In what is one of the most highly-anticipated launches of the year, Specialized has today unveiled the latest iteration of its flagship race bike, the Tarmac, with the launch of the Tarmac SL8.
What’s more, in a totally-uncoincidental twist, after remaining under wraps at the recent Tours de France, the new Tarmac also breaks cover today at the World Championships beneath Remco Evenepoel, Julian Alaphilippe and various other Specialized-sponsored athletes.
After a series of leaked documents, some of which so significant that Specialized was forced to respond, the new Tarmac is finally now officially ‘out there,’ and it is accompanied by a series of marketing claims that, even by Specialized’s own standards, are incredibly lofty.
The brand not only says the bike is the “lightest on the WorldTour” with a frame weight of 685g, but the “world’s fastest race bike” too. That’s alongside a reported increase of 33% in stiffness to weight, and a 6% bump in compliance when compared to the outgoing Tarmac SL7. It would appear that Specialized is pretty proud of itself with this one.
The brand claims the bike will save 16.6 seconds over a 40km time trial when compared to the SL7, and in a couple of comically specific examples, 20 seconds over the Col du Tourmalet or 128 seconds over the 294km course of Milan-San Remo.
“It eclipses the 2020 Venge as the most aerodynamic road bike we’ve ever made, the chassis [frame, fork and seatpost and cockpit] is over 200g lighter than SL7, and it improves upon the same handling characteristics from the tried-and-true Tarmac,” the brand boasted in its press release.
To get there, Specialized says it focussed on “aero where it actually matters,” opting instead to save weight “where aerodynamics matters less or not at all.” That approach led to an increased aero focus on the front end, where the head tube has gained a new forward-protruding nose cone (called the… uh.. Speed Sniffer), and the two-piece bar and stem are replaced by the recently-launched Rapide cockpit. Meanwhile at the rear, engineers took learnings gained during the development of the lightweight Aethos to reduce weight and improve compliance.
In detail: what’s new?
There’s a lot to unpack here. The silhouette of the Tarmac SL8 is still unmistakably Tarmac. The DNA from the previous edition is certainly still evident, but in an…
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