Front half looks rather the same as my Tarmac SL6.
And standard non-proprietary parts ? That's one of the reasons I plumbed for an SL6 at the start of the year - to avoid the BS of having to specially order a stem and wait 6 weeks to get the right fit, or find the bike is obsolete in 3 years time for a $50 part.

The Founder's Edition is $US14,500. VN reviewed the S-Works version.

---

no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

Not sure I understand the strategy for the entry level $12,500 bike aimed at the everyday, non-race rider. I wonder if this model will trickle down to non S-Works or if the carbon requirements for the design are too high

At the last shop I worked at, we sold a lot of top dollar bikes to non-racers. Plenty of doctors, lawyers, and executives who don't mind paying for the latest and greatest.

Since various articles I've read about this bike this talk about how the specific tube shapes are a big factor in getting the weight down, it seems possible that a lower grade (cheaper) carbon in the same mold would allow for a less expensive but still pretty damn light bike...

---

"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Was wondering this initially myself. What I came up with are:

1. Some customers will always buy the most expensive option available.

2. The way I read the marketing language was this is a top-end race bike for the rider who appreciates "race performance" but isn't necessarily concerned with competition, winning, being the best, or milking every drop of performance from their equipment or themselves. I actually believe there exists a large subset of people who would identify with this.

3. Specialized as a company is mature, stable, and profitable. So they can make exploratory strategy calls that may be too risky for smaller or medium-sized bicycle companies to make.

And even in the worst case that it's a dud, I'm sure Specialized gathered valuable R&D learnings from having completed the project. Which leads right into your insight that some of the technology learnings will inevitably be carried over to their future products.

And now we have a top-end weight-weenied disc bike for the Average Joe. :)

Yeah, reminds me of the Cervelo R5 California. In more ways than one.

That's a great analogy...