Argon 18 has launched its new Nitrogen Pro aero bike, which is designed for real-world riding rather than wind-tunnel performance at all costs.
“We're not designing a bike for the wind tunnel – I couldn't care less where it would rank in a wind tunnel test," says Alexandre Côté, Argon 18’s product manager.
“It would be nice to be top of the list, and it might be close to that, but the real performance comes in [the] real world – crosswinds, headwinds, rain, crappy weather.
“We all know what we ride in, and it’s not [a] pristine tarmac-controlled, resurfaced road in the south of France for the Tour de France in July. We’re riding in real-world conditions, and we have a bike that performs well in those conditions.”
'This is where most brands get it wrong'
The Canadian brand has done this by designing an aero platform from the bottom up – or rather front to back, starting with 30c tyres.
“It's what the pros and amateurs ride up out there,” says Côte. “Why make something in the lab in isolation, where the reality is different? This is where most of the brands get it wrong at the moment – optimising for a test instead of real applications.”
Argon 18 hasn't eschewed wind tunnels completely, and undertook three rounds of testing at the Silverstone wind tunnel during the bike’s development, but tested with a rider in place and focusing on wind-averaged drag (an average of all the yaw angles you’d experience in the real world).
In its pursuit of the perfect bike, Argon 18 seemingly left no stone unturned – including the designing of a proprietary cockpit, bottle cages and a bespoke Artech 6.A wheelset collaboration with Scope.
Although an aero platform, Côte explains that Argon 18 also wanted the Nitrogen Pro to be optimised as a complete system – meaning it's also lightweight, with a good fit and ride feel.
The result is a frameset that comes in at 950g and a complete bike that, in its range-topping Red AXS setup, weighs 6.95kg (including power meter, bottle cages and a computer mount) in medium.
It is also 24 watts faster than the SUM Pro, making it the brand’s fastest ever bike.
Development of the bike
The Nitrogen Pro has been almost three years in the making, with the brand’s product and R&D team taking a ground-up approach to the complete bike’s design process.
Rather than coming up with a frameset in isolation and not having any control over its integration and aerodynamic interaction with components and finishing kit, Argon 18 started with “the best all-round high-performance tyre” – Vittoria’s Corsa Pro in 30c – as the first component to encounter aerodynamic resistance, and continuously analysed the downstream impact each choice would have on the next.
This philosophy is how it ended up collaborating with Scope on a bespoke version of the Dutch brand's Artech 6.A wheelset. They weren't optimised for a 30c Corsa Pro, which measured at 31.4mm when fitted, so the brands set to work on developing a version that was.
The result has a proprietary rim shape, 65mm-deep rims, and 3D-printed hubs that contribute to a 1,320g wheelset weight.
From here, the frame and fork were optimised to interact with the wheelset, which involved 130 different frame tube profiles and 25 fork prototypes, to find the combination that performed best.
The carbon layup was also fine-tuned to keep the weight down, with the stiffness – which is 18.5 per cent stiffer than the SUM Pro, according to Argon18 – arising from the profiles and shape.
Atten-tion to detail
Argon 18 says the componentry available on the market wasn’t up to scratch, so it decided to design its own.
“The way this industry is structured is everybody does their own thing and tries to put it together and see if it fits,” says Côte. “For us, it's unacceptable, moving forward. It’s something we won't be doing, if we can do better.”
The brand’s new component line is labelled Atten – the Danish word for 18 – and its most noticeable inclusion on the Nitrogen Pro is the one-piece cockpit.
Arrow-shaped to “limit the stagnation point along the leading edge”, it includes a 3° inward flair off the drops to create an ergonomically optimised setup that avoids riders needing to twist the hoods inwards.
The brand’s testing also showed that it saved 3.2 watts compared to the Vision Metron 5D ACR Evo.
The attention to detail doesn’t end there. All of the aero testing took place with bottle mounts in place – “people need to carry water, so why not optimise around that?” – and the bike is faster with bottle cages than without them as a result.
And if you only ride with one bottle on the down tube, the brand recommends keeping the seat tube one in place, with a vented design enabling air to pass through unimpeded.
All of this comes with a serious price tag – the Nitrogen Pro SRAM Red AXS will set you back £13,000 / $13,500 / €13,995 when it becomes available in February 2026.
But the brand has also created a standard Nitrogen line-up, which features the same frame design, albeit with a different carbon layup. This starts at a more reasonable £5,200 / $5,400 / €5,995 for the 105 Di2 version. This includes the Atten cockpit, bottle cages and 42mm Atten wheels.
