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Tour de Tech: Specialized's Full-on Carbon

Published: Jul. 13, 2004
Tour de Tech: Specialized's Full-on Carbon
Tour de Tech: Specialized's Full-on Carbon

When Domina Vacanze's Filippo Simeoni scampered off the front of the peloton today, he did it astride one of Specialized's new full-carbon, 1100-gram Tarmac S-Works frame. The bike features some pretty cool touches that are worth a closer look.

His teammate, Michele Scarponi, gets a special, 40-gram-lighter versionusing finer-weave carbon fabric, while sprint ace Mario Cipollini got his own custom version... well, before he pulled out of the Tour the other day.

Tour de Tech: Specialized's Full-on Carbon
Tour de Tech: Specialized's Full-on Carbon

Last year’s half-aluminum/half-carbon Tarmac will still exist as the Tarmac E5, and the new one has a similar shape to the top tube, but the Tarmac is an entirely new bike coming out of a different factory.

Specialized has opted not to use monostays on this bike. The seatstays and chainstays are separate all of the way to the seat lug and bottom bracket. The fiber layup inside of the tubes is size-specific to get consistent frame performance and ride characteristics throughout the size run. Since there is a separate mold for each size.

Specialized can customize the number and type of fiber layers used ineach one. This is in contrast to aluminum or steel production bikes, whichgenerally share the same tubeset for all sizes, so the large frames areflexy, the small frames are super-rigid, and the mid-size frames are just right.

The Zertz elastomer dampers in the fork wrap around the bottom of each leg in a recessed area, instead of being inserted into the leg and add less than 15 grams to the fork.

Before he pulled out of the Tour, Cipollini was riding a carbon road frame with a special layup for extra stiffness and a full-length aero’seatpost (rather than aero’ transitioning to round in cross section).

For cobbles, Scarponi’s Roubaix Pro has finer-weave carbon on top andhigher-modulus unidirectional fibers underneath to shave 60-80 grams offof the standard Roubaix Pro.

Domina Vacanze’s time trial bikes will be part of Specialized’s triathlonline for next season. That is the explanation for why the noses are choppedoff of the saddles. The frames have a steep seat angle and would not passthe UCI requirement for the saddle nose to be at least 5mm behind the centerof the bottom bracket without shortening the nose. The full aero’ seatpost for these bikes is not yet done.

Helmets
The Specialized Decibel helmet the team is using has a complete plasticskeleton outlining all of the vents and over which the foam is injected.It works like rebar in concrete to reinforce the structure. Bridging acrosssome of the vents between the “bones” of the plastic skeleton are carbon-fiberstruts. These are not for looks. It requires the strength of these bridgesto pass the impact tests. New flip-open, snap-close strap adjusters arean improvement over current versions, and the Pro-Fit adjuster around theback of the head is easy to slide to make it tighter or looser by pressingon the buttons. pecialized’s time trial helmet, which I discussed in the aero’ helmet column the day before the team time trial, shares the same straps and Pro-Fit adjuster.

Glasses
Specialized is now in the sunglass business as well, and it has signedall of the Domina Vacanze riders to sunglass contracts save for Cipollini.There are two road and two mountain-bike models, one large and one smalleach. All of the lenses have space around the lateral edge to prevent fogging.

What the team is not using
The Domina Vacanze riders all ride saddles that have Specialized BodyGeometry covers on them, but they are obviously Selle San Marco models.Aspides abound, and there are also Concors and Eras, and Cipollini’s isclearly a Rolls.

While most of the team is using FSA aluminum or carbon stems, Cipolliniwas using what is clearly a 3T Zepp painted white with a Specialized logoon it.

Until tomorrow.
Ciao.
Lennard

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