BMC’s timemachine is such a fast performer, BMC needed four years to find a way to improve it. The new timemachine 01 is faster with no wind, faster in crosswinds, and easier to fit. In addition, if you need to carry stuff on the bike, there’s more room for it with less aerodynamic penalty. And the frame is UCI-legal across their size run.
The old timemachine had impressive straight line aerodynamics. The new timemachine improves on straight line aerodynamics, real world aerodynamics, and crosswind aerodynamics. The subA tube shapes have been further refined. Many profiles have been truncated, which doesn’t cost you at all in a headwind, better shrouds water bottles and gear, and is less susceptible to side-forces when riding in crosswinds. Added stability means you spend less time fighting your bike and more time laying out the watts. Shrouding water bottles is no small deal, as you need to carry water, and most wind tunnel tests do not account for this. With cage mounts on the seat tube and three bolts on the downtube, you can choose how you want your hydration. The downtube yields two positions for bottles, the lower is more aero, but if you have trouble reaching low, or want to run two bottles, use the upper position. The tube shaping makes the most dramatic improvements with round bottles, but aero bottles benefit as well.
In addition, the integrated bar/stem combo is faster. They actually have two different combinations sitting atop the improved bayonet fork. A raised V-cockpit that comes standard with complete bikes and is better for less flexible riders. And a flat-cockpit, that can come on the frameset, or can be ordered separately for the complete bikes. With the V, the stack spacers have a range of 590-705mm in height. With the flat, the range is 530-670mm. And with the flat setup, the base bar can be flipped over, giving you a range of 40mm below the stem to 40mm above the stem.
In both cases, particularly in the raised cockpit setup, the arm supports channel air more cleanly, reducing drag. And there are a set of top tube mounts midway back on the top tube for boxes. This might look unusual, but it worked out to be faster in the wind tunnel, so BMC departed from tradition to give you speed.
The fork itself has widely-spaced legs, giving the air an easier time flowing past the legs and wide rims. Both the fork and rear triangle can work with rims up to 28mm wide and tires up to 27mm wide. And the horizontal rear dropouts have adjustable stops, so you can position the wheel as close to the frame as possible regardless of the tire width.
The final aero touch is the rear storage box. This is not UCI-legal, but it is for multi-sport riders. It’s big enough to fit a tubular plus tools and inflator. The box mounts behind the seat post when the forward mounting option is employed.
To offer the most fit options in their P2P, Position 2 Perform, system, the seat post has a rearward mount and a forward mount. In addition, the saddle clamp has four positions. This yields a huge range of adjustment, going from a virtual to a virtual seat angle, with 124mm of total fore-aft adjustment.
To get the maximum speed out of a frame, integration is essential. That’s why the fork has integrated brakes, and the rear brakes hide under the chain stays. But BMC wasn’t satisfied with their earlier efforts on this front. They developed a brake booster system, giving you more power at your fingertips for less effort. They also developed something they call the quick-pad cartridge system. This makes it easy for you to swap pads from your carbon-specific race pads to your aluminum training wheel pads. Pulling and replacing cartridges is as easy as swapping pads on conventional brakes.
BMC embraces options. They have Dual Transmission Integration here. You can run electronic or mechanical, even hydraulic shifting. However, the complexity of running mechanical is such that they only offer complete bikes with electronic shifting and recommend it when you’re building up your own steed. Likewise, they utilize the BB86 bottom bracket standard.
The BMC timemachine 01 makes it easier to go faster, both for how it allows you to find the perfect position and for how it slices through the air outside.
