Rafal Majka retired from professional cycling last weekend at Il Lombardia, helping his teamate Tadej Pogačar to yet another win. Here we’re taking a look back at one of our favourite bikes from his career, his polka dot Specialized Tarmac from the 2016 Tour de France.
The Polish rider retires after 15 years in the pro peloton, having started his career with Saxo Bank-Sungard alongside riders such as Alberto Contador and Richie Porte. Throughout his career he’s achieved Grand Tour podiums and stage wins, an Olympic bronze medal and the King of the Mountains title at the Tour de France.
Majka has also proven himself to be an invaluable climbing domestique for Pogačar, often one of the last riders by his side in the mountains. As Majka himself has said, his true calling in the sport has come from helping Pogačar.
In 2016, Majka won the polka dot jersey for a second time, following his first victory in 2014. And it seems almost traditional that a white and red polka dot custom frame must be created to match the jersey, and that’s precisely what Specialized decided to do. It’s an acquired taste.
At the time, Majka was teammates with Peter Sagan, who also rode a custom-painted Specialized – Sagan was on the aero-focused Venge (RIP), of course.
The polka dot jersey is awarded to the best climber and is perhaps the most recognisable of the classification jerseys. It certainly stands out well.
But why the polka dot design? One theory is that the first sponsor of the jersey was Chocolat Poulain, one of the oldest chocolate brands in France, and apparently, it sold chocolate bars with polka dot wrappers, and this lead to the inspiration for the design of the jersey.
Another version of events suggests that it was designed by Felix Levitan in memory of track racer Henri Lemoine, who wore a pea jersey that was orange on a white background.
His Tarmac frameset was complemented, if that’s the right word, by a similarly painted FSA K-Force seatpost, stem and handlebar, with red Supacaz bar tape, a and Prologo colour-matched saddle. Even SRM, makers of the most popular power meter in the peloton, were in on the fun with a polka dot PC8 computer head unit.
Majka’s bike was equipped with Shimano’s 11-speed Dura-Ace Di2 R9070 groupset with a power meter, identifiable by its chrome chainrings. Later that summer, Shimano launched the updated R9150 version, featuring black chainrings. Since then, the retail price of Dura-Ace Di2 has more than doubled.`
Even the Look Keo Blade Ti pedals were custom, featuring a lightweight titanium axle.
The only part of his bike that didn’t join the polka dot party were the Roval CLX 60 wheels, which, by today’s standards, featured a relatively narrow 17.3mm internal rim width.
6 thoughts on “As Rafal Majka hangs up his wheels, let’s revisit his custom 2016 polka dot Specialized Tarmac”
I reckon that’s pretty neat,
I reckon that’s pretty neat, but I’m not so keen on the bars, stem and seatpost. The smaller dots don’t match, I’d have gone for bigger ones or left them white. Also neat that it matches his national colours.
That looks very much like an
That looks very much like an Aethos to me.
The Aethos certainly has a
The Aethos certainly has a more traditional silhouette in common with the older Tarmac (before they dropped the seatstays on the latter), but the seat and chainstays on this are noticeably chunkier than the Aethos, the fork is deeper and the headtube has a double bubble shape whereas the Aethos is straighter.
Plus the slightly more
Plus the slightly more obvious fact that the Aethos has never been available with rim brakes…
Good point!
Good point!
Nice bike crazy paint scheme
Nice bike crazy paint scheme