Power13 wrote:
At the end of the day, however, the new Venge gains its advantages because it in an integrated system, while many competitors are not. Where they have a comparable spec and it is standard, it has been included. The idea that they need to minimize the primary advantage of their concept by over-compensating for their competitors shortfalls is kinda silly, IMO.
Thats not necessarily true.
Specialized tests their new Venge in its top of the line trim. An apples to apples comparison would have been to include every other bike in its top of the line trim. Which would have been Di2 across the board and aero bars on at least the Madone and AR (per their top of the line spec). Hasn't Chris detailed that the S5 was tested with its bar - but not with 9070, as spec'd? So they bought the frameset and bar but then threw 9000 on it?
I hear the reasoning for using 9000 across the board and it sounds quite weak to me. It'd obviously be costly to buy every competitors top spec'd bike. But I also feel its disingenuous to build a huge marketing campaign around a clearly hampered testing protocol - no matter the reasoning.
Given, we're the only crowd that cares about the minutiae. But because of that, one should expect holes to be poked in ever last part of the claims. Since they're quite bold.
ETA: What I'd love to see is the exact build of each bike detailed within the test. And then let us make our own judgement.
"One Line Robert"