Pinarello launched the Dogma XC Hardtail within the run-up to the 2023 World Championships and it confronted a baptism of fireside on the paths of Glentress, Scotland as Pinarello’s newest XC race bike. Whereas Nice Britain’s Tom Pidcock carved out one more historic XCO win within the males’s race aboard the full-suspension Dogma XC, it was the newly debuted Dogma XC Hardtail that rose to the event on the 2023 World Championship tremendous occasion. Piloted by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the hardtail proved to be a formidable device, with the French rider profitable each the Brief Observe and XCO Girls’s World Championship titles.
Pinarello developed the hardtail for Ferrand-Prévot as a part of her 2024 Paris Olympic Video games bid. Its early success has since been additional validated by XCO gold within the Paris Olympics and a first-place end within the brief observe on the European Championships as properly. To know what makes Pinarello’s Dogma XC Hardtail such a dominant race bike, I introduced it again to the Scottish trails the place it first claimed gold.
The Dogma namesake has historically been reserved for Pinarello’s flagship highway bikes — uncompromising race machines designed to win grueling Grand Tour stage races just like the Tour de France. By bringing the Dogma title and its legacy into the mountain bike sphere, Pinarello’s intentions in cross-country had been clear: to create a motorcycle that might dominate the largest cross-country races.
Pinarello’s highway bikes are well-known for his or her placing aesthetics and daring uneven body designs; the identical design language has been translated to mountain biking with the Dogma XC HT. Toray M40J carbon has been used to create a daring uneven body design that includes staggered dropped seat stays to counterbalance pedaling forces and a novel third triangle to significantly enhance the stiffness of the underside bracket space, precisely what you want if you’re making a race-winning assault on a climb or sprinting for the road.
When designing the Dogma F highway bike, Pinarello put dealing with first, and it’s clear numerous consideration has gone into the geometry of the Dogma XC. Many of the geometry figures are size-specific, optimizing the Dogma XC throughout all sizes to keep up dealing with efficiency.
My medium bike contains a 450mm attain, balanced with a brief and snappy 425mm chainstay size, made potential by the bridgeless uneven seat keep and offset seat tube. The underside of the seat tube sits in entrance of the underside bracket shell and has an efficient seat angle of 69.5 levels. The body is designed to be run with a 100mm-travel suspension fork and settles on a 67.75-degree head angle, various by 0.25 as you progress up or down the scale vary.
Whereas the off-the-shelf bikes don’t come geared up with the sponsored parts used on Ferrand-Prévot’s race-winning bike, the top-tier bike I’m driving contains a spec that’s able to line up and race. Rather than the Suntour Axon Werx 34 fork, Pinarello has specced Fox’s 32 FACTORY SC fork with its distinctive reversed arch for elevated stiffness and the brand new ultra-smooth GRIP SL damper. It options 100mm of journey and has a three-position lockout lever on the handlebar to manage the suspension.
Shimano sponsors the Ineos Grenadier staff, so Ferrand-Prévot’s bike was geared up with a full Shimano XTR groupset; the manufacturing bikes additionally use XTR brakes however pair them with an SRAM XX SL digital T-Kind drivetrain.
The boutique P1 Race Applied sciences wheels have been swapped out for a light-weight DT XRC 1200 SPLINE wheelset shod with Maxxis Rekon Race tires. The ending equipment contains Pinarello’s in-house Most carbon componentry, together with the built-in Talon Extremely XC cockpit, which is used on each Pidcock and Ferrand-Prévot race bikes.
Lots of the iconic options, together with the Salmon rock roll and the rock hole leap of the demanding XCO course, have since been faraway from the Scottish venue. Nevertheless, whereas I can’t observe their actual tire marks, a number of sections of the race observe nonetheless exist alongside the wealth of pure and man-made trails at Glentress, a lot of which featured within the Marathon and XCC course, together with the brand new Masterplan trails: a 16km community of synthetic trails inbuilt 2023. These trails are greater than sufficient for me to place the Dogma XC HT by way of its paces.
My route would take me on a protracted loop of Glentress’s undulating Black route earlier than descending again to the beginning, sampling a mix of trails to get an excellent really feel for the bike. My trip kicked off at a much more leisurely tempo than the racers did on the large day. As I rolled out from the beginning space, there was no elbow-to-elbow jostling for place, and I eased myself into the primary large climb.
I used to be decided to maintain the tempo up, although, as in any case, race bikes are designed to be ridden quick. The low weight and aggressive driving place helped shortly dispatch the primary draggy forest observe earlier than getting caught into the tough technical singletrack switchbacks that snake up the Tweed Valley hillsides.
These climbing trails are affected by steps and slippery roots that shortly punish poor line selection and badly timed pedal strokes by killing momentum; the very last thing you need when your rivals are respiration down your neck, imaginary or not.
Although I’m not the perfect technical climber, the Dogma’s brief rear finish and snappy pedalling response made brief work of the tight corners, serving to me preserve my tempo excessive as I powered on to the best level of my makeshift cross-country route.
On the prime of Glentress, there’s a tall mast that indicators the highest. Whereas there was no signal of my fake rivals, there wasn’t time to hold round. With my coronary heart charge nonetheless within the purple, I dropped straight into the primary descent.
The following sequence of trails are a part of Glentress’s authentic red-graded, trail-center route and had been revolutionary for UK mountain biking once they opened over 20 years in the past.
It begins with a shallow singletrack path that’s frustratingly tough to navigate easily; flat, greasy corners are unlocked by riders who can preserve their weight over the bike to maximise grip from their tires. I threaded the needle between the bushes, rigorously choosing strains and gently modulating the brakes to manage pace and keep away from unsettling the tires.
As gradients enhance, the tempo turns into steadily sooner, and though these sections had been as soon as a circulate path, the years have been unkind. Many years of Scottish climate and tens of millions of motorbike tires earlier than me have unearthed loads of rocks. The brief rear finish continues to be a worthwhile asset for the Dogma XC HT; with the rear wheel virtually between your toes descending agility is enhanced. The extra I dedicated the sooner the Dogma XC HT acquired; floating by way of the path, gapping over tough sections, popping onto excessive strains, and looking out the graceful insides of corners.
The path spits me out into the open, and I’m again on man-made singletrack; this time it’s the freshly manicured Masterplan trails. In stark distinction to the previous trails, my mind must recalibrate for the upper speeds as I pump by way of rollers and swing round deep supportive berms.
It’s instantly apparent why each Pidcock and Ferrand-Prévot select to line up on the hardtail for the Brief Observe occasion; not solely does the stiff chassis help acceleration but in addition lets you drive the bike by way of supportive corners, producing pace.
It is a path I’ve ridden loads, however by no means this quick. It wasn’t on simply this section that I achieved a private file; my day tearing round on the Dogma XC HT would yield a bumper harvest of PRs, even scooping up a few Strava section cups alongside the way in which.
To complete the trip, I rode the part of path the place Ferrand-Prévot had made her race-winning transfer. After working by way of the pack to second place within the first two laps, Ferrand-Prévot attacked her French compatriot Loana Lecomte on a steep climbing part. It was a purposeful transfer, and as I rode the identical part – which you’ll see on this characteristic’s lead picture – I might see why she selected that second. The Dogma XC’s responsiveness makes it an explosive device that might flip sharp energy inputs into race-defining strikes, particularly within the palms of a rider like Ferrand-Prévot.
Unfazed and completely composed on the pedals, Ferrand-Prévot demonstrated her dominance, opening up a spot which she would keep for the remainder of the race and crossing the road over a minute forward of Lecomte to safe her ninth particular person world title in mountain biking.
The proper race wants the right bike, and after securing each XCC and XCO wins on its first outing, there isn’t a doubt the Dogma XC HT has confirmed itself to be a formidable race bike worthy of the Dogma title.
