Pinarello Dogma in Giro ~

By Tim Maloney

990 gram frame !

Alessandro Petacchi has been riding quite a special bike at this year's [2003] Giro d'Italia. It is a Pinarello Dogma, a frame introduced last year at the Milan Bike Show. The Dogma uses frame tubes made of a special Magnesium Ak 61 double butted alloy, a frame tubing that's exclusive to Pinarello.

Fausto Pinarello told Cyclingnews "Petacchi's Dogma is not only very light, but we've found in our years of testing that the Magnesium Ak 61 frame has an extraordinary ability to absorb and disperse vibration. As Magnesium is applied to the frame of a modern racing bike, the Dogma frame is both very comfortable, very stable and safe."

Petacchi's 56.8cm x 58.5 cm Dogma frame weighs in at 990grams, and features the Pinarello "ONDA" or Wave fork, made in a reversed S shape and weighing 385 grams Pinarello used Finite Element Analyse in the design of the fork to address three key axes: longitudinal, transverse & vertical, providing more stability in steering and braking.