Avanti Corsa DR - designing the new aero bike video

We brought you details of New Zealand manufacturer Avanti’s Corsa DR, an aero road bike, last year. It followed the design of their Chrono Evo 2 time trial bike, the tube profiles they developed for that bike were fed into the design of the new road bike.

It’s a line of development a lot of manufacturers are taking at the moment: develop a stupidly fast and aero time trial bike in the wind tunnel, and use that to inform the design of an aero road bike. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software was used extensively through the design process. The results were then validated in a wind tunnel, allowing them to fine tune the design.

Integration has been key to the bike, and there’s no frivolous styling details: function leads form here. The aerodynamic and engineering requirements have led to the shape of the bike. In a first that we know of, the quick release skewers are integrated. By this we mean they are designed to sit flush with cutaway sections in the fork and seat stays. The top headset spacer is even aero shape, and the minimal seatpost clamp is seamlessly integrated into the frame.

Anyway, the reason we're telling you all this is not because it's new (it's not especially), but because Avanti have just produced a short video to explain some of the design processes that went into developing the bike, and we wanted to share it with you. Phrases like ‘pushing the limit’  and ‘core objectives’ do feature - you've been warned - but there is some interesting stuff in there about what it takes to design an aero road bike. So go charge your coffee mug...

And while you do that, I’m off to www.paligap.cc, the UK importers, to see if I can get one in to test on road.cc...

Finally, we should also tell you that the Corsa DS will be available in three different builds in the UK from this April:

Corsa DR 1 (105 equipped) £2,200
Corsa DR 2 (Ultegra equipped) £2,700
Corsa DR 3 (Ultegra Di2 equipped) £3,700