Boardman has come a long way in its first decade. Aside from establishing itself in the UK and international markets, its bikes have also been ridden to victory on some of the biggest sporting stages in the world.

The most notable win came in 2008, just two years after the company’s birth, when Nicole Cooke took gold in the women’s road race at the Beijing Olympic Games. And thanks to the Brownlee brothers’ domination in triathlon, Boardman bikes have continued to rack up Commonwealth, World and Olympic titles since then (not to mention a victory in the 2012 Ironman Hawaii courtesy of Australia’s Pete Jacobs).

– Boardman unveil 2016 Elite range: see the British brand’s flagship bikes –

The Boardman line-up is split into two collections: Performance and Elite. The Performance range, which we’ll on focus on here, is sold through Halfords, while the high-end Elite bikes are available through Boardman’s network of independent bike shops. We’ve already covered the launch of the 2016 Elite range, which includes plenty of new bikes, including the SLR Endurance 9.9 with SRAM’s latest Red eTap wireless groupset, and the SLR Titanium.

With the launch of the 2016 Performance range, the company is looking to bring its bike-building expertise to riders on a tighter budget, with the cheapest bike, the Boardman Sport, costs £499, and the most expensive road bike in the range, the Boardman Road Pro SLR, coming in at £1,799. We’ll focus on the men’s bikes here, but for more on the women’s line-up, head over to Total Women’s Cycling.

Boardman Pro Carbon

Disc brakes find their way on to a Boardman Performance road bike for the first time in 2016 and arrive in the shape of Shimano hydraulic units on the Pro Carbon frame at £1,499.

The company has specced 160mm rotors on the grounds that the bigger diameter provides better speed control and heat dissipation under sustained braking than the smaller 140mm discs more commonly found on road bikes.

The rear disc brake is mounted on the chainstay of the Pro Carbon’s frame. Positioning it on a tube that’s inherently stiff means the seatstays don’t have to be beefed up to cope with the forces the brake exerts and can be kept slimmer to provide a more comfortable ride.

Shimano’s 105 components make up most of the Pro Carbon’s 11-speed drivetrain and are topped off with a Gossamer Pro aluminium chainset from FSA. The wheels are Boardman’s own and are shod with Vittoria Zaffiro Pro tyres.

The most eye-catching part of the whole package, however, is a similar chrome-finish paintjob to the Pro SLR, which makes the carbon frame and fork look like a highly polished work of metallic art.

Boardman Team Carbon

Coming in at £999, the Team Carbon gets the same frame and fork as the Boardman Pro but compromises have had to be made to keep the bike below a grand.

To that end the Team Carbon has to make do without the Pro Carbon’s fancy chrome paintjob, disc brakes and 11th sprocket, as the new 2016 Shimano Tiagra groupset is still ten-speed.

The groupset may be a sprocket down on Shimano 105 but it now has gear cables routed out of the rear of the shifters. Previous incarnations of the Tiagra shifters had the gear cables sprouting out of the side, which made for a messy front end. Now they can be run out of sight along the bars and beneath the bar tape – it’s a small change but improves the aesthetics no end. Tiagra also now has a four-arm chainset similar to Shimano’s more expensive groupsets.

Tiagra calipers perform the stopping duties by working on Mavic CXP Elite rims wrapped with 25mm-wide Vittoria Zaffiro Pro tyres.

We swung a leg over the Boardman Team Carbon at the Performance range launch. Check back for our thoughts on whether Boardman’s sub £1,000 carbon machine is as good as it sounds.

Boardman Sport

The same aluminium frame that graces the Boardman Comp is also at the heart of the Sport model. All that’s missing on the Sport version of the frame are the disc brake mounts. It’s dual-pivot callipers that take care of stopping on this £499 bike, while an eight-speed Shimano Claris groupset handles shifting between gears.

Wheels are a set of Mavic CXP rims shod with 25mm Vittoria tyres and it’s Boardman that supplies the aluminium bars, stem, seatpost and metal-railed saddle to match the metal frame.

Boardman Road TT

Boardman’s entry-level time trial bike uses an aluminium frame with a carbon fork and seatpost. The rear brake is hidden behind the bottom bracket, the cables are routed internally and the almost all of the tubes have some degree of aero profiling.

Cyclo-cross

There are also two cyclo-cross bikes in Boardman’s 2016 Performance range. The CX Comp comes in at £649 and the CX Team is a penny under a grand at £999.

Both are based around a triple-butted aluminium frame, but whereas the CX Comp’s fork has a chromoly steerer with alloy blades, the CX Team gets a tapered carbon fork.

Otherwise, the Comp is dressed in a nine-speed Shimano Sora groupset, with Tektra Lyra mechanical disc brakes. A compact 50-34t and 11-32t cassette ensure there are plenty of gears for climbing on a bike still capable of mixing it off road.

The Team is more of a thoroughbred cyclo-cross machine and comes with a 1×11 SRAM Rival groupset, with SRAM hydraulic disc brakes. Both ‘cross bikes have Mavic XM319 rims wrapped in Schwalbe Tyrago tyres.

Website: Boardman Bikes