BMC’s Teammachine SLR range has long been the brand’s WorldTour workhorse, but with the arrival of the aero-focused Teammachine R last year, the future of the SLR looked uncertain. Now it’s been cleared up, well, at least a little: the fifth-generation Teammachine SLR 01 is leaner and lighter than before, with its sights set firmly on the climbs.
For those who prioritise weight more than anything, they will be glad to see that the SLR is alive and kicking. This fifth generation serves as a subtle evolution of the previous SLR. The key takeaway is that SLR has been on a diet, shedding more than 200 grams off the existing frame, fork, and seat post.
To unveil the new bike and give journalists an initial experience with the new bike on its preferred terrain, BMC invited journalists to a launch in Andermatt, Switzerland. As well as the mountain passes, I put the bike through its paces on some more rolling terrain around Biel, just a stone’s throw from where BMC’s headquarters can be found.
This might not be the typical long-term review you are used to finding on Escape Collective, but the 450 or so kilometres of riding I put on the bike gave me enough time to understand the evolution of the SLR 01 platform as well as ponder who this bike is for.
Good stuff: It is a pinpoint-accurate bike on descents. The front end encourages you to get off the brakes earlier and hold more speed, especially through higher-speed corners. The SLR 01 is comfortable and forgiving, making it more appealing for those outside of the peloton than the firmer ride of the Teammachine R.
Bad stuff: Hard to look past the $/€13,000 price (the lower two models both retail for $/€8,500). At 6.6 kg claimed weight for 54 cm, it’s not the lightest in its category. Optimisation for 26 mm tyres limits real-world versatility, and the lack of cockpit customisation may be a barrier for fit-conscious riders. The stock gearing doesn’t make sense for the terrain the bike is intended for.
What’s new?
At first glance, the new Teammachine SLR 01 looks much like its predecessor – refined, not reinvented. Subtle design tweaks like a narrower fork, a more sculpted head tube, and a slimmed top tube junction improve aerodynamics and shave weight. The bold graphics disguise a reworked chassis beneath the surface.
There’s also been a change in the internal pecking order. When the last-generation Teammachine SLR launched, there was no Teammachine R. BMC had the Timemachine Road, but that was a different beast entirely. With the R now filling the “do-it-all race bike” slot with a deep head tube, wide stance deep-section fork, and a seat tube that traces the rear wheel, the SLR has been freed up to chase lightness at the expense of outright aero performance. The SLR is no longer the everyman WorldTour bike; it’s a mountain specialist.
The SLR 01’s stiffness in the drivetrain axis has remained the same as the R, however, the reduction in weight helps to boost the frame's stiffness-to-weight ratio, something the brand identified as a key metric in the bike's creation, even if there is far more nuance to a performance road bike than this figure in isolation.
Ronan Mc Laughlin
The big headline is weight. Compared to the previous SLR 01, BMC’s engineers have managed to shed 16% of the chassis mass. That’s 222 grams trimmed across the frame, fork, and seatpost. Stack it up against the Teammachine R, and the SLR is now 287 grams lighter, bringing the total chassis weight to a claimed 1,173 grams in a size 54 cm.
Most of those gains came from targeted redesigns around the PF86 bottom bracket (yep, it’s still that) and fork, slimming down high-mass areas without sacrificing stiffness. It’s not the lightest on the market; bikes like the Scott Addict RC and Specialized Aethos fight for that crown, each around 60 grams lighter than the SLR 01.
BMC approached the weight reduction from three angles: material selection, frame shaping, and cosmetics.
“When you see a finite element model, it shows the stress on the surface,” Stefan Christ, head of R&D, explained. “We know exactly which combination of materials and fibre angles to use at every point on the bike, so no material is left that doesn’t serve a function.”
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The result is a frame with rounder, more traditional-looking tube profiles, designed for optimal stiffness-to-weight. Compared to both the outgoing SLR and the current Teammachine R, the new SLR’s tubes are slimmer and simpler, not just for aesthetic minimalism but to improve structural efficiency, allowing the same stiffness to be achieved with less material.
You’d be forgiven for assuming that this weight loss came at the cost of aerodynamics. And yes, the SLR gives up a little in that department to its R-series sibling. But BMC says that compared to the previous-gen SLR, this one is faster, edging closer to the aero performance of the R. Tested as a whole system of bike and rider, the new SLR 01 is claimed to be 2.2% more efficient, however, the test specifics weren't shared, so we can't know if the figures are truly comparable.
BMC did go on to explain, “If we look at the bike only, the difference [between the previous SLR 01 and the new one] is 12%, meaning the Teammachine SLR 01 is only 4% slower than Teammachine R 01. Making it the fastest climbing bike on the market (according to BMC's testing).” With the brand remaining tight-lipped on the exact parameters of the testing, or which bikes it was compared against, that last claim in particular feels tenuous at best.
What about comfort? BMC says the new SLR 01 retains the ride quality of the previous model. Their in-house testing claims the frame still delivers 14 mm of saddle deflection under a simulated pothole impact with an 80 kg rider. BMC weren’t keen to commit to any hard numbers on exactly how much the vertical compliance of the bike has been improved. In the press release, it said, “We don't have enough production data to make a precise claim. However, the Teammachine SLR 01 is more compliant by about 5 to 8% based on our development data.” Again, without real data that claim is impossible to evaluate.
That said, there are ever-so-slight geometry tweaks elsewhere. Tyre clearance has increased: the SLR 01 is now compatible with 32 mm rubber, up from 30 mm previously. Oddly enough, the handling is optimised around a 26 mm tyre, but the added room is a welcome nod to real-world road conditions, not just immaculate Swiss tarmac.
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