Front end and fork torsional and lateral stiffness (where the biggest difference between the original Venge and current Tarmac was) is up ~30%, which brings Venge ViAS nearly to Tarmac numbers but not quite all the way there. BB stiffness has been increased and is actually slightly higher than Tarmac.

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Chris Yu
Applied Technology
Specialized Bicycle Components
@chrisyuinc

Uh, oh. Any insight you can provide, Chris Yu?

I heard he threw down his bike the other day after the stage so I was wondering what was going on. I doubt Chris will answer this question. We will see what he is riding soon enough.

That's the pesky thing about brakes. You can hide them all you want, but if they don't stop well, it just doesn't matter.

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

Sounds pretty awesome! Thanks Chris!

Interesting comments by Cav for sure. Especially since Chris put the brakes on par with DA 9000.

I still think that the long arm on the front with the pivot so far from the rim and the pad so far away from the pivot will cause tha pads on the front to wear very fast at the rear of the pad. Especially since the cable is very far back as well and forcing the rear of the arm together so the pad/arm will not be able to flex and flatten.

For the rear there is a lot of distance between the pad and pivot so again pads may not wear evenly.

Wet weather may go through a set of pads well before the end of a race. This may not affect a normal rider who does not have to brake as much on a nice ride in the country but racing is a whole different circumstance.

I think I will wit for version 2.0 which is after the uci lowers the weight rule so I get better brakes and a lighter unit.

Bottom line, both Cav and Sagan are happy with the new bike but the reality is we got race ready bikes to them too late for them to feel immediately comfortable replacing their old bikes at a big race like the TdF - a misstep on our part due to pushing timing on getting everything done. Stuff as simple as a different drop shape all the way to different cornering and sprinting feel, combined with the high stress of the TdF means they have been (and will be) going back and forth in an attempt to adapt to the new bike as seamlessly as possible.

For example, Cav's primary bike had/has some pre-production prototype parts on it - we were able to swap out that stuff on his spare bike right at the TdF start but he wasn't comfortable immediately racing on it not having done any long rides on it yet, which is understandable. So we're in a bit of a transition as we get their bikes fully up to production spec. It just happens that we're making that transition during the biggest race of the year. Not ideal, but I personally think it speaks to the performance of the bike that the teams and riders are even willing to entertain doing it (typically, this would be a huge no go).

Re: Cav and brakes, not sure what exactly was said, but I'm willing to bet it was referring to an initial build of his first bike which again had pre-production parts as well as a couple of other build issues. I believe this has all been addressed on his 2nd bike and his comments were likely in reference to the specific build he was riding then. We're committed to having everything absolutely dialed for our riders, pro and otherwise.

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Chris Yu
Applied Technology
Specialized Bicycle Components
@chrisyuinc

I thought Sagan rode the new bike in the Tour de Suisse?

They both did.

In other news without context......looks like Sagan and Cav are back on the new bikes today.

Lol. I guess they got "talked to"..........

or they decided they were good with the production brakes? It is pretty close to impossible to tell what the reasons are, hence the 'lack of context' comment.

Or a dry day is forecast.

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´Get the most aero and light bike you can get. With the aero advantage you can be saving minutes and with the weight advantage you can be saving seconds. In a race against the clock both matter.´

BMANX

Chris sent a message to the teams and said that he was getting some flak on ST and they better get on those new bikes.

I wouldn't have used the pink font for that one. This issue is on all the forums, and Chris has responded with the same copied text on all the forums. If you were the sponsor, and this happened with Cav (who is better known to the general public than most other riders) and your halo bike that is being introduced at the TDF, what would you do? I would take these guys aside in a quiet hotel room and read them the riot act. I bet that Cav will be on the Venge exclusively for the rest of the tour.

Well it seemed to work OK for bike today.

yeah no

I would guess there was a cash bonus for a win on the new bike.

Back on the old one today.

This is really interesting to me personally. Sagan has for the most part stayed with his old bike, Sagan is not stupid, he tends to pay attention to the details in his race setups (possibly a bit less anal than Cav :), i am guessing the brakes are a serious issue. I was reading on another forum from a reader who was able to actuate the brakes that they seem to go from 10% to 100% really fast and that could be one of the issues. Then other reader was commenting on the high number of bends the brake cables have to weave through which will obviously cause issues. Who knows, but right now riding on a specialized sponsored team i have no interested in the new venge, if it's good enough for Sagan then its good enough for me.

Looks like specialized just increased the price by 400 all across the board on the website for a $6200 frame...

I will admit that it is pretty steep, but most people can get them at cost who race. The price is super high for the masters/weekend warriors who just have to have it and will pay full price.

Is someone tracking which bikes they use across the stages? That would be of interest to me.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Looked like Tarmac's today to me.