The Focus Cayo Disc has already impressed our male test team this year with it’s feistily powerful ride and equally responsive all weather disc braking. But would our female testers enjoy the Donna as much as the blokes or would the lack of chassis alteration and direct ride impress them less?
Stiff competition
Compared with three other women-specific bikes we tested at the same time (Trek Silque SL, Cannondale SuperSix EVO and Giant Avail Advanced Pro) the Focus certainly had a distinctive fit and feel. The top tube measurement is only 5-10mm longer than the other bikes. However the seat tube is slightly slacker and combines with a significant rear offset of the CPX Plus seatpost and long carbon stem to make the saddle clamp to bar stretch 40-50mm longer.
The stiff, disc-specific fork holds the wheel with a 12mm thru-axle and plugs into a big tapered head tube with broad faceted ‘cheeks’ before connecting to a massive down tube. This all creates an aggressively stretched riding position that most of our test team needed to shove the saddle all the way forward on the rails to find a useable fit on.
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The beefy pipework hints at the Cayo's no-nonsense character
What we’d recommend other riders to do though is to try out a smaller frame than you’d normally think of buying. That would not only reduce the stretch between bar and saddle; it would also give you a seat tube height that allowed more of the seatpost to stick above the frame and potentially decrease the significant amount of punishment that this bike passes from road to rider. (As the proportionally larger diameter and greater stiffness of the shorter tubes on the smaller sizes could be part of what makes the Cayo feel so rigid though there is a risk that it’ll compound the Cayo's uncompromising feel rather than ease it.)
Devil is in the detail
Shrink and pink
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