Specialized Tarmac: Rider-First Engineered

The big story for Specialized’s road range this year – and by extension, for the industry, given the scale of the brand – is an updated Tarmac. Sighted as early as May (our first acquaintance came in Belfast, at the Grande Partenza of the Giro d’Italia), the new Tarmac first appeared in UK dealerships as S-Works framesets. Now, as the new model year gathers pace, the entire range, from the aforementioned flagship, to Expert and Pro models (and below that, the SL4 predecessor) is available.

Specialized has designed the new Tarmac around a design philosophy it calls Rider-First Engineered: in short, an extension of the brand’s previous commitment to size-specific tubing to include lay-up and geometry. Larger frames, typically ridden by more powerful riders, have been made stiffer even than the SL4 predecessor, while smaller models – in normal circumstances, the preserve of lightweight climbing types – have been made a touch more compliant to provide greater cornering stability.

“This is where we’re at an advantage, I guess, because of some of the teams that we work with,” Booth says – feedback from riders up to and including Tinkoff-Saxo leader, Alberto Contador, who had previously complained that his 52cm S-Works Tarmac was too stiff at the back end when descending through corners. Specialized’s testing involved telemetry systems designed by McLaren to measure forces on bottom bracket shell and headtube.

For the new Tarmac, a host of features change throughout the size range, from a tube’s external diameter to its wall thickness, and bearing size in the bottom bracket and lower headset cup (1-1/8″ will continue to be used at the upper bearing, for all sizes). “Put them side by side, from 49cm to 61cm, and you’ll see that there’s a massive difference,” Booth says.

The models that comprise the Tarmac range are many and varied, as you might imagine, but the edition that caught our attention was the S-Works Tarmac Disc, one of a rapidly expanding subset of racing bikes that, owing to UCI regulation, cannot be raced. Shimano (Specialized have moved away from SRAM’s hydraulic stoppers for MY2015) have made no secret of the fact that the first iteration of its hydraulic disc brake for road bikes differs little from its XT mountain bike stopper, but with 140mm rotors and a shapely STI lever, it doesn’t look entirely out of place on Specialized’s flagship race chassis.

Discreet routing of the hose through the non-driveside fork leg, and neat mounting of the rear caliper ‘inside’ the junction of chainstay and seat-stay makes the mtb-derived technology look almost at home (that said, we sincerely hope this won’t be the final statement on the matter from all parties). The flagship bike rolls on disc-specific incarnations of the toroidal profiled Roval CLX 40 hoops, shod with Specialized’s top-tier, file-tread rubber – the S-Works Turbo – in a 24c profile. Other exotic touches include Ceramic Speed bottom bracket bearings and carbon-railed Toupé Pro saddle. Oh, and Shimano Dura-Ace 9070 Di2 mechs. Yours for £8,000.