Sam Gupta and Specialized ambassador, Alan Murchison, put the SL8 and the SL7 head to head along with the 8th generation of Specialized Venge.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Today we are down in Winchester and we're currently sat in the South Down Social Cafe
00:09and today I've been joined by Specialized Ambassador Alan Murchison because this is
00:13a man who has ridden over 70 Specialized bikes, he has an in-depth knowledge of the S-Works
00:18SL7 and has recently taken delivery of the SL8.
00:22So the question that I'm asking him is, what is the difference between the two?
00:27We've been out on the roads to do some real-world data testing, it's a little bit ghetto, it's
00:31a bit of a car park test, but it is going to give us some numbers to have a look at
00:35to see how these two really perform.
00:42I think a really good place to start actually is just going to be looking at the similarities
00:46between both of these bikes because, you know, this is the eighth generation of the Tarmac
00:50so it is another iteration of it and that means that there are a lot of similarities
00:55and I think one of the key ones actually is just the shape of the frame, they're still
00:59sticking with the drop seat stays, the frame shape itself actually hasn't changed all that
01:04much and the geometry is identical.
01:06It's also meant that comfort of the bike I think is also going to be quite similar, Specialized
01:10did quote that there was a 6% improvement in compliance at the saddle.
01:14When you've ridden this bike, your short experience with it so far, could you feel any difference
01:18in comfort between the two bikes?
01:19No.
01:20No.
01:21I think 6% is a very small margin.
01:23I couldn't feel any real difference, it just felt really, really responsive without being
01:28mega stiff because normally you say, well it's responsive, that means stiff and stiff
01:32means uncomfortable, it seems responsive but it doesn't feel like you're riding a plunk
01:37of wood for example.
01:39The only other similarity that I can really draw from this bike actually is the fork of
01:44the bike really replicates that of the Venge fork, I'd say the two between the SL7 and
01:49the SL8, I think they're actually quite different, the SL7 fork is a bit more circular and actually
01:54a bit narrower, whereas the SL8 fork is definitely flatter and a bit longer, they've really
01:58dialled in the aero at the front of the bike.
02:01I think the other thing is the head tube as well, there's a chunk there and that's more
02:05reminiscent of the Venge, so when I first saw this bike, it looked quite odd because
02:10it looked very front heavy because it was built up at the front and then very, very
02:13small rear stays and I wasn't convinced about the aesthetics of it, whereas when you see
02:18it built up, yeah it looks pretty good.
02:22Looking at the price and weights of the bikes on offer, an interesting picture emerges.
02:27Not only is the SL8 now cheaper compared to the SL7 in certain builds, but now you don't
02:32need the S-Works SL8 to beat the S-Works SL7 in weight.
02:37The difference between the top end SL7 and SL8 is a claimed 120g, however the lower grade
02:4410R carbon version of the SL8 is just 100g heavier than the S-Works version.
02:50So if you want a bike as light as the S-Works SL7, then opt for the cheaper variant of the
02:55SL8 and then build it up in a matching spec.
03:05I was really surprised at how fast the SL7 was and climbing it was considerably faster
03:11than anything else.
03:12The only time the Venge came into its own was when she started getting over 50kph, like
03:15dual carriageway stuff, which is rare.
03:18Let's be brutally honest, we all have delusions of riding everywhere at 50kph, it's not something
03:22that any of us do on a regular basis.
03:25So the Venge was still very, very fast above 50kph, but rolling A roads, climbs, the time
03:30up was just fast from the box, it was really, really fast, easy to get on with the bike
03:35and it felt fast and then the numbers, the little test that we did, it proved to be really
03:40fast on the road.
03:42It's day-to-day riding, it's fast.
03:43So just run us through, what did that test consist of in terms of the parkour?
03:47It was a climb, an 800m climb, it was a couple of k of rolling bumpy A roads, mixed surface
03:54and then there was 5k of dual carriageway.
03:57So a little bit of everything, nothing too technical and I was looking for repeatability
04:01as well, so I did it on a bit of road that I think, according to Strava, I've done over
04:06700 times, so another road and we did it based on heart rate and power.
04:11So we did a run on the Venge, we did a run on the SL7 and we did a run on the SL8.
04:17Bikes were pretty much set up the same, they're all running Dura-Ace Di2, power saddles, CLX
04:23wheels, tyre setups almost identical, so they were all as close as they could be.
04:28Now one caveat, obviously I like to tinker with bikes, the Venge and the SL7, ceramic
04:34bottom brackets, ceramic jockey wheels, waxed chains etc, the SL8 straight out of the box,
04:41literally no changes at all, so it's got a standard bottom bracket, it's got a greased
04:45up chain from the factory and it's got a stack on it like a Big Mac.
04:5035mm of stack there, so compared to the SL7 which has 15mm, that's a sizeable difference
04:56and I think the other thing as well was that on the SL8 there is no oversized pulley wheel
05:02system.
05:03It's completely standard, straight out of the box.
05:05Cool, okay, so run us through some of the numbers, so first off we had the Venge, then
05:08the SL7 and the SL8, how did the Venge perform?
05:11The Venge was really good, today we had a tailwind on a dual carriageway which is always
05:17going to favour a full aero bike, so climbing, we did a climb, the Venge was climbing 19.9kph
05:24and it did the little loop that we did in 10 minutes and 8 seconds, maxing out at 66kph,
05:30it was fast, it climbed okay and it was good and it felt really stable, so the Venge was
05:36good.
05:36Okay, cool, and then the SL7?
05:38SL7 was climbing like an absolute demon, putting in context, the same climb it averaged 20.4kph,
05:45so half a kilometre an hour faster on a climb that's only a minute and a half long, it was
05:51almost identical speed, maxed out at 65kph, not quite as fast as the Venge and honestly
05:58it was within 1-2 seconds.
06:00So to be honest, in the real world that's kind of negligible differences?
06:03Yeah, it was what you'd expect, the SL7 climbed faster, it was faster on the bumpy rolling
06:09aero road, the Venge was faster above 50kph, we're not telling anybody anything they're
06:13not going to expect.
06:14Exactly, yeah.
06:15And if you went to the aero engineers that specialised and said that to them, they'd go
06:19yeah, that's what you make sense.
06:20For sure.
06:21Then, the bog standard SL8, now bear in mind, this was the first time I rode this bike today,
06:27so I've done nothing to it, I went out, it climbed at 20.6kph, so that's 0.2 faster than
06:34the SL7 and 0.7 of a kilometre faster than the Venge.
06:38Wow.
06:38Down the fact is, when the climb was flattening off, I was actually going down the gears,
06:42I was speeding up, it was remarkable.
06:45And it did it actually 7 seconds faster over 10 minutes.
06:50And again, very short climb, so as soon as you start to extrapolate that out over something
06:53longer, you know, the gains will kind of compound.
06:56It was mad, and it also maxed out at 69k an hour.
07:00So quicker than the Venge?
07:01Quicker than the Venge, and nearly 4k an hour faster than the SL7.
07:05Now, bearing in mind, that's running that stuff, I can't get down, so it was really,
07:10really quick, but it just felt fast.
07:12And there's quite a lot of things I can do to make this bike faster and personalise it,
07:15but it was fast, so it was faster on the climb, it was faster max speed, and it was faster
07:19A to B, so if you actually put that into context on a 10 minute test section, you go half an
07:25hour, 21 seconds, over half an hour faster than the SL7, based on real ghetto aero testing,
07:32but it felt comfortable, it felt easy to ride, I hadn't dialled it in at all, there was nothing
07:38I'd done, I just rode it, and it was bloody quick.
07:41Well, okay, I think that's a really important point, I reckon, because in the real world,
07:45how many of us are really accurately tracking, I mean, most people ride bikes because they
07:49enjoy riding a bike.
07:50For a lot of people, it's not all about the data, sometimes it's about that kind of intangible
07:55feel a bike gives you.
07:56So, in terms of ride qualities, like we were saying, you are so dialled in with the SL7,
08:00you really know that bike.
08:01Obviously, this is still new to you, but that also means you're going to be able to pinpoint
08:06where things are different.
08:08So, how does the ride feel compare from the SL8 to the SL7?
08:13Okay, that, it feels more comfortable and it feels more responsive, which those two
08:18things really go hand in hand.
08:19So, you think comfort, you go Roubaix, comfortable bike, ah, it's comfortable, you could be on
08:23it all day.
08:24Responsive, you think, I could do an hour and a half, two hours on this, that feels
08:29comfortable and it feels responsive and it feels fast.
08:32Like, doing just under 70k an hour, that's pretty fast on the first time out on a bike.
08:38And it was planted, bear in mind, cross tailwind today, so you've got the wind gusting in,
08:41it's running the same wheels.
08:43There's something they've done with the back end and how it feels, it just feels fast.
08:48So, actually, one thing I found with my time with the SL8 is how stiff the bike felt, but
08:52I'd be interested to hear from you, how do you think the stiffness compares, not only
08:56to the SL7, but also the Venge?
08:58The Venge was always a fairly harsh ride.
09:00Yeah, because there was no comfort, basically, in that bike.
09:03Nah, it was never about comfort.
09:05It won a lot of races, but it wasn't as easy to get on with, you know what I mean?
09:09You felt tired after it, whereas you could ride the SL7 day in, day out, you could do
09:14long days, you could do a training camp, you could do 25 hours in a week and you wouldn't
09:18feel completely battered.
09:19Yeah.
09:20I would defy anybody to do 25 hours on a Venge and not feel tired.
09:25It was a ruffled ride.
09:26Yeah.
09:27With this bike, I think immediately it just feels more comfortable.
09:30Now, I'm not going to be deluded, it's got a high stack, it's got wide bars, that's always
09:34going to feel more comfortable, but it's bloody quick.
09:36That shouldn't be quick in that setup for me.
09:38Not at 69k an hour with 35mm stack, that's really surprising.
09:42It shouldn't be.
09:42So, you think I take that out and then I would play about with the position a bit, it's good.
09:46If we come away from ride feel and we come away from the numbers, in terms of aesthetics,
09:53there's a lot of ethos found within this bike, specifically towards the rear end.
09:57What are your thoughts in terms of look?
09:59I like the look.
10:00I didn't like it as a frame set when I saw it initially, just because of the bulbous
10:03head tube on its own.
10:04I wasn't convinced and it looked very skinny at the end.
10:07It looked almost like a TT triathlon bike at the front and a crit bike at the rear.
10:12I thought it's an odd combination.
10:13It just looked unbalanced.
10:15When you have it built up, it looks great.
10:17This one's obviously some pearlescent, funky matte white, which that monochrome look is
10:22really cool.
10:23I love it.
10:24So, built up, I think it looks ace.
10:26I think it looks really good and it's also gone away from the kind of aerofoil tubes.
10:30There's quite a lot of round tubes going on.
10:31I like it.
10:33So, you and I have been privy to some of the data from Specialized, you know, Vontu, Milan
10:38Sanremo.
10:39What does that mean to you, a man, a woman, a cyclist in the street?
10:43Not much.
10:44Not an awful lot.
10:45And the thing is, my issue with that data as well is that it is so far extrapolated
10:48from a real-world race situation.
10:51That just, to me, feels a bit like marketing.
10:53But, yeah, for the man in the street that's going to go and buy one of these bikes, what
10:58does he or she care about?
10:59Yeah, and that's the thing.
11:00That's why I always like to do this ghetto testing because people are like, ah, the
11:03tires or the power meter or the crank length or whatever.
11:06That feels fast.
11:07I ride my bike a lot.
11:09I've had a lot of S-Works.
11:11I've had a lot of road bikes.
11:12I think that gives you an opinion that's valid.
11:14Yes.
11:15As opposed to saying, well, it'll be however many seconds faster at Vontu or it'll be x
11:19minutes faster than Milan Sanremo.
11:20None of us are going to race Milan Sanremo.
11:23Not this week, I don't think.
11:24It's fast.
11:25It's easy to ride fast.
11:26I think that's something that's really important.
11:28So look at the data that you're going to get from marketing.
11:30My gut feel, having ridden it, is the numbers we're getting from Specialized Marketing
11:34downplay how good it is.
11:36Interesting, okay.
11:38They've actually erred on the side of caution, in my opinion, because they did it with the
11:43SL7.
11:44I remember when it came out, they gave you these numbers on the SL7 and I did some ghetto
11:47testing on that.
11:48I was like, nah, it's faster than that.
11:50And I spoke to some pretty key people within Specialized.
11:53I said, it's actually faster than the Venge.
11:54And they were like, is it?
11:55I said, it is.
11:56On real roads, as a real person.
11:59And the problem is, is if you've got a World Tour Pro testing the bike or you've got a
12:03wind tunnel, neither of those are the real world.
12:06And having tested them.
12:07It's a completely staged situation.
12:08Yeah, and how a World Tour rider will ride a bike with a position, a pedalling technique,
12:15it's completely different.
12:15And how they hold their head and how they hold their hands, it's all very different to
12:18normal cyclists.
12:19Even people like yourself.
12:21For sure.
12:21We love a bike and we ride a bike a lot, but we're not World Tour level cyclists.
12:25And then you go to wind tunnels and you get data.
12:28Wind tunnel is only part of the parcel.
12:30It doesn't take into consideration the texture of the road, how fatigued you are.
12:34It's a finite number.
12:35But it's a very controlled environment.
12:37So I think that's why you've got to ride the bike.
12:39And I think if, I don't know if they're going to run demo bikes or whatever.
12:42I'm sure they will.
12:43Because people go, well, why am I going to change this really good bike?
12:46That bike's easy to ride real fast.
12:48So that's what you've got to say is these numbers are great, but they're only a guideline.
12:51And that's why I would say get on the bike, ride it, play about with tyre pressures, play
12:55about with tyre weather and see how you get on with it.
12:57Obviously, as we said, it's kind of the speed data is one thing, but it's the ride feel.
13:01That's what people are going to care about.
13:03And I think we've both experienced the fact that this feels markedly different to the SL7.
13:08It does.
13:08It does.
13:09And even today, you look, we're going down a dual carriageway, nearly hitting 70k an
13:13hour with a side tailwind.
13:15I never felt uncomfortable.
13:17I never felt unstable.
13:18I felt completely safe battering down the dual carriageway like that.
13:21No problem at all.
13:22There's not many bikes you could do that on straight out of the box.
13:25And it felt really, really fast.
13:27And it just feels intuitive as well.
13:29So it's cool.
13:31But I'd say use the data numbers as a guideline.
13:34Don't use them as a benchmark, because I actually think that the numbers are going to be far
13:39better in real life than they are on a paper that's published by marketing.
13:43So there we have it.
13:44Now, obviously, I think we do always have to make sure that we take a little pinch of
13:48salt when we're speaking to an ambassador.
13:50But this is someone who has got a vast amount of knowledge of the SL7 and the Venge and
13:55basically every S-Works bike.
13:57Let us know your thoughts, though, down below.
13:59What do you think of the differences between the SL7 and the SL8?
14:03If you enjoyed the video, then please do drop it a like.
14:05Subscribe to the channel for more content, and I will see you again very soon.