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Scott Foil 20 Disc – first look

Scott’s new aero disc weapon arrives for review - and it's a stunner

Let us take you back to the first day of Eurobike last year, when we first clapped eyes on the new Scott Foil Disc. It left a lasting impression – in the flesh, it was a stunning-looking bike in the full ‘Premium’ guise, complete with Shimano Dura-Ace R9170 Di2 groupset and Zipp 303 NSW hoops. It had a stunning price tag to go along with it, too – with just a pound change from £11,000. Gulp.

– Scott launch Foil Disc aero bike for model year 2018 –

However, we’re big fans of good-value propositions as much as we are of dream bike material, so we’ve got our hands on the Foil 20 Disc, the cheapest of the Foil Disc offerings at £3,299. That’s still a lot of money, no doubt about it, but it’s a whole chunk less than the flagship bike.

The Scott Foil 20 Disc comes with Shimano Ultegra for £3,299 (Pic: Ashley Quinlan/Factory Media)

The key difference is the type of carbon fibre used. Whereas the Premium gets Scott’s top-level HMX carbon layup, the Foil 10 Disc (Shimano Ultegra Di2, £4,299) and Foil 20 Disc (Shimano Ultegra mechanical, £3,299) we have here use the Swiss brand’s HMF blend. HMX carbon fibre is claimed to be 20 per cent stiffer than HMF for the same weight – but it’s three times more expensive. As a result, the flagship Foil Disc frame weighs 970g, whereas the second-tier model comes in at a claimed 1,090g. That’s nothing unusual – almost every brand will use different types of carbon fibre through a range – but it provides some context to the Foil Disc line-up.

The tube profiles are the same regardless of what bike you choose, as is the aggressive geometry. This sees a 73 degree, 170mm headtube married to a horizontal top tube length of 565mm in the large sized bike on test, with a 410mm chainstay length, which remains the same across all sizes of the disc brake frame.

The bike’s raison d’être is aerodynamic efficiency, and Scott has retained the major shapes and ‘comfort zone’ features of the rim brake version, but took advantage of the recent relaxation in the UCI’s 3:1 tube profile regulation to introduce a redesigned fork and develop integrated shrouds around the dropouts. These help shield the calipers from the wind and result in a claimed net benefit of – wait for it – half of a single watt when rolling at 40km/h. At the back, Scott has also beefed up the brake-side chainstay with a squarer profile to help balance the disc brake forces.

Thanks to the greater clearance afforded by disc brakes and the redesigned fork, there’s clearance for 30c rubber and 28c Continental Grand Sport Race tyres are installed as standard – the benefits of which we’re looking forward to sampling on typical UK roads. The days of 23c tyres being standard on race bikes are long gone, but it’s remarkable how quickly the jump has been made from 25s to 28s. The Foil Disc joins the likes of the 3T Strada and new Orro Venturi as a wide-tyred, disc-specific aero bike.

“Thanks to the greater clearance afforded by disc brakes and a redesigned fork, there’s clearance for 30c rubber and 28c Continental Grand Sport Race tyres are installed as standard”

If you look closely you’ll find DT Swiss’s RWS thru-axle technology, designed to make wheel changes slicker, badged by Scott’s in-house component brand, Syncros. In fact, Syncros provides the entire finishing kit for the Foil 20 Disc, from the RR2.0 Disc wheelset and semi-integrated stem and bar setup, to the proprietary aero carbon seatpost and saddle.

The fork shrouds the disc brake caliper (Pic: Ashley Quinlan/Factory Media)

The groupset is Shimano Ultegra R8020 (that is, mechanical shifting and hydraulic disc brakes), and we’re delighted to see Scott has also included the silver-finned Ultegra RT800 rotors, too. They look especially smart and are part of a superb all-round setup, as we found when we first rode the latest Ultegra disc brakes in Austria.

Finally, not to over-emphasise the vanity side of things, but we think the glossy navy blue and striking red colour scheme looks absolutely fantastic – sleek yet very striking. We’ll see if the ride can live up to our lofty expectations.

Price: £3,299.00
Website:
Scott Sports

Something for the weekend showcases our pick of the latest tech to arrive at RoadCyclingUK. You can see more here.

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