FACTOR UNVEILS THE ONE

Factor Bikes today announced the launch of the Factor ONE, a bike that began with a simple question: How fast can a UCI-legal road bike truly be?

The answer arrived first in data, independent testing confirming the ONE as the fastest road bike in the world, and then on the road, where a stage win at the Critérium du Dauphiné on its prototype debut provided the clearest validation possible.

The Factor ONE represents a shift in how modern race bikes are conceived. Elite racing has evolved: riders sit further forward, run narrower bars, shorter cranks, deeper tyre volumes, and more aerodynamic positions than ever before. The ONE was engineered around these realities from day one, not retrofitted to them.

A front end that changes the conversation

The defining feature of the ONE is its bayonet fork and “chin” fairing system, a structure made possible by recent UCI rule changes and shaped through hundreds of CFD iterations. It controls airflow at the very start of the bike, minimising spillover drag and sustaining advantage deep into yaw where other platforms lose efficiency.

Geometry for the new racing era

Factor’s engineering team embraced the reality that today’s riders are pushing fit boundaries once considered extreme. By decoupling the handlebar mount from the steering axis, the ONE enables reach positions that would previously require unstable stems. A revised bottom-bracket drop restores handling balance altered by shorter cranks and modern tyre choices, keeping the bike planted at high speed.

Independent Performance Results

The ONE’s aerodynamic advantage has been validated in wind-tunnel testing at Guelph and SASI:

• >8% faster than the OSTRO VAM 2.0
• ~15% faster than the Cervélo S5 (2024)
• >22% faster than the Specialized Tarmac SL8
• Maintains aero advantage beyond 15° yaw, where competing platforms lose efficiency
• Stage-winning performance on its first-ever WorldTour appearance at the Critérium du Dauphiné

These results establish the ONE as the fastest UCI-legal road bike Factor has ever produced and the fastest verified in the industry to date.

Cockpit integration without compromise

The new integrated bar system removes the stem entirely, replacing it with a selection of five sizes (110–150 mm equivalents), three high-rise options, and up to 15 mm of spacer adjustability, giving riders 35 mm of stack range without sacrificing aerodynamics or handling.

Colours & Availability

Available in five sizes 47, 52, 54, 56, 58, the ONE comes in four colour options: Blush, Nimbus Grey, Onyx Black, and Silverstone. 

Quotes

Rob Gitelis, Factor Bikes Founder:

“I think this bike is the culmination of the last ten years of working. It’s a bike that we have had in the back of our minds for a couple of years, but our brand wasn’t seen as an aerodynamic thought leader until about three or four years ago. So now being the most important aerodynamic thought leader, we felt that this was a good opportunity for us to release this bike which took about a year of development time to get it to where it is today.”

Graham Shrive, Chief Engineer, Factor Bikes:

“This is the best bike I’ve ever made, and I believe the best bike produced in the road industry so far. The reason is clarity of purpose. No-one questioned the mission: build a bike to help riders win races.”

David Millar, Brand Director, Factor Bikes:

“After our media event I rode a ONE prototype down Els Angels. It wasn’t set up for me, reversed brakes and all, and I still set the fastest time of the year, first out of over 14,000 riders. The bike feels alive in a way that’s hard to translate. The speed, the position, the handling, it’s something else.”

About Factor

Factor Bikes is a high-performance bicycle manufacturer known for engineering the fastest UCI-legal racing bikes in the world. Founded by former professional cyclist and carbon-engineering pioneer Rob Gitelis, Factor is one of the only cycling brands that designs, prototypes, and manufactures its frames in-house, enabling unmatched speed of innovation.

Born from the motorsport and aerospace engineering skunkworks BF1 Systems, Factor has an engineering-first culture that combines CFD, wind-tunnel testing, and WorldTour race validation to develop every bike.

Factor has produced some of the most advanced racing platforms in modern cycling, including the Bayonet Fork + Chin Fairing System on the ONE, the Olympic-record-breaking HANZŌ Track, the all-conditions aero-race OSTRO VAM, the race-developed gravel range, ALUTO, and OSTRO Gravel, and time trial and triathlon specialists, HANZŌ and SLiCK..

Factor’s mission is to build the fastest, most technically advanced racing bikes on earth, and keep pushing the limit.

About Black Inc

Black Inc is a performance wheel and component manufacturer known for producing some of the world’s most aerodynamically advanced and structurally precise systems. Using in-house CFD, FEA, prototyping, and engineering, Black Inc creates wheels and cockpits designed as integrated performance systems for Factor bikes.

Black Inc develops its products through the same process used for Factor frames: advanced simulation, in-house carbon engineering, and real-world validation with WorldTour athletes. Its portfolio includes aerodynamic road wheels, integrated cockpits, gravel components, and the ZERO Track, used in the Olympic-record-breaking team pursuit program.

Black Inc aims to deliver class-leading aerodynamic efficiency, stiffness-to-weight performance, and race-proven integration for riders who demand the fastest equipment possible.