Pinarello Dogma 2
Being handed a Dogma 2, dripping with Super Record and told to go riding, sometimes the world is on your side…
Having looked at these frames for the last few years with their curvy forks and matching stays and not knowing what to think, owning one, if only for a few short weeks has made it much more beautiful in my eyes. Something about the lines of the fork flowing into the frame. The way the top tube just becomes the seat stays. Magic. Pinarello is a name in cycling that just makes you stop, turn around and have another look. The shapes, the head badge, the paint-job… this is a bike that has a lot to live up to.
The passion started for Giovanni Pinarello (born in 1922) as a 17 year old, racing in the juniors category. By 1947 he had turned pro, competing at this level till 1953. In 1952 Giovanni was handed 100,000 lire by his sponsor not to ride the Giro d’italia, stepping aside to allow room for an up and coming team mate. This was to become the beginning of the future.
This money, he decided to put to good use, opening a cycling store in Treviso, Italy. Giovanni had been building bikes for years at this stage and began his professional sponsorship in 1960. By 1975, a win in the Giro d’italia and Pinarello bikes were on their way.
Back to the bike at hand, the Dogma 2. Improvements over last year’s Dogma would be hard to come by. Having both ProTour wins and awards thrown at it, the Dogma was already a popular frame. The finish on the new Dogma 2 is one of the best that I have seen. The paint and decals are perfectly presented, the depth of the paint is even and smooth. On inspection, there were no imperfections on the frame at all. After five weeks of testing there are no stone chips or scratches like I have seen on other bikes. Pinarello’s mirror finish will keep your pride and joy looking new long after some other lesser bikes are looking rather second hand. This should help the resale price of your Dogma when it is upgrade time too. The Dogma 2 frame is built using an Expandable Polystrene System (EPS), where the carbon is laminated onto the EPS mould during the frame building process. This is more reliable than the bladder system used by some other manufacturers and creates a smooth finish on the inside of the frame similar to the finish on the outside. More pressure can be applied to the raw carbon during the build, removing air bubbles which can cause weak spots in the frame. The EPS mould stays in place until the final heating process where it is dissolved. The carbon that is used comes exclusively from Torayca. A Japanese company supplying to the aerospace industry.
Pinarello started by working on the aerodynamics of the Dogma 2, cleaning the lines around the head tube, removing some of the aggressive looking ribs and running all cables internally. Taking the cable thing one step further, they cleaned the lines where the cable enters the frame, moulding the cable stop into the frame to improve airflow. One of the most obvious enhancements is the tail at the top of the fork crown, filling the gap between the frame and fork. These steps apparently yielded a 6% improvement in aero efficiency.
The next step was controlling the power transfer that the rider drives through the bike. Asymmetrical is the word. As with the Dogma, the entire frame is built to control the rider’s inputs. Pinarello stepped it up with the Dogma 2, even the top tube and down tube are offset to the left, leaving the ribs on the right side of the frame to improve stability and efficiency. This is not easy to pick by eye as the bike looks ‘normal’ but the ride…
