Best aero bikes 2025: fastest speed weapons ridden and rated

If going fast is your concern, be it in a race, event or club run, then a dedicated aero bike could be for you. They’ve been a staple in the professional peloton for years, often favoured on the rolling and flat stages where straight line speed is a priority. Subsequently we’ve seen the technology used in these high-end race bikes trickle down further in a brand’s range. So while the best aero bikes are rarely cheap, they’re is now a wider range of more affordable options.

What should you expect from an aero bike? In an effort to reduce drag you’ll see deep section tube shapes and fully internally routed cables, typically using an integrated aero cockpit. Seat post clamps and bottle cages are also now integrated into the frame. The wheels will likely feature deep section rims, while the geometry will be aggressive, with the view to reduce your frontal end; it’s always worth remembering that the rider still creates the biggest obstacle when it comes to saving watts.

The knock on aero bikes used to be that all this technology designed to make them fast also made them pretty uncomfortable to ride. But, for the most part, this is no longer the case. While they'll never deliver the plush ride of the best endurance bikes they have become more compliant and comfortable thanks to dropped seat stays and wider tyre clearances.

We’ve put many an aero bikes through its paces, testing them across a range of terrain and conditions. Here we have the chosen few, picked for their superior overall ride quality as well as specific factors such as value and weight. If you’re still undecided after reading this guide, we also have others on offer, including the best carbon road bikes, to help you narrow down your choice.

The Quick List

Best aero bikes: our picks

Best aero bike overall

The updated Blade 795 RS was our favoured aero bike in last year’s Race Bike of the Year Awards. And with good reason.

Look has managed to successfully add stiffness at the bottom bracket, by 7% according to the French marque. We found during testing that this was certainly noticeably compared to the outgoing model and made it a real handful when sprinting. The bike accelerated without any discernible flex in the BB, even when we were hitting 1500 watts.

Improving the overall aerodynamics of a bike but without resorting to the super-deep truncated tube profiles that you typically see on a dedicated aero bike isn;’t easy. But Look has achieved it with the 795 Blade RS. The tube shapes are optimised for race conditions and take into account comfort and efficiency as well as out and out speed. The result, we found, was an aero bike that’s far more than just a one-trick wonder.

Like most aero bikes, the Blade isn’t the lightest out there. Our size medium Ultra High Modulus carbon fibre frame weighed in at 945g, with the overall build topping the scales at 7.48kg. However, it hides the weight relatively well; we found that it climbed with confidence while maintaining an amazingly smooth ride feel across any terrain.

Read more: Look 795 Blade RS full review

Best aero bike for handling

In simple terms, for a blend of aerodynamics, comfort and handling, the S5 is 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 in 2022 and 2023.

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.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then it won our most recent Race Bike of the Year Award, where it's ability to do everything well shone through. If you're looking for a single bike to race and train on across varied terrain, the Tarmac SL8 is tough to beat.

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.

As for the ride quality, we found that the Aeroad excels on flatter terrain, both smooth and fast with bags of stiffness that aids acceleration. There are some compromises however when the road points up. We found that while impressed on short, punchy climbs, on longer, more sustained climbs, the bike did feel a little less forgiving.

Read more: Canyon Aeroad CFR full review

BMC describes the R 01 as ‘the most complete race bike we’ve ever made’, and it’s hard to argue with the Swiss brand. The attention to detail is to be commended. There’s the Aerocore bottle cage that sits flush with the frame to help reduce drag, a rubber cover for the stem clamp bolts and it comes with a mount for your cycling computer.

As for the frame itself, there are wind-cheating features aplenty, from the hourglass head tube to the seat tube that floors the curve of the rear wheel. The Halo fork is particularly noteworthy, with the extra width offering plenty of clearance around the tyre, which is said to create better airflow around the wheels.

Out on the road, the BMC shines best when it’s rolling on smooth tarmac. Unfortunately for many of us these aren’t the roads we ride with regularity, and we found that on bumpy country lanes the bike isn’t the most comfortable, certainly after more than two hours in the saddle. However, find a patch of the smooth stuff and the Teammachine will purr along beneath you.

Naturally, the bike’s price is prohibitive but if you’re after a true race bike that’s aerodynamically enhanced then it’s hard to beat.

Read more: BMC Teammachine R 01 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

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.