Tarmac

Three weeks ago we walked through the leaked images of a new Tarmac and made the case that Specialized wasn’t about to blow up a proven formula. That call held up. The S-Works Tarmac SL9 is now official, and it’s exactly the kind of update the leaks suggested: real, measurable, and nowhere near as dramatic as the marketing copy wants it to sound. The headline numbers Specialized is calling the SL9 the fastest road bike it has ever built, and the case rests on three figures: a claimed frame weight of 687 grams, complete builds as light as 6.5 kg, and a 4-watt aerodynamic saving over the outgoing SL8 at 45 km/h in the wind tunnel. A dedicated Alpinist climbing build reportedly comes in at 6.1 kg. None of that is a leap. The frame is actually 2 grams heavier than the SL8’s, and 4 watts at 45 km/h is a number that matters mostly to WorldTour sprinters and time trial specialists chasing marginal gains, not to the rest of us. ...

Something is coming from Specialized, and the cycling internet has been trying to figure out exactly what since May 12. That’s when side-profile images of what appears to be a new Tarmac surfaced on Instagram, posted by an account called @czice_. The shots spread quickly — to BikeRadar, TrainerRoad forums, Weight Weenies, and everywhere else road bike obsessives gather to argue. Two weeks later, a second piece of evidence landed: video footage apparently showing Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe rider Florian Lipowitz aboard the same bike in Spain’s Sierra Nevada, with the person who posted it writing plainly in the caption, “Yes, that’s new S-Works SL9.” ...