Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 review: this is why Western bike brands should be worried

As in many industries, Chinese bike brands are becoming hugely disruptive, offering bikes, wheels and components that undercut Western competitors.

There’s so much noise about how Chinese bikes are going to take over the world, and kill off all the big Western brands any day now… but is that true?

As for the bikes themselves – are they ‘good full stop’ or are they just ‘good for the money’, and best avoided if you can afford something from a better-known brand?

With the Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2, the answer clearly leans towards the former. It offers a great balance of speed, comfort and confident handling, and an impressive array of customisation and paint options.

Its overall design is fairly vanilla, but if you’re shopping for an aero road bike on a relatively modest budget, it’s tough to argue with the balance of price and performance on offer.

Unless Western brands can adapt, then, the doom-mongers might be on to something.

Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 performance

With so many road bikes converging around similar design principles, the thing that separates them most tangibly nowadays is often geometry – and the downstream effects those differences have on how a bike behaves while riding.

With the Winspace M6 Aero, we find a fairly unusual mix of an aggressively low stack – some 15mm lower than a Specialized Tarmac SL9 or a Giant Propel, for example – paired with a relatively slack, 72.3-degree head tube angle on my size-L test bike.

That head tube angle results in a high trail figure of 62.5mm, compared to 55 and 58.3mm, respectively, for the Tarmac SL9 and Propel.

There’s an interesting contrast, though, between the M6’s ability to put you in a very aggressive riding position and its relatively sedate front-end handling.

You can, of course, run the M6 with a few headset spacers to even the stack out (as I did during testing), although that slack head tube angle inevitably leads to a bike that feels a little more ponderous at slower speeds than you might expect of a race bike.

I also found there was still a little toe overlap with the stock 28c Continental tyres, although this was only an issue when making tight turns at very slow speeds.

The flip side, however, is that the handling is pleasingly stable at high speeds, which, in all fairness, is what aero road bikes are designed for.

This means it’s a comfortable bike to cruise on once up to speed, although if you’re looking for a race bike that feels as lively and responsive as something such as the Rose Shave FFX, you might find the M6 slightly underwhelming.

That said, I do increasingly question whether everyday riders are best suited to the kind of sharp handling designed to satisfy elite racers.

Perhaps I’m just getting old, but what feels fast doesn’t always translate to higher speeds. It’s almost become a cliché at this point, but wider tyres run at lower pressures tend to be, in many scenarios, faster than narrower ones at higher pressures, for example.

Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 design

In terms of design, the M6 follows the classic formula of using truncated aerofoil tubes across the frame, with deeper ones up front and shallower ones towards the rear. The head tube tapers to a sharp leading edge, integrating cleanly with the deep bladed fork legs.

It undoubtedly looks the part, though it’s fair to say the design lacks any obvious features that help separate it from the myriad other aero road bikes already available.

Tyre clearance is also capped at 32mm, front and rear. That’s plenty for most riders now, although if road bike tyres and wheels keep trending wider (as I suspect they will), that might feel a little outdated and restrictive in a few years' time.

In fairness to Winspace, though, if you want something more ‘out there’, it also has the pricier T1600 Ultra (from £4,340 / $5,299) in its range, which has D-shaped aero vents where the seatstays meet the seat tube.

You can also spec Winspace’s Hyper 2 riser handlebar (for an extra £110) on the M6, which looks to be inspired by the gullwing cockpit on Tadej Pogacar’s Colnago Y1Rs.

Customisation options

Speaking of customisation options, the level of spec choice on offer with Winspace goes far beyond what most brands offer, even if you’re spending upwards of five figures.

Specialized, for example, doesn’t guarantee any customisation options for the new S-Works Tarmac SL9, despite it costing almost £12,000 / $14,000 (officially, it said it was “up to dealers”).

Likewise, if you buy a Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 7 Di2 (£4,499 / $4,999) or Giant Propel Advanced 1 (£3,499 / $5,300) – two big-name competitors with similar design philosophies and specs – you don’t get any customisation options at the point of sale.

As with Specialized, individual Giant dealers might be willing to swap certain parts on a bike to help get a sale over the line, but this level of service isn’t promised up-front.

In contrast, Winspace will let you decide what wheelset you want, what handlebar you want, in what size, and you can even customise the groupset parts to get your preferred gearing and crank length.

On top of that, there are five stock paint options available in the UK and 10 in the US, or you can go for a fully custom paintjob (prices start at £450, depending on the complexity of the final design).

While component size swaps are free, some upgrades will increase the price of the bike, but that’s to be expected. And given how much difference personalising a bike can make to the experience of owning and riding it, Winspace deserves lots of credit for offering so much choice.

The only caveats to this are it naturally increases lead time (because bikes are built to order) and, in the UK, you’re required to collect the bike from Winspace’s workshop in Bridgend, South Wales.

Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 spec

The build itself is also very competitive for the price, with an almost complete Shimano 105 Di2 R7100 groupset, a set of UNAAS Hard 50D carbon wheels and Winspace’s own Hyper integrated carbon cockpit.

The deep-section wheels and integrated cockpit are impressive inclusions at this price. Even with the wheels being slightly portly at a claimed 1,609g per set, and the bare handlebar tops being a little uncomfortable to hold, they mean the M6 is essentially ‘ready to race’ straight out of the box.

The only nitpicks I have are the set of Shimano SM-RT64 brake rotors, the SUMC chain and a set of clincher-only Continental Grand Prix tyres, paired with basic butyl inner tubes.

None of these pose any major problems, but the rotors are a slight step down from Shimano’s 105-series, RT-CL700 rotors, in terms of stopping power and heat management, and the chain is essentially something you can only buy from Aliexpress.

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad chain per se (plenty of Aliexpress stuff is pretty good), and it shifted and ran without issue during testing.

I would just be wary of how long it might last (testing by the likes of Zero Friction Cycling has shown cheaper chains tend to wear out more quickly than expensive ones with low-friction coatings), and would therefore keep on top of checking its wear regularly, to avoid it wearing out the pricier parts of the groupset prematurely.

The fact it uses a SRAM-style ‘Flattop’ design also looks a little jarring with the Shimano groupset, although that didn’t affect performance.

Lastly, the Continental Grand Prix tyres are fantastic in terms of speed and ride feel for a mid-range tyre, and I’d be in no rush to upgrade them for those reasons, I just wish Winspace had included tubeless-ready versions instead. 

Clinchers are fine, but what you put in them matters hugely, and cheap butyl inner tubes will make any bike feel dull and wooden. Swapping in some latex tubes naturally made a big difference, but I’d prefer the option to go tubeless for the improved puncture protection.

Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 bottom line

There may be more exciting or prestigious options available, but if your main priorities are performance, value and having a bike customised to your preferences, the Winspace M6 Aero 105 Di2 is a fantastic option at a great price.

Personally, I’d be tempted by the frameset option (which is fairly cheap at £1,350 / $1,580) so I could build one up myself with existing parts.

However, if you don’t have a catalogue of components, or an existing bike to take them off, the available customisation options make it simple to build a bike that suits your needs and budget straight out of the box.

As with most bikes, I have my criticisms, but it's nevertheless hard to think of many road bikes that offer a better package for the money.

And, as I alluded to at the beginning of this review, if Winspace is broadly representative of the performance and value of new Chinese bikes – a big if, in fairness –  then established bike brands really do have something to worry about.