Best aero bikes 2024: fastest speed weapons ridden and rated

The best aero bikes can save you watts and help you to ride faster. Nearly every bike company has an aero bike somewhere in its range. And for good reason. Our independent testing shows that the difference between the best aero bikes and a lightweight bike with conventional round tube profiles could be as much as 25 watts at 45kph. It'd take a lot of training to gain 25 watts.

What makes a bike an aero bike? They're characterized by deep section tube shapes designed to reduce drag, integrated cockpits, disc brakes, and hidden seat post clamps. Often they'll have dropped seatstays and they will come with deep section aero wheels.

While it's all well and good having the fastest possible aero bike, you won't want to ride it very far if it's uncomfortable or too heavy. Happily, the latest generation of aero bikes boast impressively low weights and deliver a ride quality that's both comfortable enough for a long day in the saddle, as well as a sprint finish.

Increasingly, all-rounder race bikes are becoming more aero as well, with almost all of the best road bikes including many or all of the features mentioned above. The aerodynamic tuning may not be as extreme as the best aero bikes, but they'll be significantly faster than their round tubed predecessors.

We've tested a variety of the best aero bikes across a range of prices. Our picks are below, while towards the bottom of this page you'll find our buyer's guide to the best aero bikes and how to choose. 

The Quick List

Best aero bikes: our picks

Best aero bike overall

The seventh generation Madone impressed us enough to win 'best aero' category in our Race Bike of the Year awards. That it was up against stiff competition only deepened our appreciation of this striking machine.

The redesign has made the Madone lighter - our test model weighed just 7.5kg, which is light indeed for an aero bike. As a result it performed well when the road pointed up. But it was the overall ride quality that really caught our attention. It floated over poor road sections, even on 25mm tires, and handled beautifully on descents and around corners.  It's an enviable combination that any race bike would love to achieve - and the Madone does it with style.

Taking of style, the new IsoFlow tech may look different, but in conjunction with the new aero cockpit, it's clearly working. The Madone is flat out fast. Trek's claims of a 300g saving, coupled with it stating that it's almost 20 watts faster than its predecessor seems legitimate. However, all these improvements do make for a price tag that will likely make you wince.

Read more: Trek Madone SLR7 full review

Best aero bike for handling

If you followed our Race Bike of the Year awards, you'll know that the Cervélo S5 took top honours. That it doesn't quite win best aero bike here isn't a knock however, rather its testament to the updated S5's ability to perform brilliantly across the board.

In simple terms, for a blend of aerodynamics, comfort and handling, it's just hard to beat. It's little wonder that it's the choice of team Jumbo-Visma in all but the hilliest of stages and has been an important part of their recent successes, which includes back-to-back TdF titles no less.

So what makes it handle so well? It's really the balanced geometry that means you can ride hard without it ever feeling twitchy. The wheel and tire combination also play a part in the bike's impressive comfort and grip. On test our 28mm tires actually measured over 31mm, thanks to the generous internal rim width of the Reserve wheels. 

Read more: Cervélo S5 SRAM Force full review

Best aero bike for value

The updated Propel saw it slim down a little, especially the frame's rear triangle. It's helped make it more comfortable and a little more versatile, while still retaining it's genuine aero credentials. In fact, Giant says it's faster than the previous model by some 6.2 watts at 40kph.

Tire clearance has been upped to 32mm, which further aids comfort and handling. On review, it all added up to a smoother ride compared to previous iterations, so much so that it could easily be your every day road bike. If this raises eyebrows given the Propel's weight, we think that unless you live and ride in the mountains, it's unlikely to be a penalty - with the bike's innate speed more than making up for the number on the scales.

While the Propel Advanced can be had in various builds, our Advanced Pro 1 represented good value. While it's not cheap, it delivers unmatched performance-to-price ratio, making for  an "excellent bike with an exceptional price".

Best lightweight aero road bike

The new SL8 builds on the aero all-rounder profile of the previous Tarmac. Designed a race bike for all occasions - or stages - the update is said to be lighter, stiffer and more aero. 

Certainly the drop in frame weight is notable. Using the same layup as the featherweight Aethos, Specialized have shaved off the grams, with the SL8 frame weighing just 685 grams. This helps make for a total weight of just 6.6kg for the S-Works model in a size 56cm. 

We found it added up to a bike that's super stiff and just as responsive. If you like the SL7, you'll be pleased to read that the geometry of the SL8 is much the same. The result is the same playful characteristics that translate to a fast and snappy ride feel.

Read more: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 full review

Best aero all-rounder

The latest iteration of the Scott Foil has new, deeper tube profiles that Scott says improve the bike's aerodynamics, delivering a ride that's 1m 18s faster over 40k at 40kph. The curved seat tube hugs the rear wheel, although Scott says that the geometry is unchanged from its past Foil models.

Scott has reduced the number of joints in the frame as well, which it says reduces weight, although this - very expensive - Ultimate spec still weighs 7.3kg, which is a little more than its rivals. 

Comfort is also said to have increased, in particular thanks to the large cut-out in the rear of the seatpost, which adds a significant amount of flex at the saddle.

Fast on the flat and on gently descending roads and with good vibration damping on coarse tarmac, the Foil does show its weight on steep ascents, although that's mitigated by reassuring handling on descents.

Read more: Scott Foil Ultimate RC full review

Best aero bike for adjustment

Another aero bike that makes a solid claim as being an all-rounder, the Aeroad is fast, responsive and pretty lightweight. 

There's some compliance there too, with rear-end comfort delivered by a combination of a 28mm rear tire and a flexing seatpost. However, it's the Aeroad's level of adjustability that really sets it apart from other aero race bikes.

The stack height can be altered by 15mm without having to do any fiddly re-cabling or steerer tube cutting - but does require a proprietary headset tool. The width-adjustable cockpit, with Canyon says aids the bike's aerodynamics, delivers 40mm of adjustability, three width settings and collapsibility for travelling. Whether you feel the need to adjust your cockpit width is another question, however.

Read more: Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 8 full review

Since its introduction in 2012, the BMC Timemachine has always been a head-turner, but there was no doubting its purely functional credentials, sacrificing comfort for ultimate speed.

The platform has come a long way since then, and the Timemachine Road iteration is far more rider friendly, and while it retains its rapidness, the latest design manages to also shoehorn in an element of compliance, with the end result being pretty close to perfect.

Equipped with a Shimano Ultegra Di2 disc brake set up, semi-integrated cockpit, 62mm deep section DT Swiss Arc 1400 Dicut 62 wheels and fast rolling Vittoria Corsa Control tires it leaves you with no question as to the bike's ambition, but with the added comfort factor, it now means it's a lot more than just a one trick pony. Our only grumble is with the limited 25mm tire clearance.

Read more: BMC Timemachine 01 Road full review

Pinarello's superbike is still the winningest Tour de France bike of the last decade, even if the Dogma F is yet to chalk up an overall win. There are several build options, including an increasingly rare a direct mount rim brake option. 

Pinarello says that the F is the lightest version of the Dogma yet, thanks to parts like a 3D printed titanium saddle clamp and redesigned bar/stem rather than a drop in frame weight. It's marginally faster than its predecessor as well. There are 352 different frame and component size options available, so there's plenty of scope to fine-tune your fit.

It's a dream of a bike, a rapid, nimble ride, and of course, with the price tag, a rather expensive one at that.

Read more: Pinarello Dogma F first ride review

The SystemSix is Cannondale's first ever dedicated aero road bike, and the brand has come out swinging. It looks exactly the way you'd expect an aero bike to look: it's all stark angles and chunky tubes and you'd be forgiven for thinking it'd be uncomfortable, but actually the SystemSix has comfort at odds with its chunky looks.

It's also a very fine handling bike, with a geometry that almost matches the Cannondale SuperSix Evo and hydraulic brakes that instil confidence on descents.

The SystemSix rolls on the Cannondale's Knot 64 wheels which are tubeless ready, very stiff and spin along like a freight train. Teaming it with the much rated Shimano Ultegra Di2 for rapid electronic shifting is the ultimate partnership.

With two back to back years as a Cycling Weekly Editor's Choice award winner, we can't speak highly enough of Cannondale's aero offering.

Read more: Cannondale SystemSix full review

Buyer's guide to the best aero bikes: what to look for

There are a few things to consider before opting for an out-and-out aero bike, particularly since you can get many of the benefits of a full-on aero bike from an aero optimised all-rounder road bike. 

In the first of these, we took two bikes to a velodrome to test how much faster is an aero bike. We rode each bike (a now superseded Cervélo S5 and Canyon Ultimate CF SLX) for 10 minutes at 200W and 10 minutes at 300W, with the aero bike being 275m ahead and 1.7kph faster when ridden at 200W, and 435m ahead and 2.6kph faster when ridden at 300W.

In the second experiment we pitched an aero bike (again the Cervélo S5) against a lightweight bike (a Focus Izalco Max) on a climb, tackling Box Hill in Surrey twice on each bike, again at 200W and 300W, to see which climbs faster, despite the Cervélo S5 being 800g heavier.

However, this time it was the lightweight bike that came out on top. At 200W, it took our test rider 9:24 to tackle the 2.5km climb on the aero bike at an average speed of 15kph, while the lightweight bike was 18 seconds faster with an average speed of 16kph.

At 300W, the lightweight bike was still faster, but the gap between the two was reduced, with the aero bike only being seven seconds slower with a 0.4kph difference in speed. This shows how much more important aerodynamics become at higher speeds, while weight is more of a factor at lower speeds.

The take home message then, is that for most riders over most terrain, an aero bike will be faster than a lightweight bike. The only case where weight begins to become more of a factor is on steeper climbs where you're travelling more slowly, and even then any time gains could well be balanced out on the descent, where the high speeds are going to make aerodynamics a factor again.

A lot of people say that aero bikes now all look the same and a possible reason is because of the use of popular dropped rear stays, which the industry has collectively decided is the most aerodynamic shape. Helpfully, it's also comfortable, too.

Many aero bikes include a chunky bottom bracket shell. Again, this enhances aerodynamics as the air flows more smoothly over the bottom bracket area. It also adds stiffness and improves pedalling efficiency.

It's a feature that's now common on the best all-rounder road bikes too and that's made easier by the switch of high-end road bike groupsets to wireless electronic shifting.

You can also expect an aero profile seatpost with a hidden clamp, which will reduce turbulence. Many aero road bikes also include features to shield the bottles and bottle cages from the airflow and reduce turbulence around them.

Now, however, the market has moved a long way from integrated brakes, and disc brakes are the most common stoppers that you'll find on aero bikes, with some models even being disc brake specific. The bike brand's argue that they've managed to design the latest models around the rotors, or generate more aero savings across the frame.

However, possibly the most important part (or parts) of a seriously sleek aero bike are the wheels. Again, there's been a lot of development in the best road bike wheels with wheel makers typically wind tunnel testing them to enhance their aerodynamic performance in a headwind and stability and aero gains in crosswinds.

Finally, if you're going to get the most out of your aero bike, then you might want to fit a rear light to up your road presence or you may occasionally find yourself riding in the dark. In this case, aerodynamic seatposts and handlebars can make it a little tricky to fit bike lights, 

A standard cycling computer mount probably won't fit to aero handlebars, so you'll often need an out-front mount that's specific to your bike. It may be included with the bike or in some cases it's an extra.

Some makes allow you to fit an integrated rear light into the seatpost, so that it doesn't interfere with aerodynamics. The shape of the seatpost and an integrated light may also limit the saddlebags you can use - but you didn't really want to wreck your bike's aerodynamics with a bag on the rear did you?

The vast majority of the wind resistance that you have to overcome while cycling is caused by you, so your position and clothing choice can make a big difference to your speed and there's a lot of aero optimisation you can do. 

Riding in a low, crouched position with your hands on the hoods, elbows bent, is roughly 20 per cent more aerodynamic than riding upright with your hands on the tops.

Similarly, tight-fitting aerodynamic clothing and an aero cycling helmet can also make a significant difference. The benefits might not be as pronounced as with changing your position, but if you're riding along with a baggy rain jacket unzipped and flapping in the wind, even if it is one of the best waterproof cycling jackets, then you can wave goodbye to any gains that you might have got from your expensive aero bike and flash deep sections wheels.

However, for a lot less you will often be able to pick up a bike with a frame that might not have the same premium quality carbon fibre (and so may be less stiff and will usually be heavier) but will have the same shaped tubes which will still be subject to the same laws of physics, at least on the flat and downhill.

Wheel choice is also important when considering how much to pay for an aero bike. If you already have aerodynamic, deep section wheels, then there's no point in paying more money for an aero bike that comes with similarly posh wheels. 

Instead, buy the bike with the cheaper wheels, take these off to use as training wheels, then put on the deep section wheels that you already own for race days.