This is the Specialized S-Works Shiv that Peter Sagan and his Bora-Hansgrohe teammates will ride on Stage 20 of the Tour de France. The frame is unchanged from 2017, however the fork is updated and Roval 321 rear disc wheel is new. Eric Shuda of Specialized also shown us the new disc brake wheels that the team will be using on their Venge and Tarmac road bikes.
Peter Sagan's Specialized S-Works Venge
Trek-Segafredo’s Trek Madone SLR Disc
Starting with the bike itself, Sagan hasn't really gone for anything totally bespoke or out of the ordinary here, not to the extent of Froome's 3D-printed tri bars anyway. The crank is the old Dura-Ace 9000 series with 56/44 chainrings, and has a new Specialized Power meter attached to it. The saddle is a Specialized TTS, and interestingly Sagan decides not to run any bar tape on his extensions; clearly the world champ isn't too fussy when it comes to TT comfort.
The only change to the frameset is in the carbon fork, which has been updated to take advantage of the more relaxed UCI rules.
The Bora-Hansgrohe team are using Specialized Roval wheels, and on their TT bikes they run clincher tyres rather than the usual tubulars you'd see on road bikes. This is because the latest research suggests that clinchers are faster, and with fast puncture repair not really a consideration in time trialling (if you get one your day is pretty much done) they'd rather go for the fastest configuration possible. Another big reason is that Specialized say their Turbo Cotton clincher tyre is the absolute fastest on the market according to their research; therefore the new Roval 321 disc wheel and the CLX 64 on the front are both dressed in 24mm Turbo Cotton clinchers.
The Roval 321 disc wheel weighs just over 1000g, with an asymmetrical aero shape on the non-driveside to take full advantage of the extra space. The Riding For Focus logo is part of the Specialized Foundation, which provides cycling equipment for children with ADHD and gives them an outlet and an energy release in cycling to help manage symptoms.
While the Shiv is still rim brake only, you may have noticed that Bora-Hansgrohe have mostly moved over to disc brakes on their road bikes. The brand new CLX 50 Rapide disc wheelset here is been debuted at the Tour and isn't available to the public. Specialized have reduced the weight on this version, and the finishing of the rim has been altered to eek out every last watt...
After cobbling together a few hundred quid during his student days off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story), Jack bought his first road bike at the age of 20 and has been hooked ever since. He joined road.cc in 2017 having previously being Staff Writer at 220 Triathlon magazine, and reports on all things tech as well as editing road.cc's live blog. He is also the news editor of our electric-powered sister site eBikeTips. Jack's preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking (the latter being another long story), and on Sunday afternoons he can often be found on an M5 service station indulging in his favourite post-race meal of 20 chicken nuggets, a sausage roll, caramel shortbread and a large strawberry milkshake.