Specialized has just released the brand new Tarmac SL8. The SL8 is the 8th iteration in the Tarmac's lineage and represents itself as a do-it-all road race bike. Since it now replaces the Tarmac SL7, the new bike has to perform better than its predecessor. Sam Gupta has taken a deep dive on all the details and has also been able to ride the new road bike so also shares his first ride review. The new bike boasts an aero improvement to the tune of 16.6 seconds, a weight saving of 15% and a stiffness to weight improvement of 33% all compared to the outgoing SL7. Let us know, what do you think of the new road bike from Specialized!
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00:00 of the most highly anticipated bikes of 2024 is finally here, the Specialized Tarmac SL8.
00:07 After a couple of leaks and a no-show at the Tour de France, it has broken cover at the
00:12 World Championships. We have got all of the details on the new bike and I was also lucky
00:18 enough to be the first person outside Specialized to ride the bike in the UK.
00:22 So I am going to share all of my first-ride thoughts.
00:26 [Intro]
00:34 As is pretty well known, the Tarmac is Specialized's do-it-all road race bike. However,
00:40 this version of the bike could actually be seen as somewhat of a Frankenstein's monster.
00:45 When the Americans started development of this bike, they took the carbon lay-up strategy as
00:51 found in the super lightweight Athos and then put that into the shape of the SL8. But even the shape
00:59 itself has somewhat of an Athos vibe. If you draw a line across the bike like this, then you're left
01:07 with a split which is very Athos-y at the rear and then very next-gen Tarmac at the front. It's
01:13 really obvious on the downtube as the lower half is more circular and thinner compared to the upper
01:19 half which swells out and becomes more ovalised. The seat stays compared to the SL7 have also
01:26 slimmed right down and again are just more circular. The seat tube isn't hugely different
01:32 from the outgoing Tarmac but it is a little bit narrower. In fact, the seat post and the seat tube
01:38 are narrower than the rear wheel itself. The big difference is found here though,
01:43 at the head tube. Something which has more in common with the TT going Shiv than any of the
01:48 brand's other bikes. It has become deeper but it's been achieved by adding a cover onto the
01:55 front of the head tube rather than by increasing the fairing at the rear of the head tube. Specialized
02:01 says that it has done this so that a narrower and pointier front end can be achieved which
02:06 is claimed to be far more aerodynamic. The silhouette of the bike isn't actually a million
02:13 miles away from the SL7, it just looks a little bit more refined. The tubes at the rear of the
02:19 bike have slimmed down and the ones at the front have either stayed the same or just swelled up a
02:25 little bit. Some may think it looks a little bit unbalanced and to be honest that was something
02:30 that I was really nervous of when I first saw the leaked images but in person it looks rather good
02:36 and I'm just hoping that our shots of the bike actually do the bike justice. Of course, as a
02:41 new road race bike from one of the world's biggest bike manufacturers you best believe it has come
02:46 with a whole bunch of numerical improvements. First off, we're just going to look at the top
02:51 line figures so strap in because these numbers are going to come thick and fast. Specialized claim
02:58 the following. The SL8 is 16.6 seconds quicker than the SL7 over 40 kilometers, it's 15% lighter
03:06 than the SL7, it's 6% more compliant at the saddle than the SL7 and has a 33% improvement in stiffness
03:15 to weight. There is a lot to unpack here so I'm going to try and de-jargon the claims and look a
03:22 little bit closer. Let's start with that 16.6 second increase in speed over the SL7. What's
03:29 really interesting is that Specialized claim that the SL8 is also faster than the last generation
03:35 of the Venge. So in theory this is the fastest ever road race bike that they have ever made.
03:41 It's a hard metric to test unless you have a wind tunnel but according to Specialized it achieved
03:47 much of this from the front end of the bike. The new UCI rules has meant that a deeper head tube
03:53 shape could be used along with that new Roval Rapide carbon cockpit which is said to save
03:59 4 watts compared to the previous cockpit that's found on the SL7. There's one quote that really
04:06 did stand out to me in the press material for the SL8 and that's the following "a deep airfoil down
04:11 tube and seat tube may look aero but due to the dirty air that they sit in they create vanishingly
04:17 small aero gains but impact weight and ride quality significantly. The result may be slightly
04:24 more aero in the wind tunnel but slower in the real world." It seems then that Specialized is
04:32 branding pure aero bikes as a bit of a sham saying that in reality since conditions are so variable
04:40 they aren't actually that much faster. This is a pretty big claim and one which is hard to argue
04:46 with when you don't have the data. However the cynic in me does take comfort in the knowledge
04:52 that if Specialized could sell you tube bikes for example a Tarmac and a Venge like in the old days
04:58 then they probably would. I also did a little bit more digging and it did result in some
05:04 interesting reading. When the SL7 was launched the improvement in performance over the SL6
05:10 was claimed to be 45 seconds over 40 kilometers and now that makes the 16.6 second improvement
05:19 a little less impressive but do bear in mind that the birth of the SL7 was also the death of the
05:26 Venge meaning that the SL7 could emerge and pave the way for the do-it-all road bike. Now perhaps
05:33 this factoid actually supports the argument that the SL8 is better viewed as maybe a SL7.5.
05:40 Next up let's talk about one of the other really big claims from the SL8,
05:46 the weight. 15% lighter is quite a lot. To put hard numbers on that the SL7 was claimed to weigh
05:54 800 grams for the frame. The SL8 is claimed to weigh 685 grams. Again to give that even more
06:02 context the Athos frame is claimed to weigh 585 grams. Now these numbers are based on a 56
06:09 centimeter painted frame with no hardware attached. This over 100 gram saving is all well
06:18 and good but how does it affect the full build weights? Well unsurprisingly they're 100 grams
06:24 lighter. The new S-Works SL8 built with a full Dura-Ace groupset with 4i power meter and Roval's
06:31 full suite of wheels and finishing kit comes in at a claimed 6.6 kilos while the SL7 built with
06:38 the previous gen Roval repeat wheels cockpit and the previous generation of Dura-Ace was a claimed
06:44 6.7 kilos. So while it is a great weight for a top-end bike to be the progression maybe isn't
06:52 quite all it's cracked up to be. The only thing that does leave some intrigue to the weight is
06:56 that there are some very obvious places where more weight can be dropped out of the full build.
07:02 Simply dropping the inner tubes and then adopting a tubeless setup would probably save you about 100
07:07 grams and I mean if you've got a lot of money and you wanted to buy a carbon THM chainset then
07:13 you're only going to compound those results. Put it this way I think that a number of the customers
07:18 for this bike will be looking at it as a project bike. I will not be surprised if we see custom
07:25 builds of this bike hovering around the six kilo mark but of course frame size and paints will play
07:31 a big part in this. The last couple of metrics that I threw at you were that the SL8 is claimed
07:36 to be 6% more compliant at the saddle and has an improved stiffness to weight ratio of 33%.
07:42 It's very hard to fact check these numbers. In reality it's basically impossible without some
07:48 incredibly expensive testing equipment. But what I can do and have done is ridden the bike to see
07:55 what it feels like. The key takeaways are the following. First off the stiffness is incredible.
08:03 The bottom bracket feels rock solid no matter how hard I pushed on the pedals, out the saddle,
08:08 up a climb, it did not budge. It really felt like everything I was putting in I was getting out
08:15 and I know how cliche that sounds. It also wasn't just the bottom bracket that felt stiff but the
08:21 head tube and bars completely mirrored the feeling. I was yanking on those bars like there was no
08:26 tomorrow and again they were just so solid. Of course the ride feel is one that you would expect
08:33 to get from a road race bike. While I wasn't really looking for compliance or comfort features,
08:39 the ride itself is one that just feels like it has a lot of purpose. You know what it's built to do.
08:45 It wasn't jittery or unsettled but when you went over a stone you did kind of know about it. It's
08:52 a bike that wants to go fast but it's not really built for rough roads. One thing I would caveat
08:57 my first ride experience with is that I was running on 26c tires and I didn't have the chance
09:02 to adjust the pressure. So if you did want to look for more compliance and maybe a little bit more
09:07 comfort then I would probably opt for running 28c tires and then of course just make sure you've
09:13 really got your pressures dialed in. Of course doing that will mean that you can increase the
09:17 comfort and compliance that the bike will give you but also you'll increase your contact patch
09:22 with the road and it'll just make everything a bit more comfy. One aspect that I did pick up on,
09:27 mainly on the descents, was actually the handling. It just felt a little bit more jittery than I was
09:32 expecting. Perhaps it's because the bars aren't fully slammed and personally I think I would have
09:38 loved a stem that was just about 10mm longer just to slow down the steering feel. Of course,
09:44 bike fit and riding style is something that's incredibly personal but I think it would have
09:49 just been nice to have that slightly longer stem. I also can't ignore the fact that being the first
09:54 person to ride this bike in the UK also means that I don't want to be the first person to crash this
09:59 bike so I think I was potentially being a little bit more timid than usual. Speaking of bike fit,
10:06 this actually feels pretty familiar because it has exactly the same geometry as the Tarmac SL7.
10:13 The snappy rear end and playful characteristics are still very much present. It doesn't have
10:18 the same aggression of say a Trek Madone because it feels far more forgiving but it does reward
10:23 those who really want to get stuck in and see what they're capable of on all types of parkour.
10:29 What this bike feels like to me is a culmination of multiple component parts. You have many
10:36 elements from the Athos, lots of hereditary features from the SL7 and a few genuinely new
10:42 innovations which are now distinctly SL8. Do I like this bike? Absolutely. Is it still one of,
10:50 if not the best road race bike on the market? That's hard to say. Perhaps that's a too subjective
10:56 question but after my limited time with the bike I believe that Specialized has done it again.
11:02 It has created a bike that masses of road cyclists will love, pro and amateur alike.
11:07 This then brings me on to pricing and at the time of filming we are currently yet to have
11:14 any prices confirmed to us so we'll pop them on screen for you now and for comparison here are
11:19 the same models of bike but from the SL7 iteration so that you can see what the price difference is.
11:25 Of course the SL8 isn't all about the top-end S-Works version. There are multiple builds of
11:31 the bike and again at the time of recording we believe that there will be two S-Works builds,
11:36 a SRAM Red Axis version and a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2. At the pro level there will be a Force
11:43 Axis build and an Ultegra Di2 build followed by the Expert models which will be equipped with SRAM
11:50 Rival Axis. Now finally because we always get these questions in the comments here are some of
11:55 the smaller nerdier bits of detail. First off tyre clearance is the same as the SL7 at 32mm.
12:02 The bottom bracket is still threaded. The SL8 is for electronic only group sets. If you buy a frame
12:10 set it does not come with the Roval Repeat bars. You can remove the front derailleur hanger and
12:16 then fit a cover for a really clean one-by setup if that's your thing. The SL8 is compatible with
12:23 the SL7 stem so if you have a normal 31.8mm handlebar that you want to use with this bike
12:30 then that is possible. In fact the non-S-Works builds of the Tarmac will actually ship with the
12:37 SL7 stem fitted rather than the Roval Repeat cockpit. And lastly in terms of weight difference
12:43 between the S-Works 12R carbon frame to the pro level 10R carbon frame is about an extra 100g.
12:52 So there we have it that is the brand new Specialized Tarmac SL8. Let me know your
12:58 thoughts on this bike down in the comments. If you enjoyed the video then please do drop
13:02 it a like, subscribe to the channel for more content and I will see you again very soon.
13:08 you
13:08 (whooshing)
13:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]