Plenty has changed in cycling over recent years, but one thing that has stayed comfortingly consistent is the Ineos Grenadiers riding on shiny Pinarello bikes. The Italian brand has provided Ineos with race-winning bikes ever since the team’s WorldTour debut in 2010 and continues to do so over a decade later. Just like Pinarello, Geraint Thomas has been part of the furniture at Ineos for years too, joining the team 13 years ago. Impressively, the Welshman is still in Grand Tour winning form despite being in the twilight of his career, currently fighting for the pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia so he can add a second Grand Tour victory to his palmarès.
The steed that Thomas is using to try and get him safely round a lap of Italy – no easy feat, especially in a race which has been plagued by crashes and illness so far this year – is his trusty Pinarello Dogma F. It’s the same model that Ineos has used ever since the very first days of Team Sky. In the past, there have been special bikes for the Roubaix cobbles and extra light models for the mountains but the Dogma F is a bike that is supposed to be good for everything, one that Ineos uses across all types of terrain throughout the season, rather than switching to specific aero or climbing models like we see in other WorldTour teams.
When it comes to aesthetics, Thomas’s Dogma F features the Ineos Grenadiers team paint job which is new for 2023, with splashes of orange fade on the red, merging into a navy blue – it’s a colour scheme which is used across many of the Ineos brand's sponsored sports teams. The main special touch for Thomas’s bike is the yellow stripe on the seat tube to represent his 2018 Tour de France win. Ineos puts this touch on the bikes of each of their Grand Tour winners – Geoghegan Hart’s bike has a pink stripe to represent his 2020 Giro d’Italia win, for example.
In terms of geometry, the Pinarello Dogma F uses the brand’s distinctive wavy-tube design philosophy, with the kinked Onda fork being particularly unique. The frameset also uses asymmetric tube profiles, which Pinarello claims helps to balance out pedalling and braking forces. Thomas is known to ride a size 56cm frame with his stem slammed relatively low at the front of the bike.
Unsurprisingly for a Shimano sponsored team, Thomas’s bike featured the new Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 12-speed groupset with a power meter integrated into the front crank. He had on a 54-40 front chainring combination – the new standard in the professional peloton – with what looks to be an 11-32 cassette at the rear. Thomas’s bike also featured a K-Edge chain catcher with a power meter magnet attached for the Shimano power meter and a direct mount rear derailleur hanger.
He looked to be using a 160mm front disc brake rotor and 140mm rear rotor in order to balance out stopping power at the front and rear of the bike, Thomas’s saddle is a Fizik Adaptive 00 Vs Evo 3D Printed Carbon Road Saddle and he has a number mount on his seat post. The bike featured an out-front bike computer mount and two Elite Leggero carbon bottle cages, as well as Elite’s lightweight water bottles and Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 pedals.
At the front of the bike, Thomas is using a Most Talon integrated handlebar. It has an aero-profiled bar and stem and helps route the hydraulic hoses fully internally into the frameset. It looks like he has just one 5mm spacer which gives Thomas an aggressive position and the bike had very neatly wrapped handlebar tape.
The hoops on Thomas’s bike are the Shimano Dura-Ace C60 wheels with a 60mm rim depth and he was using Continental GP 5000 tyres which were set up tubeless. It’s likely that Thomas could switch to some shallower wheels for the most mountainous terrain this year’s Giro d’Italia in order to save weight.
