We’ve all kind of known a new Specialized Tarmac was in the works. In a world of regular product cycles that you can almost set your watch by, the current Tarmac SL7 has been on borrowed time for a bit now. Mutterings of a new model have been rife on WeightWeenies too, with a few clues to whet the appetite.
Now, with an almost ‘oh finally’ mood to proceedings amongst the associated cycling tech community, some actual spy shots of the bike have emerged.
Naturally, this is all speculation, but from the images we can at least glean some things about the new model. We will get to that headtube in due course, don’t you worry.
Aero business at the front, lightweight party at the back
So far, we only have a couple of pictures to go on, so drawing any concrete conclusions is never really possible, but they do give us some ideas as to the design direction, and the inspirations just by staring at it and leafing through old Specialized product catalogues.
Specialized was perhaps not the first to create a ‘do it all race bike’ (I mean, it definitely wasn’t, as before aero bikes came along that’s what we all had), but with the high profile killing off of the Venge, it has certainly been at the forefront of the one-bike-only performance vanguard. Many other brands have coalesced around a more singular race platform in recent years, perhaps most notably Canyon with the new Ultimate, and Cannondale with the new SuperSix Evo, even if they do still have the Aeroad and SystemSix in their respective lineups.
Perhaps preempting the marketing to come, we can expect the new Tarmac (unless this is some entirely new machine) to be lighter, stiffer, more aerodynamic, and more comfortable.
We also expect that if it is indeed to be called the Tarmac, that Specialized will follow on from the SL6 and SL7 models, and call this the Tarmac SL8.
Despite the dwindling of…
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