US bike design meets motorsport composite experience to create new flagship frame
Specialized has presented a new aerodynamic road frame, dubbed the Venge, a special version of which has been developed with the McLaren Formula 1 team. The frame design itself was created at Specialized’s R&D team in Morgan Hill, California, with a great deal of wind tunnel time allied to computer aided design, but for the special S-Works McLaren version the iconic motorsport team’s Applied Technologies division has brought in its considerable resources and experience in composite technology.
The challenge Specialized set itself was to create an aero frame that was not appreciably heavier or flexier than its Tarmac frame, which is a trait common to a number of other aero road frames on the market. The S-Works version, which uses the same FACT IS 11R construction method as the Tarmac SL3, weighs in a 2179 grams for a 56cm module of frame, fork, seatpost and crankset, and, according to Specialized, boasts stiffness figures that eclipse its rivals.
The McLaren Venge, whose carbon layup has been developed by the British Formula 1 team, comes in at 2071 for the module and is considerably stiffer still.
The S-Works Venge is now available to buy, but the McLaren version will not be available until much later in the year; it will be showcased by Specialized’s three ProTeams (Astana, HTC-Highroad and Saxo Bank-SunGard) at this Saturday’s Milano-Sanremo though with nine riders, including big favourite Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) aboard the new frame with its distinctlive matt black and orange livery.
The following Specialized sponsored riders will be aboard the McLaren Venge at Milano-Sanremo: Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw (all HTC-Highroad), Baden Cooke, Juan Jose Haedo and Matteo Tosatto (all Saxo Bank-SunGard), and Allan Davis, Andriy Grivko and Tomas Vaitkus (all Astana).