Now, if you're looking for an aluminium road bike then you've got loads to choose from. If you're looking for an aluminium road bike for £1,300 then you've still got loads to choose from. Okay, well how about an aluminium road bike for £1,300 with hydraulic disc brakes? Suddenly things become a lot more difficult – and that's where we introduce this super stealthy Pinnacle Dolomite 6.
You see, this Pinnacle manages to offer what a lot of bike companies still don't seem to be able to – not for a reasonable price anyway, and that's a no-nonsense alloy road bike with hydraulic disc brakes and a decent groupset. More on that later, but first here's a bit of background:
Pinnacle is a bike brand owned and sold exclusively by UK bike chain Evans Cycles. Its 2016 range of road and mountain bikes are now in Evans stores. This model sits at the top of a range of aluminium road bikes that begin at just £475. The pricing of the Dolomite 6 puts it outside of the cycle to work budget that so many UK riders will be going for, yet if you're restricted to a budget of £1,000 or are planning to go the cycle to work route then it's worth knowing about the model below, Pinnacle's Dolomite 5, which – rather amazingly – manages to includes Shimano hydraulic discs along with a respectable spec for bang on a grand.
Back to this one, and before we go into any further details just look at this bike, I'll put a picture in below so you have to… here you go.
Cycling's equivalent of the B-2 bomber
Straight out of the box it is one of the stealthiest bikes we've seen to date. Its finish is a mixture of satin and gloss black with each component seemingly cleverly chosen to complement one another. If you like your bikes black then you'll probably love this.
It's hardly unusual to see stealthy black paintwork, but I can't remember seeing a bike that's quite so well colour co-ordinated out of the box. The graphics are so subtle that you need good light to even make them out, meaning nobody will really know this is a Pinnacle until they get close – we'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not.
Graphics don't get much more subtle than these
The rims are black, the spokes are black, even the quick-release levers are black. Most of the parts that aren't black could easily be with overenthusiastic use of wet lube, of course. But enough of the blackout, let's talk parts.
Delivering for discs
The Dolomite frame has been revamped to incorporate disc brakes but builds on a proven chassis that mixes both double- and triple-butted 6061 alloy main tubes. Geometry-wise the Dolomite gets a slightly bigger drop at its bottom bracket, to account for the 28mm tyres that this bike is now compatible with. This model also includes a full-carbon, disc specific fork with boosted clearances and internal routing for the front brake hose.
While discs are still a talking point, and often a source of anger, among the road community, the Dolomite's aren't just any old items. It gets arguably the best road disc hydraulics around – Shimano's top-drawer 785 hydraulics.
The 785 calipers bite down on 140mm Freeza SM-RT99 rotors, which use a three piece construction to offer improved heat dissipation over a regular rotor. The brakes are paired to the rather snappily named RS-685 shifters, which contain all the gubbins required to provide hydraulic braking alongside 11-speed mechanical shifting.
The Dolomite 6 is one of very few bikes that will probably look better with a dirty drivetrain…
Depending on which lever you click, you’ll get movement at Shimano’s 5800 series 105 front or rear derailleur. The former sits over a 105 compact crankset and the latter glides up and down an 11-28t block.
The Dolomite 6 rolls on disc specific Alex Draw 1.9s rims, which are built onto Novatec hubs. According to the Alex website, the rims are also tubeless-ready, which could well be handy for the future. As previously mentioned, Continental Gransport Race 25mm tyres are fitted as standard but according to Pinnacle, 28mm rubber will go on without issue – that’s providing you don’t want mudguards, which you get mounts for at both the fork and frame.
The Dolomite could be elbowing its way gently in among the adventure road bike market thanks to the ability to run 28mm rubber
With these brakes and 28mm rubber in place, this bike will be treading on the toes of many adventure/gravel models. It’s not an adventure road bike though, not by Pinnacle’s definition anyway – the brand's own adventure road bike is known as the Arkose and boasts tyre clearances of 40mm at each end.
Finishing kit is almost all own-brand stuff and although some of it isn’t the prettiest, it’s far from the worst we’ve seen. Evans reckons that a medium Dolomite 6 weighs in at 8.6kg (18.95lb), and we’ve yet to get this size XL test bike on the scales. As soon as we do we’ll update this article accordingly.
So, what we have here is an evolution of an already successful road bike, and one that appears to offer astonishingly good value. This one will be staying with us so we'll be sure to let you know how we get along with it.
Do the stealthy looks of this pinnacle do it for you?
