Factor is debuting its newest road bike dubbed the MONZA, targeting riders who demand top performance without sacrificing practicality and durability.
“Across the world, passionate competitors balance family, careers, and life’s responsibilities while still pushing themselves to their limits on the bike. Their “World Championships” happen at local crits, club races, fast group rides, and solo breakaways at dawn. They commute to work, train in the dark, race on weekends, and push for personal bests whenever they ride. The MONZA is built for those who want to win on Sunday and train on Monday. It’s a true high-performance race bike that balances speed, efficiency, and real-world usability, without unnecessary complexity. The Factor MONZA is not a step down—it’s a step in the right direction,” says Factor.
When designing the MONZA, two features were crucial, the bike would have to handle like an elite WorldTour bike, yet offer a level of stiffness that was comparable to the Factor OSTRO VAM, while aerodynamics would be of equal importance, as would an optimum weight and overall durability.
“The MONZA is a bike that we have designed for riders like ourselves,” explains Graham Shrive, Factor’s Director of Engineering. “Engineers in the bike industry are not flashy people. We typically use our bikes extensively and we often come from a racing background and we’re drawn to being more value-focused and function-based. You want products functioning at the absolute top level but are not necessarily concerned about whether you have a couple of titanium cogs on your bike cassette.
Performance Oriented, Utility Proven
The MONZA proves that being fast and practical are not mutually exclusive; the two goals can meld into one exceptionally fast racing bike. Balancing speed, efficiency and real-world usability, the MONZA features an optimized carbon lay-up that ensures Factor’s signature responsiveness and sharp handling without driving up the weight or cost, along with sculpted tube shapes retain a high degree of aerodynamic efficiency while also being streamlined for efficiency in the manufacturing process. The resulting stiffness-to-weight ratio ensures explosive power transfer for snappy accelerations out of the final corner before the criterium finish line.
That might all sound vaguely familiar since these sorts of features are the goal of every racing bike on the market. However, the MONZA shines by recognizing that all cyclists driven to compete are not necessarily driven to every race. They are often racing straight from work to their Tuesday evening crits in business park parking lots. That means they have to come prepared with their own repair kits and inner tubes. Saddle bags are ubiquitous since they have remained the most common way to carry extra tools and replacement tubes.
As a result, Factor designed the MONZA to have its own built-in storage compartment, allowing enthusiasts to stow the aforementioned essentials.
BLACK INC WHEELS
For anyone who regularly needs to tackle terrible city street road conditions, the MONZA offers capacity for 34 mm tires enhancing both comfort and reducing the chance of punctures. The width provides the perfect balance between aerodynamics of modern wide tires on wide rims and real-world race adaptability.
The Black Inc FORTY-FIVE wheels are lightweight yet resilient, as effective climbing and descending mountains as they are cornering and sprinting in crits. This helps make the MONZA ideal for riders who race, train, and commute all on the same bike in all types of weather conditions and every sort of road surface.
The Gateway to Factor
The new MONZA is available as a frameset only for $4,000.00, which includes an aero seatpost and Factor’s HB04 one-piece handlebar, or as a complete bike with drivetrain options that span Shimano Ultegra and SRAM Force, with pricing at $6,800.00 and $7,000.00, respectively.
“Entering the market at a more accessible price point, the MONZA can introduce more riders to Factor’s elite level of engineering, craftsmanship, and racing pedigree. Though it is not intended for WorldTour competition, nothing in the design has been compromised. Rather it has been refined to provide amateur cyclists with practical features that enhance speed, performance, comfort, and functionality,” says Factor.
