A grand for each apostle? Pope Francis sells Dogma for £12,000

The Pinarello Dogma F12, gifted to Pope Francis by Egan Bernal, has been auctioned off for £12,000 — half the price it was estimated to fetch and almost at the same price a standard F type retails for.

Last week, we reported that the bike had been put up for a bidding contest on the online auction website Catawiki, with experts estimating it to go for €25,000 to €30,000, or between £20,000 and £25,000.

Pope Francis was bestowed upon with the bike in 2021 by Colombian rider Egan Bernal, along with his maglia rosa — the winner’s jersey at Giro d’Italia, just after winning the Italian Grand Tour in emphatic fashion after a strong performance at the gravel finish at Campo Felice on stage 9, from where he continued to lead the race for the next twelve stages, giving Ineos its twelfth win.

Now if that isn’t the Divine Providence at work…

> Pope Francis has a new Dogma thanks to Egan Bernal – a Pinarello Dogma F12 bike, that is

The bike itself is a size 53 frame, with Shimano Ultregra groupset, Most Talon Ultra handlebar, Vision wheels, and Pirelli P Zero tyres.

It comes complete with a striking colour scheme based on the flag of Pope Francis' native Argentina, as well as the papal seal, his regnal name, and his birth forename, Jorge Mario.

The auction received a total of 47 bids, with the price stagnant at around £8,000 until yesterday, when the final round of bidding began. The winning bid came from France at €14,000, or £12,000. The website says that the bike will be shipped from Italy in five to 37 days, although there’s a shipping fee of €55 involved as well.

The maglia rosa, signed by Bernal himself, was also sold by the website on Sunday for around £1,500 to a bidder in the USA.

The 27-year-old Tour de France winner, who is a Roman Catholic, visited the Pope in 2021 to hand him the gifts. He described meeting the Pope as a “unique” experience, “the most beautiful I’ve had in my life” and more important than winning the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia.

Bernal also revealed that he had been nervous ahead of the audience, saying it was “more stressful” than riding a key stage of a race.

“This is a thousand times more stressful because you don’t know what you are going to say. You have a few words prepared, but you’re very nervous. At least once we began to speak it was easier,” he said.

There’s a long tradition of bicycles being presented to the Pope, such as a gold-plated Colnago given by Ernesto Colnago to Pope John II in 1979, while in 2016 Peter Sagan gave Pope Francis a Specialized road bike in the Papal colours of yellow and white, which fetched around £25,000 when auctioned for charity.