Cycling the Swiss Alps on a “Secret” New Bike

I was invited to try the new BMC Teammachine SLR in the Swiss Alps… but I’m not an actual cycling journalist. This is my attempt at a “first look” review. Switzerland was amazing, btw.

Teammachine SLR 01

Thanks to @tristantakevideo for the High Alps photo in the thumbnail (sorry about the triathlon joke)

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when one of the most prestigious bicycle manufacturers in the world invited me to join members of the press in Switzerland to ride an unreleased bike I probably should have told them I’m not a bicycle journalist i’m a YouTuber who wears his helmet indoors but I wasn’t going to pass up a free trip to Switzerland so I quickly replied “Sounds great.” before they could change their minds and I’m proud to say I infiltrated the launch successfully and discovered key insider information like what bike it is that the it’s it’s the new BMC T- Machine SLR but now I’m back home and the embargo date has arrived and I need to produce a bike review so here’s the plan i’m going to take you behind the scenes and show you what it’s like going to a bike lunch event and hopefully along the way I can figure out how to make a bike review we’ll start with specs and then we’ll get to the fun stuff like ride feel and the less fun stuff like price shortly after arriving in Andermat Switzerland a quaint mountain village just north of the Italian border the real journalists and I were shephered into a room for a short presentation on the bike i’ll give you the first stat they gave us the new frame is 16% lighter than the previous version to illustrate how substantial a savings that is the marketing team began dismembering an innocent bike frame right in front of us all of those fragments being held by the head of R&D weigh 222 g which is the exact weight savings on the size 54 frame the full size 54 bike is listed at 6.6 kilos without pedals the size 56 that I rode weighed just over 6.7 kilos 14.8 lb making it the lightest bike I’ve ever ridden unlike the bike I am not ultra light currently weighing in at 80ish kilos 176 lb i was quickly dropped on the first climb the next day [Music] oh man I’m pretty quick i later learned the lead group did the almost hour-long climb at 5 watts per kilo i had no idea how strong bike journalists were another reason I’m not qualified steifu took pity on me and and rode with me after I was dropped while I was wheezing my way up the climb he shared his origin story you see some people began building bicycle frames with pedestrian materials like steel or titanium what materials were you building with always carbon really in your garage but Steifu sourced aircraft foam carved it into the precise shape that he wanted and then wrapped said foam with carbon fiber to create his first bike frame pretty much like a surfboard wow he also shared a secret on why BMC bikes feel so good while descending but we’ll talk about that later that evening we were treated to a nice dinner with the Andermat tourism board and the tutor cycling team as they officially announced their partnership you can now bring Andermat is making a big push to become a premier cycling destination the first day’s riding was incredible and tomorrow we would get to finally go into the high mountain passes as long as the weather cooperated but now it was time for another presentation this time all about aerodynamics reducing the weight of the frame they also reshaped the tubes but it still maintains that classic BMC look but with rounder edges and a reduced frontal area for those sweet arrow gains how many gains well when measuring the bike alone it’s 12% faster than the previous T- machine and compared to their dedicated arrow bike they claim a CDA only 4.22% higher at 45 km an hour 4.01% if you put BMC’s Aero handlebars on the bike those handlebars are pretty narrow and you’re going to want to check with Daddy UCI first the top-of-the-line package I was riding comes stocked with Shramm Red there is a Dura Ace version of course if you prefer it’s outfitted with UCI safe 40 mil 40 mil 40cm handlebars and 38mm DTI wheels and 26 mm Pirelli P0 tubeless tires there was a bit of grumbling in the room after they told us about those 26 mil tires it’s 2025 after all and we love our big tires not everyone has perfect Swiss tarmac right outside their door for example I ride 32 mm tires here in Los Angeles because the roads look like the weathered face of a 100-year-old with extreme sun damage but fear not my fellow big tire babies it officially has clearance for up to 32 millimeter tires and you might be able to get away with a little bit more i do think that those DT Swiss wheels have like a pretty narrow internal rim width so if you’re going to run wider tires and you still want those arrow advantages you might want to swap those bad boys out or you could just move to Switzerland and keep the package wheel set in tires your choice uh first impressions of the bike let’s see it’s light lively uh I will be honest I’m just trying to survive the climb it’s hard to focus on how the bike feels luckily after a beautiful descent I was recovered enough to actually do my job and pay attention to the bike [Music] and I was very happy to discover that despite being a lightweight climbing bike it wasn’t noodly it had no performance anxiety it was super stiff and ready to go we’re not going to compromise stiffness yes it’s a light bike but it still has a great power transfer and to be very honest it was not easy kind of shocked me how quickly it took off i I hadn’t really stomped on pedals for a couple of months cuz I’ve been recovering from a hamstring injury but o I miss that feeling tristan take photo was at the event taking photos cuz he had broken his elbow at a triathlon a few days prior and couldn’t join us on the ride how’s your ride going oh my rod let that be a lesson kids about the dangers of triathlons anyway I saw Tristan and the BMC marketing team were taking photos on the side of a short climb up ahead so I punched it and afterwards Tristan told me he was surprised at how quickly I was moving up the climb was he just being polite or had the bike temporarily turned me into a grand tour puncher i’m fully cooked the next day we would climb for Pass an allegedly beautiful climb that I’m going to have to go back to because I can’t see anything i feel bad for the BMC team cuz you put all this time and effort into this bike launch and the weather does this i have to say even without the weather or even with the weather rather I’m enjoying this i keep hearing voices behind me looking i don’t see anything could be other people from the event or it could be Swiss ghosts we really don’t know both are equally plausible i mean look at this i was in fog almost the entire hour and 10 minutes it took me to climb near the top the fog did break and I have to admit it’s you know it’s it’s not too bad to look at try to get over here so you can see wow that was actually a really fun climb very foggy i don’t know where we’re going so I’m just waiting for people so I can go to the right place so on the team machine the 7.4% average grade felt very doable for an average cyclist like me lots of snails look at all these guys 1 2 3 4 and I think a lot of that has to do with the weight of the bike and how the power transfer is so efficient whenever you talk about weight in bikes you get a lot of opinions real quick a common refrain in the comment section is just lose little weight instead of buying a lighter bike just go take a big before you ride look well first of all I’ve done both of those things i lost a couple of kilos last year and I did get faster but it was a lot of work even with the nutritionist helping me and to be honest once I stopped all that weight came back whether I’m the weight I was last year or the weight I am now on a ride like this a lighter bike is still going to be faster than a heavier bike doesn’t matter if I weigh more or less bikes don’t gain weight people do but that’s for another video focus bike review so the previous day again when I was suffering on the climb Stefu told me about his passion for geometry and specifically trail figures that’s the angle created by your head tube in the spot where the front tire touches the ground simplified a low trail number often makes a bike feel twitchier a high trail number makes it feel more stable steifu said they have a very specific trail figure on their bikes that helps to give them that unique BMC feel but I missed what he said and I was too ashamed to ask him to repeat it uh thus proving again another reason why I’m a a bad journalist i’m not a journalist luckily it was in the press packs they sent after the event and that magic number is 63 mm it’s a pretty big trail for a road bike on my first descent I was surprised at how familiar the bike felt for some reason it felt a lot like my road machine BMC’s endurance bike and wouldn’t you know it the road machine and the T- machine just so happen to share the same trail figure when you’re descending it it feels like you’re on rails the bike almost locks in on a turn it’s predictable it goes exactly where you’re aiming it just don’t get distracted by the Swiss Countryside if I were to compare this bike to the other road bikes I’ve ridden which is relatively easy because I haven’t ridden a lot of road bikes it’s fast and punchy like the RA spree and the handling is sharp without being just like the road machine that combination punchy and predictable makes it very good in two specific situations climbing and descending on the clims when you’re exhausted and maybe a little sloppy just trying to survive i’ve heard sometimes that happens on clims because it’s stable like the wheels not twitching around as as you are and on the descents when the bike gets going fast it hits the sweet spot where the handling is just right if I had to nitpick and I don’t have to but I’m going to on the flats it’s pretty good but it doesn’t quite have that full arrowike whooshing sensation and at slower speeds between the clims it’s not as peppy as a traditional race bike might feel it’s down to business it’s not an Australian Shepherd it’s a Greyhound that’s not a perfect analogy cuz Greyhounds don’t climb mountains you know what forget about it what I’m trying to say is this it’s not that this bike is boring at all it’s a fun bike in a very precise Swiss kind of way you You just have to use it as it’s intended it’s a product of its environment smooth Swiss tarmac steep climbs filled with switchbacks and long winding descents that’s where this bike belongs that’s where it thrives and the funny thing is it convinces you that you belong there too not in Switzerland although if you haven’t been I highly recommend starting a YouTube channel grinding out for a couple years until you somehow trick a Swiss bike company into flying you there big shout out to everybody or perhaps easier you can just book a trip to Anderat yourself if unlike me you actually make money it is beautiful what I mean is this bike convinces you that you belong in the mountains even if you’re not a traditional climber we’ve already talked about my weight in the normal world I’m considered a slightly tall skinny guy but in the cycling world I’m a big boy i should be on the flats riding an arrowike not climbing in the mountains with my friends who weigh less than the breakfast I ate this morning but that’s where I want to be and this riding this bike makes me feel like I don’t know maybe I can be a climber of course when you see the price tag you might wake up from that beautiful dream because like every other high-end bike these days it’s about as much as a trip to Switzerland 12,999 USD for the top tier models it’s a premium Swiss product is it worth it you have to ask yourself two questions do you like me yearn for the mountains and will your spouse still love you after they see the receipt of course if you’re already up in the mountains on the bike how are they going to find you damn she bad in the room big bags where you see her coming