Aero road bikes are all the rage this season. Scott first launched their Foil aero road bike back in 2011, one of the first manufacturers to devote time to designing a road bike that reduces drag with technology borrowed from their Plasma 3 time trial bike. Scott didn’t hesitate in expanding it to a full range of eight bikes, this here is the mid-range £3,999 Foil 15 model with a Shimano Ultegra Di2 electronic groupset.
Cheating the wind has become the driving force behind the latest bicycle designs. Clothing is getting more aero, helmets are now designed in wind tunnels, wheels are undergoing major design evolution. And bikes are getting faster. Your leg power aside, wind resistance is the biggest obstacle to going faster on the road, the faster you go the more power you have to produce to punch a hole through the air. While a bike makes up a small percentage of the drag - your body takes the biggest share - there’s undoubted benefits to be had in a bike that cleanly slices through the air.
That’s the thinking behind the Foil. The tube shapes have a partial airfoil shape with the trailing edge chopped off, which tricks the air into acting as if there was a trailing edge. It’s similar but not the same as the Kamm tail used by Trek on their Madone. It gives the same aero performance as a 3:1 profile tube but without the extra weight.
When designing the frame and fork, Scott considered the passing of air over every surface, and how the air interacts with each tube. So the seat stays have been carefully angled at 4 degrees from the seat tube so the air passing over the front triangle is cleanly routed through the rear triangle. The result of all these area features is a claimed 20 watt saving over their old Addict (which no longer exists in the range, so there is a new one on the way) at speeds of 40-45kph.
Other key aero features include internal cable routing, this 15 model is adapted for Di2 wiring with the redundant cable entry holes filled in. The seat clamp is hidden inside the top tube and clamps the aero seatpost in place. A tapered head tube takes a carbon fork with a carbon 1 1/8 " - 1 1/4" steerer tube. Dropouts are made from carbon and there’s a replaceable dropout at the rear.
Scott have been right at the forefront of carbon fibre innovation in cycling for a long time, and the Foil is made from their own HMF Net carbon fibre, the exact details of which are a closely guarded secret. Scott gave us a glimpse inside their carbon manufacturing process in this video a while ago. The weight of the frame is just 840g for a medium, impressive for an aero frame, and explains why they dropped the Addict at the time of the Foil launch. You can have a bike that is light, stiff and aero. But as we’ve seen, the Addict is set for a reintroduction later this year for the 2014 model year.
The Foil 15 is built up with a Shimano Ultegra 6770 Di2 groupset with a 53/39 chainset and 11-25t cassette, a very racey setup. Scott replaced longtime partner Ritchey with Syncros a couple of years ago and the company provides the RR 2.0 wheelset, handlebars, stem and saddle.
Only a Ritchey seatpost remains. Tyres are Continental Ultra Race 23mm clinchers. The combined weight is 7.52kg (16.57lb).
Geometry of this 56cm sample (seven sizes are available) goes with a 73 degree head tube angle 73.3 degree seat angle. While the head angle remains the same across the seven sizes, the seat angle is steeper on the smaller sizes and slacker on the bigger frames. The head tube is 16cm which is on a par with most race bikes. Stack and reach are 569mm and 394mm respectively. The bike comes fitted with a 110mm stem, that will propbably be changed for one a bit longer to allow me to get my preferred fit.
The aero road bike market is hotting up. There’s the Ridley Noah Fast we’re also testing that has some very intriguing aero technologies. Let’s not forget either Cervelo’s S5, Specialized’s Venge, the recently released Giant Propel and the BMC TimeMachine.
It's out on the roads now being tested so stay tuned for a review.
www.scott-sports.com
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7 comments
Any thoughts on what's better a BMC or the Scott Foil???
No ones going to test that, because you can't sell it. That's a weird looking spacer by the way, looks like one massive spacer on top of a flat headset cap?
Nice bike. Just wondering how the aero benefits of this super-techy frame compare to the benefit of losing the headset spacers and having the rider about 40mm lower down?
I know very few of us are as flexible as a pro rider (least of all me) but it's a serious point. Until you've looked at the more rudimentary (and free) aspects of improving your physique/position, aero bikes seem a little pointless.
Having said that if you're a half decent club rider/racer, this looks ace.
Not quite that level yet but Scott does demo days here in Oz, got to take the Team Foil (the next model up with DA9000 for a good test ride, read thrash around local crit course and a couple road I ride regularly to & from local group ride.
It is a stiff, sharp and responsive race weapon, it just felt right, diving into corners, driving up a hill, descending down the other side etc.
Then I upload the ride to Strava, lots of silverware, but all 2nd best times. As I had taken my race bike a 2010 Fuji SL literally over the same course, half on the way down to the demo ride, running late and the other half on the way home, buzzing from the Team Foil ride and set a bunch of PBs.
My old Fuji might not be as aero as the Foil, but the 40mm or so difference in stack height, gave the Fuji the edge. The Foil had a bunch of spacers under the stem so it could be ridden by less flexible people than me (and I am not that flexible).
I was really tempted by the Foil, and would of bought one except:
1: I already have a decent race bike (as seen by comparison times) &
2: Everything I own is 10 speed TT bike, crit bike, training bike and current race bike and I swap two wheelsets with powermeters between then
The bad news is one of the guys I race with, did buy a Team Foil, so I do get to see how good it really is most weeks.
Have they redesigned that dreadful Sir Slip-a-lot seatpost clamp?
Foil 15 is made from Hmf not Hmx. Ta
have heard its pretty brutally stiff, love to see your verdict