Dolan ADX Titanium 105 Di2 review

Titanium endurance machine with Shimano’s new 105 Di2

This competition is now closed

By Warren Rossiter

Published: March 5, 2023 at 4:00 pm

Liverpool-based Dolan has been designing its own-brand bikes under founder Terry Dolan since 1977.

With close ties to British cycling and track racing, its range covers everything from road bikes and time-trial machines to gravel bikes, tandems and electric bikes.

Dolan’s ADX Titanium is the brand’s take on the classic endurance bike, with a smart, brushed-finish 3Al/2.5V tubeset built into a semi-sloping frame.

Proper mudguard mounts and provision for rear racks make it a truly year-round machine, adding commuting and light touring to the ADX’s endurance credentials.

The geometry is classic road bike, with a steep, 74-degree head and similarly upright 73.5-degree seat angle, though the riding position is relaxingly upright, with a tall 623mm stack and short 390.2mm reach.

I thought this might make the bike feel too sedate, but the steepness of the head angle combined with the straight-legged fork make the steering quick. The ADX feels responsive thanks to the stiffness through the bottom bracket.

The ADX is available from £2,399 with mechanical Shimano 105, to £6,449.99 for a model with Dura-Ace Di2. I opted for the new 105 Di2 to get a bit of the flagship feel for less than half the price.

What usually marks out a titanium frame is a softer spring than you get with quality steel frames.

Dolan’s ADX, however, feels more like the spring of steel, which means the bike’s great fun to ride, with quick handling and a position that’s very easy to live with. In short, the ADX offers everything you’d want from an endurance bike.

I found Shimano’s new 105 Di2 impressive. It shares the same 12-speed gearing as its more expensive siblings, though with fewer gearing options available.

My test bike’s climbing-friendly 50/34 chainset and 11/34 cassette’s 1:1 bottom gear kept me spinning up the steepest climbs though.

The rear derailleur’s shifting is pretty much indistinguishable from the more expensive Ultegra Di2. And while its front shifts aren’t quite as quick as Ultegra, the motor-assisted shifts under load between chainrings are dependable and accurate.

The levers lack the additional buttons of Ultegra and Dura-Ace, so you can’t control your Garmin head unit hands-free. Thankfully, the 105 Di2’s semi-wireless design means you can connect to your Garmin or Wahoo head unit to show your gearing and each battery’s individual level.

The derailleurs are powered by a wired seatpost-mounted battery, with the levers using coin cell batteries.

Shimano has improved 105’s braking too, with a more progressive lever action that gives more feel than ever.

The distance between the pad and rotor has been increased by 10 per cent to reduce the likelihood of rubbing, which seemed to work, though on a couple of wet rides I did get a bit of brake squeal under hard braking.

Mavic’s understated Cosmic SL road bike wheels are reasonably light and have a 32mm-deep rim with a 21mm internal width. Their special shaped and sealed rim bed makes them very easy to set up and maintain as tubeless.

Their stiff, solid feel is classic Mavic. The 9-degree engagement freehub picks up quickly and the wheels’ tautness balances the smooth-riding titanium frame.

The tyres are even more impressive. Continental’s 28mm GP5000s are superb: compliant, fast, grippy and durable. Be aware they’re not the tubeless version, though.

Dolan finishes off the ADX with a smattering of quality Italian components, including Deda’s dependable Zero stem and bar. The stem is stiff and light, while the bar has a good shape with a big, hand-friendly semi-compact drop and nicely ovalised tops.

It’s well complemented by Deda’s tacky and grippy all-weather tape.

Alpina’s titanium seatpost is polished to match the frame and is topped with Selle Italia’s well-padded Novus saddle, with a full-length channel and split nose that I found comfortable as the hours – and miles – mounted up.

Dolan has succeeded in producing a quality year-round bike at a very reasonable price with the ADX.

My only niggle with the bike is that one of the down tube’s welded-in bottle bosses had a very coarse thread that wasn’t aligned perfectly.

Ideally, this thread would have been chased out properly when the bike was assembled, but that’s a tiny thing on a well-priced bike with a quality ride.

Senior technical editor

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).