Fuji Transonic SL (2017)

Light, uncompromising aero road racer

Pros

- Fast
- As nimble as a non-aero bike
- Fast
- Stiff driveline
- Fast

Cons

- Front derailleur can drop chain on downshifts
- Wheelset a skosh heavy

Review

This is a legitimate aero road bike, and the head honchos at Fuji are right on the money when they brag about how fast it is. But there’s always a risk with any aero road bike that the thirst for free speed will come at a price; namely, the quality of the ride and handling. Not so with the Transonic – the road bike at the heart of this aero platform is versatile and capable enough to handle sharp climbs, stomach-dropping descents, wet roads and rough surfaces without compromising rider comfort or control.

The aerodynamic capabilities of the Transonic come courtesy of a combination of clever engineering feats: the seat tube embraces the rear wheel with an ingenious junction at the seatstays, a flawless junction between the down tube and the fork, direct-mount front and rear brake calipers and a teardrop-shaped seatpost complete with integrated clamp.

From the front or rear the bike looks slight, almost flimsy, but check it out from side-on and the strength and stiffness of the frame are obvious. The SRAM Red PF30 bottom bracket is housed in an enormous carbon junction, and the down tube is thick and foil-shaped. The head tube and fork legs are also massive, but are integrated nicely into the overall cockpit area.

The in-house carbon seatpost has a sandpaper-like coating on the front to ensure it doesn’t slip at crucial moments – it takes a little longer to adjust than most others, but it definitely won’t move unless you want it to.

Shifters, crankset, derailleurs, brake levers and cassette are all SRAM Red 22 – the only appearance made by Shimano is the Dura Ace 9010 direct mount brake calipers. This is a new addition – until this year the Transonic was outfitted with Fuji’s own Oval Concepts brakes, but they wisely decided to swap to Shimano.

The Oval 950 carbon clincher wheelset is good – not great, but solid, reliable, fractionally heavy but good, and the Vittoria Open Corsa CX 700 x 25 folding tires are perfect.

Thanks to generous head tube angles and fork offset geometry that ensure stable steering and reliable handling, the Transonic is far better going downhill than many of its aero rivals. The same can be said for climbing – weighing in at just 15lbs. / 6.82kg for a Small (52cm) frame without pedals or bottle cages, this bike is light enough to suit a specialized climber.

But make no mistake, this bike is all about speed. Over a 40km simulated time trial at 300 watts it came in 65 seconds faster than the Fuji SST and 55 seconds faster than the Altamira.

I was able to find only one downside to this bike: when changing from the 53 to the 39 chainring I dropped the chain a number of times. There’s a built-in chain catcher on the bike but it doesn’t seem to work 100% of the time. Despite some frantic tweaking I wasn’t able to completely eradicate this annoying little glitch. However, I only rode the one bike so there’s no way of knowing if the problem occurs across the range.

Putting that to one side, this is a beautiful bike that’s FAST, handles well in all conditions, is surprisingly comfortable to ride, can be ridden downhill into sharp bends with confidence, looks fantastic and delivers very good bang for your buck.