BMC launches the Teammachine R in collaboration with Red Bull

BMC has launched its latest road bike in the form of the Teammachine R. Following on from the launch of the new Speedmachine time trial bike around a month ago, the brand is now also releasing its new road frame which it is calling 'the ultimate race bike'. 

BMC has enjoyed a partnership and collaboration with Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT) for some time now and we have covered several of their collaborations over the past few years including the 'first F1 bike' back in May last year. 

We first spotted an early version of this bike at the Critérium du Dauphiné this summer. A few weeks later we spotted a Ben O’Connor’s version at the Tour de France. It is safe to say these were both prototype models of the now officially released Teammachine R. 

BMC claims the Teammachine R achieves an optimum blend of aerodynamics and power transfer to produce a pure race bike. The brand says the Teammachine R has the most efficient power transfer ever produced and innovative aero features that have never been seen before in a race bike. 

The prototype bike spotted at the Dauphine featured a huge 'create speed' downtube logo. BMC claim this mission lies at the heart of its philosophy when it comes to innovating and 'disrupting boundaries'.  

The Swiss brand claims its goal was to create a race bike that would bind together weight, aerodynamics and power transfer in 'one bike to rule them all'. 

Claimed weight for the frame in a size 54 is 910 grams. The fork weighs in at 345 grams. The overall weight for a 54cm bike is quoted as 7kg, though the build kit for this figure is currently unknown. 

Elsewhere there are integrated bottle cages which the brand claims makes the bike actually faster with bottles fitted. We don't have any specific numbers to include currently.

The frame also features a stealth dropout to help keep airflow tidy, BMC says.

Halo fork technology and F1 inspiration 

The prototype bikes' fork legs caught our eye in the summer on account of their very wide design. The Teammachine R press release expands on this concept. The wide front-end fork design has been named the Halo fork by BMC. The brand says the front wheel produces a significant amount of turbulent air when rotating. BMC has increased the fork spacing allowing that air to be 'shuttered' away from the frame thus reducing aero stall. Apparently, the result is cleaner air that hugs the frame longer and results in a significant drag reduction. 

The brand also claims that RBAT provided insight into the notion of 'driver feel' from their motorsport expertise. This refers to the driver's connection and feel for the car in top-level motorsport. BMC has tried to apply 'rider feel' to the Teammachine R and incorporate the idea that understanding how a bike will react leads to better predictability and handling for the rider. 

Stefan Christ, Head of R&D at BMC said  “Merging the meticulous engineering approach from F1 with the bicycle knowledge from the BMC Impec Lab was what we needed to keep pushing boundaries and make this huge step in performance.”

Rob Gray, Technical Director of RBAT added “Collaborating with BMC has taught us a huge amount about bikes and it’s been fascinating seeing the result of shared knowledge between these two industries. In this project we added more CFD simulations of different conditions than would be typically undertaken. Adding more points to analyse helped us deep-dive into the areas where performance increases are fundamental. The end result of Teammachine R is something we’re extremely proud of.”