If you haven't yet heard of Factor Bikes, best lock away your credit card before you read any further. This small British brand, born out of F1 technology, has three new bikes it wants you to know about, and they're seriously impressive. So good in fact that ONE Pro Cycling has already ordered a complete fleet of the bikes for the 2016 season, which the team will be racing under a Pro Continental licence.
BikeRadar was invited out to ONE Pro's training camp in Andalucia to see the new Factor One, so for those who want to know how it compares to the 'old' Vis Vires – head on down the page. But first some backstory: Factor Bikes was formed back in 2007 as a showcase for the engineering expertise of Norfolk-based motorsports company bf1 systems, and it quickly blew people away with the superbikes it produced.
First there came the 001, which incorporated advanced electronics, hydraulic brakes, integrated LEDs and an onboard battery system into a superbike carbon frame. This was refined and evolved into the limited edition One-77, developed in partnership with Aston Martin and costing a whopping £25,000 (about $37,500 / AU$52,000. But it wasn't until the advent of the Vis Vires that we saw a production bike with wider market appeal. BikeRadar rode the Vis Vires back in 2013, and described it as a "production race bike with superbike credentials", costing £10,000 (about $15,000 / AU$20,800).
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Related: Factor Bikes Vis Vires first ride review
Trouble was, it wasn't UCI-legal. The split down tube and chunky front end, which gave the incredible aero gains and stiffness that impressed us so much, meant it couldn't be raced in anger. So Factor went back to the drawing board, this time with new owners at the helm. One of those owners is former pro cyclist Baden Cooke, winner of the Tour de France green jersey back in 2003, and the other is Rob Gitelis, an industry stalwart who owns a bike manufacturing plant out in Taiwan.
Together, the new owners have come up with three new models, with input from former pro cyclist David Millar, who's been acting as a test pilot. The manufacturing facilities in Taiwan mean that Factor has been able to act very quickly on the feedback that Millar has given them, tweaking the designs until they were ready to be raced. And pass UCI scrutiny, which was important as ONE Pro Cycling wanted the bikes, and quickly.
Factor One
Factor O2
Triathlon bike
Tour ambitions
You can read more at BikeRadar.com
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