Bianchi Aria Disc

The new Bianchi Aria Disc is an aero road bike that offers efficiency, sharp handling and a responsive character, now with the additional all-weather assurance of disc brakes – in this case from Campagnolo. At £3,350, it's a sizeable investment.

• Pros: Responsive, impressive performance from hydraulic disc brakes
• Cons: You can get similarly specced bikes at lower prices

When I reviewed the rim brake version of the Bianchi Aria last year I described it as 'a fast-reacting aero road bike in a race geometry for those with a need for speed'. The Bianchi Aria Disc is similar... but with disc brakes.

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I'm not being flippant in saying that. Even putting braking to one side, some disc brake bikes are a little different from their rim brake alternatives. It's not just a question of the designers removing the rim brake mounts, slinging on some disc brake mounts, and Bob's your uncle. The frame and fork have to be re-engineered for discs and occasionally something is lost in the translation. The Aria Disc, though, retains all the good bits from the original.

As well as a month riding the Aria Disc at home, I took it out to Mallorca for a week (I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you!) where I did a few longer rides, including up and down Sa Calobra (Coll dels Reis, if you want to be correct about it) a couple of times, so I reckon I have a firm handle on its capabilities, and this is a bike I like a lot.

The Aria Disc responds keenly to increased effort. Our 59cm model, built up with a Campagnolo Potenza groupset, isn't especially light, hitting the road.cc Scales of Truth at 8.5kg (18.7lb), but it feels direct when you put in the power, a meaty bottom bracket helping to keep everything solidly in place.

The deep-section head tube does a similar job up front. Like most performance-focused bikes these days, the Aria Disc comes with a tapered head tube/fork steerer – the upper bearing is 1 1/8in, the lower is 1 1/4in – and there's no lack of steering stiffness here. The bike felt great whipping through hairpins, giving enough confidence to attack them at speed rather than backing off to allow for imprecision.

The Aria Disc feels as manoeuvrable as the rim brake version, which isn't a surprise given that the geometry is virtually identical (I'll tell you more about the geometry in a bit). Some bikes designed for aerodynamics offer plenty of straight-line speed but they're a little compromised when you want to flick around. The Aria Disc handles sharply, which gives you options when it comes to darting about a group or avoiding something in the road.

Bianchi doesn't make any specific aero claims for either the Aria or the Aria Disc. It says, 'The Aria's advanced aerodynamic design has been heavily inspired by our extensive wind-tunnel testing and co-operation with Bianchi pro riders,' but it doesn't state that the bike will save you a particular amount of time over a certain distance at a given speed.

You might greet that sort of claim with a healthy degree of scepticism anyway, so maybe it's no great loss, but personally I'd like some CFD or wind tunnel evidence to back up the assertion that this is a 'highly aerodynamic frame-fork system'. What Bianchi does say is that the Aria Disc is a little more aerodynamically efficient than the rim brake model.

Granted, the Aria exhibits many tried and tested features that we've come to associate with aero bikes over recent years. The frame tubes and fork legs, for example, are slim and deep, the down tube is dropped in close behind the front wheel, the seat tube is cut away around the leading edge of the rear wheel, and the skinny seatstays, which join the seat tube low down to reduce frontal area, are apparently inspired by those of Bianchi's Aquila CV time trial bike.

The seatpost is aero-profiled too, and it's held in place by a wedge-type clamp, the bolt sitting within the top tube. The fork crown is integrated within the profile of the frame as well.

As we always say, we can't take review bikes to the wind tunnel for testing and we're certainly not going to speculate as to the Aria Disc's aerodynamic capabilities. The furthest we'll go is to say that many of its features are similar to those of bikes with proven aero credentials.

The majority of the drag working against you as you ride results from you, the rider, as opposed to the bike. That's well known. If you're serious about aero efficiency you need to ride in an aggressive position and this bike is certainly designed to help you do that.

Geometry

The Aria Disc's geometry is almost identical to that of the rim brake model, the only difference being that the disc version has slightly longer chainstays. On the 59cm model they're 412mm as opposed to 409mm on the rim brake version – and anyone who says that they can notice the difference is telling porkies, in my opinion. I actually rode a 57cm rim brake model (with a 56cm effective top tube) and a 59cm disc brake model (with a 57.5cm effective top tube) because I'm between sizes; a 57cm top tube would be perfect for me – if you're interested, like!

The stack and reach of the Aria Disc are exactly the same as those of the rim brake model, down to the millimetre. In the case of the 59cm bike I've been riding, they're 576mm and 397mm respectively. That's a race geometry that is very similar to those of the high-end Oltre XR4 and Specialissima. In other words, if you want a relaxed setup for pootling around the lanes, this isn't the bike for you. You might or might not actually compete on the Aria Disc, but it's certainly a bike that's designed with racing in mind.

One other thing that's worth mentioning here is Bianchi's assertion that the Aria bikes are triathlon-ready thanks to their aggressive geometry. Well, I wouldn't say they're any more triathlon-ready than a whole lot of other aero road bikes. You can add clip-on aero bars and hunker down into a flat-backed riding position, but that'll require more bend at the hip than with a dedicated triathlon or time trial bike with a steeper seat angle. To be fair, the Aria is more triathlon-ready than an endurance road bike, say, with a longer head tube, so we can cut Bianchi some slack here.

I described the Aria's ride as firm, but a significant difference here is that the Aria Disc comes with larger tyres. They're still Vittoria Zaffiro Pro Slicks – which aren't likely to win your heart longterm – but they're 28mm wide rather than 25mm. This adds the potential to soften the ride quite a lot, and to soak up more road buzz. That said, I'd certainly be inclined to swap these tyres for something faster rolling when they wear out.

Build choices

The Aria Disc is available in three different flavours, one with a Shimano 105 groupset (£2,750), one with Shimano Ultegra (£3,150) and this one, with a Campagnolo Potenza groupset (£3,350).

Campagnolo took me out to the launch of its hydraulic disc brakes last year and I got to ride them for the first time then, but this is the first time I've used them for an extended period.

As a reminder, Campag's new high-end disc brake systems are called H11 and they're available in both mechanical shifting (for Super Record, Record and Chorus) and EPS (for Super Record and Record) versions. Then Potenza, which is only available with mechanical shifting, has its own hydraulic disc brakes, the design being similar to that of the H11 brakes but in different materials.

We're going to run a review of the Potenza disc brakes separately so I won't go into massive detail here, but what I will say is that after the first couple of rides they felt entirely natural. They bite hard, they have a progressive feel, the Ergopower levers are tall at the front but they don't look offensive (not to my eyes, anyway; you might have a different opinion)... all good. They won't let you down.

Value

This is the first bike we've had in for test with a Campagnolo Potenza Disc groupset, so judging value against previous models we've reviewed isn't easy. Campag sees Potenza as a direct competitor to Shimano Ultegra, though, and that helps.

The Canyon Endurace CF SL Disc 8.0 (we reviewed the women's version last year) is currently £2,349. This isn't a direct competitor to the Bianchi, though, despite having an Ultegra groupset and disc brakes, because it's an endurance bike as opposed to an aero bike.

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

Merida's Reacto Disc 5000 is an aero road bike with disc brakes (the clue's in the name) with a mostly Shimano Ultegra groupset. That's considerably cheaper than the Bianchi at £2,450, although we've not reviewed it.

Giant's Propel Advanced Disc aero road bike also has a Shimano Ultegra groupset, including hydraulic disc brakes, and it's priced at £2,999. A review model has just arrived here at road.cc but we've yet to get it out to a reviewer so we can't comment on how the performance compares.

Conclusion

The Bianchi Aria Disc might not offer quite the spark and dynamism of the higher level Oltres, but it's still a very good bike built with tried and tested aero features. Personally, I think that if you're paying over three grand on an aero road bike you're entitled to expect some wind tunnel or CFD data from Bianchi to justify your spend to yourself, your better half and your mates, but you might feel differently.

Putting aero matters to one side, the Aria Disc still has a lot to recommend it. This bike responds quickly and handles sharply. If you're a performance-focused rider – whether a racer or simply someone who likes to ride fast – it's certainly worthy of serious consideration.

Verdict

A responsive aero road bike in a race geometry – now with the all-weather stopping capabilities of hydraulic disc brakes