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Return to Shop The OSTRO is an ‘everything’ bike, a quiver killer, a master of all trades. Searingly fast, incredibly light and supremely comfortable, it’s ready to win sprints, mountain stages and cobbled Classics. It’s the ultimate all-rounder because it refuses to compromise. If you’re the sort of rider who races with ‘the knife between your teeth’ no matter the parcours, this is the bike you’ve been waiting for. When we say you can have it all, we mean it.
Unapologetically future-facing, the OSTRO is only available for disc brakes and electronic shifting. The benefits of these technologies are now well understood and appreciated in the market and, by committing to them, Factor has enabled further gains to frame weight and integration.
Named after a southerly Mediterranean wind that sweeps through the Côte d’Azur and Nice, location of the Grand Départ of the 2020 Tour de France, the OSTRO is made for exactly the sort of mixed terrain and crosswinds that the riders of the Israel Start-Up Nation team encountered during the early stages of this year’s Grand Boucle.
Key features
While introducing the OSTRO as the ultimate all-rounder, Factor also continues to provide for riders with focused requirements, unlike many other brands which have diluted their offerings by blurring categories and incorporating features for their own sake. Riders looking for the fastest and stiffest road bike to race on flatter terrain and criteriums will love the ONE; those who live to climb will find their perfect partner in the ultralight O2 VAM. The addition of the OSTRO to the Factor range creates the perfect option for those who want to do it all with one bike.
Aerodynamics
Every element of the OSTRO is optimised for aerodynamics. Broadly, this work can be split into three areas: the mid-chord aero profile tube shapes, the wide stance fork featuring our pioneering Reversing Flow Energising Channel, and the aero cockpit with fully integrated cabling. The net result is a superlight bike that is close to the aero performance of the ONE and ready to blitz the fastest road races.
The tube profiles are derived from NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the godfathers of aero) shapes, oriented along the waterline (horizontal) in line with airflow and optimised for ride quality and aero-to-weight balance by truncating the aero section aggressively. Essentially, this means chopping the long tail off an airfoil shape. Done right, this makes the airflow behave as if it were still following a complete airfoil, resulting in low drag. The critical element to the performance of a truncated airfoil is the tight radius at the transition or cut point, but this is challenging to manufacture in carbon fibre. Owning our factory allows Factor to use a more expensive and time-consuming process to achieve the optimum shape without passing on that cost to consumers. As well as being lighter, stiffer and more compliant, these truncated aero sections also reduce drag in crosswinds and better accommodate bottles on the bike. In designing the OSTRO, Factor considered every aspect of the frame and applied the optimum aero profile, with particular regard to the transitions between frame sections (eg down tube to seat tube, fork and head tube to down tube) and to performance across a full range of effective wind angles.
The new wide stance fork features our highly innovative Reversing Flow Energising Channel. Both the channel and the fork’s wide stance address the aerodynamic challenge of incoming airflow meeting the ‘reversing flow’ of air carried by the wheel and tyre moving forwards through the fork. This reversed flow stagnates behind the fork and disturbs airflow around the outside of the fork onto the down tube. To solve this, Factor designed a converging nozzle into the fork crown to accelerate the reversed flow out of this area, significantly reducing the pressure changes met by the relatively clean air travelling over the outside of the head tube and fork legs, and thereby improving laminar flow and cutting overall drag. Additionally, by significantly increasing the width of the fork legs, the fork legs and the wheel rim are each able to operate in airflow that is undisturbed by the other, allowing the aero profiles to function at optimum efficiency.
The one-piece, aerodynamic Black Inc Barstem reduces drag by meeting clean incoming airflow with a clean shape. Fully internal cabling brings further gains and Factor has achieved this while maintaining a 1⅛” top headset bearing for optimised frontal area, whereas many other brands increase the head tube size to accommodate internal cabling, cancelling out the benefits.
Lightness
The OSTRO is an aero disc-brake frame which weighs just 780g (painted, size 54). For using the very best materials and reaching such a low weight for its class, the OSTRO carries Factor’s VAM designation. It easily builds to the UCI limit of 6.8kg, equipped with a power meter and mid-depth aero Black Inc Forty Five wheels. Finally, here is an aerodynamic race bike with no weight penalty. Few rides or race routes are exclusively mountainous or flat roads so, naturally, you want it all: speed and lightness. The OSTRO is the ‘everything’ bike, making you fast whatever the terrain.
It achieves its remarkable lightness in three ways. The tube profiles were carefully developed to balance aerodynamics against weight. The down tube, for example, has almost exactly the same cross-section as that of the O2 VAM. Also shared are the exceptionally high grades of carbon fibre material used and the industry-leading manufacturing techniques employed to get the very best from them, all made possible because Factor owns its factory and can pass considerable efficiencies to the customer. Finally, the new integrated cabling system, which debuted recently on the revised O2 VAM, is weight neutral, which is to say it doesn’t add a single gram.
Comfort
The OSTRO is an aero race bike that’s ready for Paris-Roubaix. It’s a ground-breaker on the cobbles, whereas usually it’s the cobbles that break riders. Why be aero for Roubaix? Simple. It’s a 260km race that averages around 45kph and ends with a sprint in a velodrome. Any energy saved can make the difference to victory, and over that distance at that speed you can save a lot of energy. What’s more, the same applies to every single ride that you do.
The OSTRO achieves its remarkably smooth ride in three key ways: tyre clearance, ultra-thin seat stays, and carbon fibre layup.
Tyre clearance of 32mm is huge for an aero race bike and it opens a world of possibilities. Take on the cobbles, the back roads or your longest ride ever. This clearance is enabled by the disc-brake-only design and wide stance fork.
At the rear, the ViSTA-style pencil seat stays are designed to absorb road noise and cushion bumps. Furthermore, they meet the seat tube at a dropped angle which encourages the seat tube and seatpost to cantilever around the seat cluster to create an effective amount of controlled ‘travel’ at the saddle.
Factor has renowned expertise in carbon fibre, and because we own our factory we are able to iterate almost endlessly during the R&D phase of any project. For the OSTRO, the carbon layup was continuously refined in order to achieve a high level of frame compliance without sacrificing any of the power transfer efficiency.
The new Black Inc Forty Five is the perfect pairing with the OSTRO and launches simultaneously. The Forty Five is designed with an optimal balance of aerodynamic performance and lightweight for riders who want a single wheelset to do everything from high mountain gran fondos to flat road races to long training days, and everything else in between.
SIZE | 52, 54, 56 |
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COLOR | Flicker, SOHO Mix, Naked Chrome, Racing Green |
GROUPSET | SRAM FORCE AXS, ULTEGRA Di2, SRAM RED AXS, DURA ACE |
BARSTEM | 360×80, 360×90, 360×100, 360×110, 360×120, 380×80, 380×90, 380×100, 380×110, 380×120, 400×80, 400×90, 400×100, 400×110, 400×120, 420×80, 420×90, 420×100, 420×110, 420×120 |
SEATPOST | 25 offset, 0 offset |
WHEELSET | Black Ink 45mm, Black Ink 60mm |