Factor ONE

As a premium thought leader in aerodynamic advancements in the cycling industry, Factor’s founder, Rob Gitelis, and Chief Engineer, Graham Shrive, set out to develop the fastest road bike in the world. With the launch of the new ONE, they have succeeded in doing exactly that.

The actual genesis of the ONE came in the form of a request from the then-still-active pro, Alex Dowsett. He said he’d really love to have a “lead-out bike.” Something hyper-aerodynamic that would allow him to stay on the front of the pack at high speed for longer, 200 or 300 meters, when acting as the last man for the team’s designated sprinter.

“It was an unusual request because we hadn’t really considered that application to a bike before,” Graham Shrive explained. “We had been thinking perhaps in terms of a breakaway bike, but Alex wanted a bike to be able to string out the peloton for hundreds of meters in the last kilometre of a race.”

Accumulated experience

Taking the initiative to develop the type of watts-saving bike that Dowsett had requested, Graham and his team had many years of experience on which to draw.

“The aerodynamics of the ONE are the first thing that jump out at people. It is clearly fast,” Graham explained. “But the design wasn’t one light bulb moment. Instead, it was the result of the cumulative experience of our design and engineering team, as well as its implementation on the factory floor.” The combined experience and knowledge of the R&D team dovetails with the skill of the carbon lay-up experts in Factor’s own factory, which makes the creation of a frame on the level of the ONE possible.

Even if the aerodynamics behind the design was always a driving factor in the development of the ONE, the way WorldTour events unfold today is vastly different from how the races were raced even just five years ago. Speeds are high, race-winning attacks happen much further from the finish line, and rider positions on the bikes have continued to evolve and get more extreme in the search for every possible aero advantage. “The evolution of rider fit is something we have been seeing for some time and has been a big influence on the design,” Graham Shrive explained.

The willingness to take the risk of reimagining the shape and geometry of the frame represents a hallmark of Factor’s fearless pursuit of the best possible bike designs. “One of the things that really makes us different is the willingness to take risks, particularly around the geometry of this bike. It’s extremely bold,” Graham said. “Most brands are extremely risk adverse, which frequently results in the lowest common denominator dictating acceptable risk levels in design.”

Resetting our own baseline

The relaxing of certain UCI rules is one of the factors that made it possible for Graham and his team to give the ONE its radical design. In fact, Factor’s engineers and industrial designers worked closely with the UCI’s experts while still in the development process for the ONE.

“We worked closely with the UCI to absolutely maximise aero gains within the UCI’s parameters. Where other brands follow the rules, we're helping to shape them,” Mike McGinn, Industrial Designer at Factor Bikes, explained.

The Factor team knew that the design features that would be possible thanks to the new rules would absolutely revolutionise just how fast the ONE could be. “One of the interesting things with this project is we knew we needed to re-establish a wind tunnel baseline for ourselves because we knew we were going to beat our existing bike by so much that we had to figure out how to make a bike that was anywhere near the same ballpark,” Graham explained.

Considering Factor's existing fastest bike was the OSTRO VAM, which had already been third-party tested as the fastest bike currently in the pro peloton, it seems astounding that the new ONE would be so much faster. To tackle this issue, Graham and his team created an internal project that they called the HANZO Road where they made 3D prints of a HANZO dropbar bike, tested it in the wind tunnel, and that functioned as the frame of reference against which the new ONE would be tested.

“The immediate result when we first tested the ONE design in the wind tunnel was to reset what we view as the nominative range of aero performance in bikes,” Graham said. “Our results have been clearly validated by the recent cyclingnews.com wind tunnel tests where there is a large grouping of our competitors’ products and then over off to the side lives the actual ONE, which performed better than the rest of the bikes by nearly as much as the amount that separated fastest from slowest in the test.”

The proof is in the riding

You don’t need an engineering or industrial design degree to feel the difference immediately when riding the ONE. Though it has had very few chances to be raced in the wild, everyone who has swung a leg over it has reported having a truly mind-blowing experience. In its first race at the 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné, Jake Stewart won stage 5 into Mâcon ahead of powerhouse sprinters like Jonathan Milan and superstar Mathieu van der Poel.

Stewart, undoubtedly a fast sprinter but an infrequent winner, immediately pointed to the ONE’s incredible performance in helping him to take probably the biggest victory of his career: “When it hits 50 kph it really starts to fly,” he said.

That feeling is directly impacted by the frame design where the aerodynamic shaping of the tubes results in a tunnel-verified drop in drag at higher yaw angles, offering a distinct “lift” sensation once the rider reaches speeds at and above 50 kph. Stewart also noted that the bike felt as though it was helping him sustain top speed, particularly in exposed crosswind sections. The aggressive forward fit combined with front-end stiffness and balanced weight distribution allowed full sprint torque without steering deflection.

This level of balance and aggressive position allows the rider to stay in an aero position even when cornering at speeds above 60 kph. This is something Factor’s Brand Director, David Millar, was able to use to get a hotly contested fastest Strava time on one of Girona’s famous descents:

“I had the chance to take a ONE test bike for a spin after our media event. Despite the bike not being perfectly set up for me and the brakes being reversed from my usual preference,” Millar explained. “I still managed to post the fastest time of the year down Girona’s famous Els Angels, putting me number ONE out of 14,280 people. The experience was truly incredible. Its speed, position, and handling are unlike anything I’ve ever ridden.”

Lily Williams on the Human Powered Health team also had the chance to race briefly on the ONE in 2025 as well.

“The ONE feels super stiff, immediately responsive, and the first choice for a sprint or echelon day. It fit like a glove right away, and I'm excited to test all its capabilities in 2026,” she said.

Aerodynamic thought leader

Cycling is a deeply traditional sport where occasionally a few bold minds blaze new trails for the rest to follow. Factor’s founder, Rob Gitelis, joined by his Chief Engineer, Graham Shrive, have intentionally positioned the brand as a company willing to take risks in order to produce the fastest bikes in the world. “The ONE has been a bike in the making for probably 10 years, but it’s only in the past three or four years have we become recognised as among the aerodynamic thought leaders in the industry,” Gitelis explained.

“Now that we’ve become what I think is the most important aerodynamic thought leader in the industry, we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to release this bike which took about a year of development time to get us to where we are today. What sets the ONE apart is the amount of risks we were willing to take.”

With leadership allowing the inhouse expertise to define, develop, design, and manufacture a bike that offers both radical performance and appearance, Graham Shrive and his team had no limitations on what they could create, while working within the UCI rules.

“I would say at this point that this is the best bike I have ever made, and I believe, the best bike that has been made in the road industry to date. And the reason for that is the uncompromising clarity of vision. No one in the entire company ever questioned that clarity of purpose, which is to help riders win races.”

Graham Shrive, Chief Engineer at Factor Bikes

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