allows incremental refinements like the C64's new one-piece seat tube and lug without scrapping an expensive mould.
The C64 is handmade in Colnago's workshop in Cambiago. This version is fitted with Campagnolo's top groupset, Super Record EPS, and has one of the stunning special paint jobs for which Colnago is renowned.
Trek Madone SLR 9 eTap Project One — £12,150
Go to Trek's Project One customisation website and you can have the new Madone 9 SLR in an array of wild colours, including this 'Refliptive' finish that's a different colour depending which direction you look at it from.
Scott Addict RC Ultimate 2020 — £10,799
The Addict RC is Scott's super-lightweight racing platform, and this is the latest top-of-the-range version with Zipp 202 NSW wheels and a one-piece carbon fibre Syncros aero handlebar and stem. Like many 2020 top-end bikes it has SRAM's 12-speed Red eTap AXS wireless electronic shifting and disc brakes.
Cervelo P5X Dura-Ace — £10,999
It may not be blessed with looks, but if you’re into pure speed, the triathlon-specific Cervelo P5X is probably as fast as it gets. This is not a bike for riding to the cafe on, that’s for sure. It's a full carbon fibre construction with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 gears and hydraulic disc brakes, and DT Swiss wheels.
Specialized S-Works Sagan Tarmac Disc 2020 — £10,000
Specialized says it's shaved an impressive 200g off the frame of the Tarmac SL6 compared to the previous SL5; a 56cm Tarmac SL6 frame weighs just 733g, which is pretty staggering. The Tarmac's aerodynamics has also been tweaked so it's now claimed to be 45 seconds faster over 40km than similarly-feathery road bikes.
And if you're going to ride Specialized's flagship speedster, then you'd have to go for the special edition designed in collaboration with multiple world champion Peter Sagan.
Read our review of the (slightly cheaper) Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL6
Bianchi Specialissima Super Record 12 — £8,549
If you want an Italian-bred performance bike the Specialissima puts in a stunning performance, and this massive price tag gets you a frame equipped with Campagnolo Super Record and Fulcrum Zero Nite wheels.
Storck Fascenario.3 Platinum Aston Martin — ~£16,000
Need a bike to match your Aston Martin Vantage? Storck's got you covered. No guide to the most expensive road bikes could be complete without a Storck, but here the Germans have gone completely bok, outfitting its top-of-the-line Fascenario.3 Platinum with ultra-kight carbon fibre components including carbon fibre cranks, THM brakes and Storck's own carbon bars and stem.
Read our review of the Storck Aerfast Platinum
Cannondale SystemSix HM Carbon Dura Ace Di2 2020 — £9,000
Cannondale's flagship aero bike looks understated but is packed with high-end tech, including high-modulus carbon fibre, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 shifting with hydraulic disc brakes and a Power2Max NG Eco Powermeter.
Giant Propel Advanced SL0 Disc Red 2020 — £9,995
This beauty is Giant’s most expensive offering, and the first Giant to bang up against the ten grand mark. It comes fully decked out with SRAM's latest Red eTap AXS wireless groupset including a Quark power meter and Giant’s own carbon fibre wheels and finishing kit.
Explore the complete archive of reviews of road bikes on road.cc