Wilier Granturismo SLR £8,680 81kg

Hannah Bussey gets to grips with a true Italian thoroughbred

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Pitching for a place among the best endurance road bikes, the Wilier Granturismo fills the gap left by the brand’s previous endurance bike, the Cento10 NDR. Having been impressed by the Italian brand’s Filante SLR and Adlar machines, I was looking forward to long miles on the Granturismo, an endurance-focused bike with the classic shorter reach and higher stack combination.

Comparing a size medium in both models, the Granturismo offers a much more upright riding position than the Filante SLR, with the former offering a stack height of 566mm and reach of 379mm while the latter’s figures are 538mm and 388mm respectively.

The slightly more relaxed angles of the seat tube (73.5° versus 74°) and head tube (72° versus 72.5°) plus a 5mm longer wheelbase also make clear that the Granturismo is a bike built with longdistance comfort in mind.

Badged as an all-day performance bike, the Granturismo has gone big on elements of design which aim to improve rider comfort and reduce fatigue.

At the heart of the comfort concept is what Wilier calls its ‘Actiflex 2.0 vibration damping system’. Located at the intersection of the seat stays and the top tube, the elastomer provides up to 5mm in vertical travel for the rear wheel. Updated since its first appearance in 2017, the Actiflex features a viscoelastic material – an elastomer – that can be tweaked with hard or soft settings. On the top-end models the viscoelastic material is swapped out with a 3D printed lattice widget that’s said to provide the same reflex, but reduce the overall weight by a further 20g.