Has Team Sky been testing a prototype Pinarello K8 at the Spring Classics?

Is Pinarello set to unveil a new Dogma K8 that drops the suspension damper of the K8-S first introduced last year?

Martin Cox was at E3 Harelbeke recently getting a ride in the Shimano neutral service car (you can read the blog of his account of the Sagan vs Kwiatkowski duel here) and snapped a photo of what appears to be a new Pinarello K8, minus the suspension damper of the K8-S, being ridden by Luke Rowe.

- First Ride: Pinarello Dogma K8-S

The Spring Classics have been a popular launchpad for comfort and endurance road bikes in recent years. This time last year Pinarello launched, with much fanfare (Bradley Wiggins called it a “game changer”) the Dogma K8-S. 

The key feature of this new bike was a small suspension unit at the top of the seatstays. It provides a small amount of tunable damping, with no pivots in the frame, instead relying on flex in the carbon stays. Pinarello claimed at the time that the K8-S could bolster performance over rough terrain by 4.6 per cent, and to improve rider comfort by as much as 50 per cent. The bike was developed as a specific request of Team Sky.

The bike ridden by Luke Rowe isn’t the K8-S though, but it does have K8 written on the down tube, so we know it’s not the F8 that most of the team were racing, and which Kwiatkowski won the race aboard. Rowe’s bike also doesn’t have the usual Team Sky paint job, another handy identifier. 

Look closely and the main frame looks identical to the K8-S in nearly every way. The front triangle looks the same - the K8-S was based on the F8 in this department. The rear stays look very similar to those on the K8-S, and vary hugely from the F8 in that they are skinny and profiled in such a way as to allow some compliance in the rear triangle. 

- Luke Rowe’s Pinarello Dogma K8-S ready for the cobbles

And where the damper unit is on the K8-S, there’s instead a short wishbone assembly, which we’d hazard a guess at being shaped in such a way to still allow the rear triangle to flex to some degree. 

Why would Pinarello have developed a new version of the K8 without the damper, so soon after the K8-S was launched? My guess would be that that some of the team didn’t warm to the K8-S, and asked for a version without the damper.

I heard a rumour that Ian Stannard had the damper unit completely locked out on his K8-S, but it’s impossible to verify this without leaping aboard his bike. Such stories of locked out suspension aren’t unfamiliar to anyone following world cup mountain bike racing during the 1990s when full suspension bikes, using simple elastomer dampers, first arrived on the scene.

Could a backlash against the K8-S be the reason for an unsuspended K8? Or could Pinarello simply be aiming to expand the K8 range for those that don’t want the damper unit, or to try and hit a lower price point? 

Kwiatkowski  clearly had no issues riding the regular Dogma F8 in this race, but it's likely most of the team will switch to the K8-S, or this new K8, for the brutal pave of Paris-Roubaix.

We’ve aimed these questions at Pinarello for comment. With Flanders and Paris-Roubaix coming up, when such bikes are usually launched, we might get to know more.

Intriguingly, the UCI's list of approved bikes includes a K8 that was verified on 05-03-2015, the same date as the K8-S. Had it already developed this bike but not chosen to launch it?

Most likely is that this new bike is a replacement for the old Dogma K, which is no longer available. That was a bike designed with geometry aimed at long distance riding with comfort as a priority. 

Photos kindly supplied by Martin Cox