Orbea Orca Aero M20 Team

The brand new Orbea Orca Aero M20Team is a fast and great handling aerodynamic road bike with a surprising talent for smoothing out all but the roughest roads. But it is speed, not comfort, that is at the top of the list of requirements for an aero road bike, and that's an area where the Orca Aero feels very competent.

• Pros: Fast, great handling, surprisingly smooth, takes 28mm tyres, MyO customisation option
• Cons: Spec let down by wheels and tyres

True, road.cc has no wind tunnel in which to validate the claims given for any aerodynamic product, but seat-of-the-pants testing is enough to assure me this is one exceedingly quick bike. It's right up there with the Trek Madone, Cervelo S3 and Canyon Aeroad, as super-quick aero race bikes.

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The handling is a highlight, and helps to set it apart from some aero bikes that can be exceedingly quick but a little lacking when it comes to the way they ride and translate your inputs into actions. The Orca Aero is fun and engaging, putting a smile on your face when you're descending or chasing a friend along an undulating ridge road.

The Orca Aero feels planted at high speeds yet is nimble when you want to have some fun, whether that's sprinting after your buddies or weaving a fun line through a bendy country lane. On the descents, it feels surefooted and very easy to manoeuvre at high speed.

Steering balance is good, reasonably quick when you turn in through a corner or change direction, giving you good control at a range of speeds. The short wheelbase, typical of a race bike, gives the ride a lively feel, while the oversized bottom bracket, down tube and chainstays provide impressive responsiveness when you dish out some watts.

It used to be a given that an aero road bike – a bike that fuses the aerodynamically shaped tube profiles of a time trial bike with the weight and handling of a regular road bike – would be harsh because of the big tube shapes compromising the frame's ability to soak up the vibrations. Great on a buttery smooth purpose-built cycle race track, rubbish on regular roads and lanes.

That really wasn't the case with the Orca Aero, and shows just how refined the latest breed of aero bikes have become. The 25mm tyres fitted as standard help, but thanks to direct mount brakes there's space for 28mm tyres. About halfway through the testing I swapped to wider tyres and found that the bike lost none of its speed or agility, but comfort was ramped up considerably. Wide tyres are where it's at, even on an aero race bike.

I rode the Orca Aero daily and everywhere from short rides with punchy sprints to more relaxed rides taking in the views – where you'd think an endurance bike might be the better choice – and it felt right at home both in its capacity as a speed demon but also a bump-soaking long-distance cruiser.

If you can handle the position, which is typical of an aero race bike, then it is comfortable for the longer rides you might want to use it for when not slinging it around a race circuit. I like that.

Frame

The fact that the bike is so quick is down to the cutting-edge aerodynamic frame and fork design.

It's no surprise that aero bikes are beginning to look very similar; there are only so many ways to reduce drag on a bicycle frame while being constrained by the UCI's strict rules.

But one of the key UCI rules, the 3:1 ratio that governed the overall size of the tubes, has been relaxed for 2018, and the Orca Aero is the first bike I've tested to embrace this change.

The differences are found in the deeper profiles of the down tube, seat tube and fork blades. But don't worry if you can't spot the difference, it's very slight when comparing to other aero road bikes.

The deep aero-shaped down tube also has two options for bottle cage position, one lower for use with a single bottle and optimum aero performance, the other higher to allow a seatpost bottle cage to be used.

Orbea has used the BB386 Evo bottom bracket standard, which provides compatibility with all the different cranksets on the market. It was introduced by FSA back in 2011 and relies on an 86.5mm bottom bracket shell width and 30mm axle, for maximum frame stiffness on account of the larger bearings being spaced further apart.

Setting the Orca Aero apart from some other aero bikes is a simple approach to key features like the brakes, cable routing and seat clamp: regular direct mount brakes, rather than custom bespoke units as on the Trek Madone, and a seat clamp that is easy to access just like a traditional clamp. No awkwardly hidden teeny tiny bolts here. It's just a shame the clamp isn't colour matched to the frame, so it could blend in and not stand out as it does.

The internal cable routing is sensible and works well, with the increasingly common down tube port providing compatibility with all groupsets, and can be used to conceal the junction box on a Di2-equipped bike.

It's also an extremely good looking bike, and the Basque company's customiser, called MyO, allows a plethora of paint options at no extra cost.

Build

The Orca Aero range includes six models, priced from £2,599 to £6,799. The M20Team on test is £2,799 in standard guise, but ours has a few upgrades and costs £3,632. You can also buy the top of the range frameset for £2,499.

The beauty of the MyO website is that, along with changing the colour of the frame to suit your tastes or race jersey, you can choose all the components. That includes obvious stuff like wheels, tyres and handlebar as well as the smaller items.

A Shimano Ultegra R8000 mechanical groupset is a very fine thing, slick of shifting and solid of braking, and looks great too with the Dura-Ace-inspired crankset and rear mech.

DT Swiss has been producing some really good wheelsets of late and these PR 1600 Spline 32s, while not as flash as deep-section carbon wheels, are stiff and precise and, thanks to the aluminium brake track, good stoppers in the winter grime.

I like that they're tubeless-ready but you might not like the 1,723g weight. Make no mistake, these are solid wheels, but they're not a patch on a deep-section carbon wheelset which is a better match for an aero bike, and what you might expect at this price.

Vittoria's long-running Rubino tyre, a more affordable offering in its range, has been given the graphene treatment this year, and the result is good, if not mind-blowing, performance.

They feel fast on the road and deliver a good level of grip both in the dry and wet, and puncture resistance proved to be good, too, though I could have just been lucky, of course.

They don't have that supple feeling of Vittoria's more expensive tyres because of the beefed-up casing, but as a training or winter tyre, they are good. Fit some better rubber for summer racing would be my recommendation.

One notable upgrade on this bike is the carbon fibre Vision Metron 5D one-piece handlebar and stem. It is intended to dramatically reduce the frontal surface area compared with a regular setup.

It's certainly a bold looking handlebar, and the drops are a nice short reach, while riding on the hoods reveals no particular increase in vibration passing through the wheel and fork and into the hands.

My only bugbear is that they're not really suited to riding on the tops, because of the large shape, curvature and lack of bar tape. For racing, they're perfect; for non-racing applications I might lean towards a conventional handlebar and stem combo.

Rivals

There are obviously a lot of bikes to choose from in the aero race category. Initially, the Orbea looks like a good bike, but the choice of wheels make it lag behind the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 8.0, which shares the same Ultegra mechanical groupset and one-piece carbon aero handlebar but has far better Reynolds Strike SLG carbon wheels, with Continental Grand Prix Attack and Force tyres.

> Buyer's Guide: 15 of the best and fastest 2018 aero road bikes

Trek will sell you its Madone 9.0 for £3,500 with the same Ultegra groupset, Bontrager Aeolus Comp tubeless wheels and a regular handlebar and stem setup. The Madone is one of the best aero bikes on the market, with the IsoSpeed decoupler providing a smoother ride, but the custom integrated brakes aren't to everyone's tastes.

Conclusion

There's a lot to like with the new Orbea Orca Aero, and for the company's first attempt at an aero road bike it's deeply impressive. I love the way this bike rides: it's fast – there's no doubt about that – but it's also agile and nimble and fun to ride. And the smoothness is impressive too.

Another bike to consider is actually from Orbea. Take the same base M20Team I tested, but through MyO upgrade to Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon wheels and Vittoria Open Corsa tyres, and instead of the £439 Vision Metron 5D handlebar upgrade, stick with a regular bar and stem.

Verdict

A fast aero bike with great handling and decent smoothness