Almost a year after Finn Iles started racing – including winning his first elite World Cup – on a new prototype downhill bike from Specialized, Loic Bruni looks to be trying out the same bike. The yet-unnamed DH rig shares some similarities with Specialized’s existing Demo downhill bike but also has a few key differences.
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The bike Bruni raced at the British Downhill Series stop in Fort William over the weekend also looks a little different than what Iles raced for much of the 2022 World Cup series. Bruni also looks to be running a telemetry set-up, so it is hard to pick out exact details. Bruni’s bike from Fort Bill looks like it uses a hard plastic covering over the bottom bracket and linkage area, whereas Iles’s bike is always running a fabric cover to conceal the exact details of the new design.
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Both bikes use a much more substantial chainstay than the existing Specialized Demo. They also share similar straight tubing in the front triangle. While concealed, by cloth or by hard covers, the suspension layout looks different than what Bruni raced to his fifth elite world championship title last fall. Iles has also shared that the sizing is different than the existing Demo sizing.
The first World Cup downhill of 2023 is still over a month away. But if Bruni is already racing the new Specialized there is a good chance we’ll see him racing it when the season starts in Lenzerheide, Switzerland in June.
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