Pinarello

Prince Ultegra Road Bike - 2019

In Pinarello's internal brand hierarchy, the reborn Prince Ultegra Road Bike slots in just below the Dogma F10. It's got a race geometry and many of the signature features that set the Dogma apart, but it's made from a slightly heavier carbon lay-up. The net effect is that the Prince brings Pinarello race tech out of our dreams and into our hands. Since we've situated in terms of Pinarello's hierarchy, it's easy to think the Prince is a budget bike for racers who value "high performance" but can't abide correspondingly high price. That's not the case; the Prince is a race bike through and through, every bit equal to the pedigree of its namesake.

The Prince is available in multiple options, and the standard model (featured here) is built from T700 carbon compared to the Prince FX's T900. Both materials are slightly heavier than the Dogma's T1100 carbon, but they're still lighter and stiffer than the carbon used in bikes that were winning the Tour back when the Prince was still made of Scandium. The T700 is the heaviest material in Pinarello's racing stable, but the difference between the Prince and the Prince FX is only around two dozen grams.

Though it's technically a step below the Dogma in terms of Pinarello's pecking order, the Prince certainly doesn't pull any punches when it comes to design. It's got the Dogma's asymmetrical construction, the aerodynamic touches at the dropouts and the head tube, and the Di2-friendly Think2 E-Link port on the downtube. The flatback tube shaping carries over from Dogma to Prince, too, so the latter frameset enjoys the same aerodynamic advantages of a rounded leading edge and a truncated trailing edge. You'd be excused for assuming this is simply a Dogma made from slightly heavier material—we certainly did when we first threw a leg over its top tube.