The Cipollini RB800 is Fast, Stiff, and Ready to Climb
The Cipollini RB800 is one of the company’s oldest models, the third Cipollini I’ve ridden, and the one I like the most. Here’s why.
Cipollini presents itself as a manufacturer of ultra-premium, made-in-Italy (the company has recently opened a second manufacturing facility in Bosnia), high-performance bikes. Its figurehead is Mario Cipollini, a great sprinter, a World Champion, and one of the most flamboyant riders ever. The brand presents the image that the bikes are designed with a lot of input from Cipollini himself, who, based on the company’s slick and often over-the-top videos in which he stars, is still very fit and fast.
Basically, the brand is all about speed and flash. Brand parallel, Ferrari: made in Italy, race-influenced, high-performance, unmistakable looks.
Cipollini has cultivated this image, which creates expectations about how its products perform.
Thefirst Cipollini I rode was the Bond. It was much more refined and less raw than I expected. I thought it rode like a Trek. That’s not an insult to Trek—the Bond was a good bike. My point is, if you bought a Ferrari, you’d be let down if it drove like a Lexus.
Cipollini #2 was the RB1000. If you asked a 10-year-old to draw you a cool-looking road bike, he’d probably sketch something like the RB1000. It’s one of the most uncompromised race bikes on the planet: It looks fast and feels fast. I thought it was super entertaining, but like a track-spec Ferrari, I’d race it, but it is not a bike I’d want to ride day in and day out.
Which brings me to the RB800. This is my favorite Cipollini because it’s a smoother riding and more well rounded bike than the RB1000, but still an exotic, high-performance bike with an edge.
It’s the brand's lightest bike (970g frame, claimed, unpainted size medium) and as its stiffness-to-weight optimized model, it uses rounder tube shapes. It’s still a stylish bike that looks fast, with a seat mast, rear wheel cutout, and short headtube. It is especially flashy when done up with fluorescent highlights like my review sample. The finish is beautiful, the finely woven exterior layer of carbon is smooth and obviously laid in the mold with care. The slickly integrated chain keeper is a nice touch, and the frame features internal routing compatible with both electronic and mechanical drivetrains.
It has an integrated seat mast, which looks pretty and is claimed to create a lighter, smoother-riding bike. Of course, it comes with challenges too: The bike can only be re-sold to someone with the same, or shorter, saddle height; and the bike can’t break down as small for traveling. My review bike had a sticky seat mast head clamping system. I got it sorted eventually and had no further issues, but I expect more from $6000 frames.
My review bike was built with Campagnolo Super Record; Bora One tubular wheels; Vittoria Corsa tubulars; FSA OS99 stem and K-Force handlebar; and the surprisingly comfortable Selle Italia SLR Tekno Flow saddle. The price is $5,999 for the frameset; $12,854 as built according to Cipollini dealer Wrench Science. My size small review bike weighed 14.6 pounds.
The RB800 rides a lot like you might expect. It is a light and stiff bike, with few concessions to comfort. It’s reactive and almost jumpy, one of those bikes that seems to magnify a rider's inputs instead of dilute them. Add power or initiate a turn, and things happen right now. It’s a bike that responds well to light inputs; it doesn’t need to be manhandled, but it can be. The RB800 is no delicate flower: It can take being thrown around and pushed hard. Frame stiffness is very good, it handles well, and it provides plenty of feedback.
The RB800 is supposed to be the climbing bike in Cipollini’s line, but, with all its stiffness and reactivity, it's still fun to unload a sprint aboard one. But, yeah, this is a really fun bike to go uphill with. You even don’t need to be a fast climber (I’m not) to appreciate how this bike performs on inclines. The low bars come up, and all that stiffness, lightness, and feedback makes you feel like none of your effort is wasted. Plus, it handles really well while going down the other side of the mountain.
The RB800 filters out low-level vibrations okay, and there is a touch of give on bigger bumps. But this is a bike that isn't shy about communicating with the rider. It transmits a good bit of feedback and sharper strikes pulse easily though the frame; a few popped me right out of the saddle. It does not coddle the rider, but the ride is much more all-day friendly than the RB1000.
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But not every bike needs to be the smoothest, cushiest, and most vertically complaint. Comfort is subjective and cannot be quantified; best bike feel is a matter of personal preference. If you want to feel the pavement; and if you like a bike that feels fast because it feels uncompromised, the RB800 is one of those bikes. If you like a lot of compliance and isolation, it is not the bike for you.
There were a couple quirky frame design things I noticed. I have small feet (size 41) and I occasionally struck my heels on the stays. I strongly encourage riders who wear large cycling shoes, or riders who ride toes out/heels in, to test ride before buying.
The second quirky thing was the shape around the bottom bracket. The RB800 uses the BB386EVO standard. The primary (supposed) advantage of this standard is frame stiffness. The large diameter and wide shell provide a lot of space to attach larger tubes, and allow wider stance chainstays where they join the BB.
But on the RB800, the BB juts out from where the tubes attach, leaving a lot of real estate unused, which seems to run counter to the advantages of the standard. While the RB800 is certainly quite stiff, perhaps it could have been stiffer. But what do I know? I’m a bike tester, not an engineer.
The RB800 is intended to be set up with a low and stretched-out riding position. I like using stack and reach because those measurements factor out seat-angle shenanigans. In the size small RB800 I tested, stack is 525.3mm and reach is 386mm. For comparison, a Specialized Tarmac in a 54cm is 543mm stack and 387mm reach; a Focus Izlaco Max in a medium is 537mm stack and 390mm reach; a Trek Emonda SLR in 54cm H1—Trek’s most aggressive geometry, and one of the longest and lowest bikes outside of a custom—is 526mm stack and 390mm reach.
The crazy RB1000 is even shorter stack and longer reach than the RB800.
It’s a slammed stem, and a lean and limber fit. Again, comfort is subjective and a lot of what constitutes a “good fit” is personal preference. But, outside of people with very short legs and very long torsos, this is a bike for those who prefer generous saddle-to-bar drop. There are a few options to get around that, though none of them are perfect: you could ride a smaller size frame with lots of spacers under the stem (potentially unsafe) or turned up stem (ugly); or a larger frame with a shorter stem (goofed-up handling).
Or you could just ride the bike with a lot of drop because you love the aura of the bike and are willing to put up with the compromises because, practicality be damned, it’s what you’ve always wanted. And as far as practicality-be-damned bikes go, this is one of the practicality-be-damnedest.
Cipollini isn’t a brand people who shop by rear derailleur spec will consider, but there’s still a worthwhile value discussion in here. The RB800 debuted in 2010 (it received BB386EVO a couple years later) and rides like what we considered was the ultimate in high performance back then. But today the best of the new crop of carbon race-style bikes are lighter, and feel stiffer, livelier, and more compliant than the RB800. Measured on pure performance, Giant’s TCR Advanced SL 0, for example, is a much better bike for less money. But to some people, one is “just” a Giant, while the other is a Cipollini and that’s all that matters.
I liked this Cipollini because it felt every bit as exotic as it is, but was just soft enough at the edges that I could see myself riding it every day. For a lot of reasons, this is not a bike for everyone. But I think if you’re drawn to the RB800, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s everything you think it is.
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