A bike frame and its components carry the ideas of its designer. They’re almost like little signatures, notes by the designer highlighting what they think is important about the bike and about the way you should ride. When Specialized’s Future Shock (initially called Road Control) debuted in 2016, you could see designer Chris D’Aluisio’s influence, drawing on his work from the ’90s at Cannondale developing the HeadShok Silk Road suspension fork. With the Opus Fortitude, I knew who was behind the bike as soon as I read the spec sheet.
Why Opus was missing a road bike for about six years
The Opus brand, based in Montreal, started in 2000 and launched five bikes for the 2001 season. It then grew to offer a dizzying array of bikes that included tri machines and enduro rigs. The company has since focused more on electric and traditional bikes for getting around town with a few sportier options for gravel and exploring. From 2019 to early 2025, a road bike was missing from the lineup. About two years ago, staff at Opus and its parent company, OGC, felt the need to get a road bike back into the stable. In fact, the chatter Opus heard from dealers was that interest was growing in the road side.
Raynald Deslauriers, the former head product manager at Opus, had spearheaded the company’s retired road bike, the carbon-fibre Allegro. He had shown me its 2016 incarnation in the summer of 2015. We took the Allegro on the roads north of Toronto. A smart fit system and good handling were priorities for Deslauriers. With that model, he introduced the bike’s progressive geometry. The stack increases by 2 cm as you move up model sizes, while the reach goes up by 9-mm increments. This system makes for some overlap, which has benefits I’ll get into later. For Opus’s latest road bike, Deslauriers drew on the old Allegro, including his progressive geometry, but made changes for the modern road rider.
Features of the Opus Fortitude
Recently, I spoke with Gabriel Savoie, Opus product manager for city, sport, road and gravel bikes, about the Fortitude. Why Savoie and not Deslauriers, you might ask? Well, as of July 2025, Deslauriers has been enjoying retirement.
Savoie noted that the major difference between the carbon-fibre Allegro and the aluminum Fortitude, other than frame material, is tire clearance. “We designed the Fortitude with 32c tires in mind and clearance up to 38,” Savoie…
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