About that new bike: Quick Pro ER One

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about the lie every cyclist tells themselves, that a new bike will fix it, and I ended it by admitting I had a new bike coming. Consistency has never been my strong suit.

Well. Here it is.

This is the Quick Pro ER:ONE, size medium, in black, and before you say anything, yes, it's a Chinese frame, and no, this isn't going to be one of those pieces where I spend eight paragraphs justifying that. The short version: Quick Pro is not an AliExpress mystery box. It's a UCI-approved, race-proven frame from a manufacturer that develops and tests its own stuff, it’s used in the peloton and the reason it caught my attention is sitting in a wind tunnel result that ought to make the big brands sweat.

Because here's the thing that sold me. The NERO Show took an ER:ONE to a proper wind tunnel and ran it against the Cervelo S5, which is about as close to the reference aero bike as the industry has, along with a Winspace T1600, all tested at 50kph with a rider aboard. The result: the ER:ONE sits within touching distance of the S5. Near-identical drag, depending on whose summary you read. Full disclosure, because I'd rather you hear it from me than the comments: their test bike ran a 1x setup with a filled-in aero chainring and slightly narrower bars, which will have flattered it by a few grams of drag. Fine. Even with that asterisk, a frame at this price trading blows with the S5 is, and I'm using the technical term here, nuts. One builder put it neatly: you can build the entire bike for less than an S5 frameset costs. Bang for buck, there's currently nothing like it, and I say that as someone who owns a bike from a brand with a Tour de France on its CV.

The build. SRAM Force rival and red AXS mix and for me it all does the same job with a number painted on it that lets you afford tyres.

Pirelli P Zero Race on Hunt Aerodynamicist 44/46s for now, and I say for now because the new SUB50 Limitless are incoming, Hunt's flagship aero wheelset, front and rear specific rims, 1,380 grams with the carbon spokes, and I'll write about those properly once they've been ridden rather than fondled. The Aerodynamicists are no warm-up act though. They've carried me through everything this year and they'll stay in the rotation.

The cockpit is Quick Pro's own brand, Canwin, and this was the bit I was most sceptical about, because own-brand integrated bars are traditionally where good bikes go to develop creaks. They feel amazing. Genuinely. Stiff where you want it, comfortable on the tops, and the whole front end has that slightly slammed, purposeful look I've always wanted on a race bike. Honesty section: the slammed look is partly the bar's low stack, which meant I've had to whack an extra spacer in to get my fit right. The aesthete in me winced. The lower back in me sent flowers.

Colour: black. I know. The brand offers livelier options and I run an apparel company, I'm supposed to have opinions about colour. But black is timeless. Paint jobs date, trends rotate, and in five years the loud colourway is a used listing that says "reduced," while the black bike is just a black bike, still. Some decisions you make for the person you'll be in five years, and this was one of them.

On the scales it's 7.2kg as it stands, and that number comes with context, because it's weighed the way it actually gets ridden: pedals on, Hammerhead on the mount. Not the brochure weight, where bikes are weighed nude and hopeful. Add pedals and a computer to any claimed weight and watch it gain half a kilo of reality. 7.2 ready to ride, with 44/46mm deep wheels, for this money, is nothing to apologise for.

So that's the machine. As for whether it fixes anything, well, I refer you to my previous piece: it won't. The work is still the work. But I never argued against wanting the bike. I argued against expecting it to do the training for you. This one doesn't need to. It just needs to be fast, black, and paid for with money that didn't require a second mortgage. That’s because for the price vs speed you’ll pay is bang for buck.

A proper riding review will come once it's earned one, on the roads that actually test these claims. The mountain is right there, after all.

More on that later. For real this time.