The flagship of the MY2014 Tarmac range is the Shimano Dura Ace Di2-equipped S-Works The £1,600 Tarmac Sport is equipped this year with an FSA Gossamer chainset, and Shimano 105 shifters, while another £300 will buy you the £1,900 Tarmac Elite with 105 brakes as well as shifters and Fulcrum Racing Five wheels. While at £1,300, the price of the Sora-equipped entry to the Tarmac range has risen by £100 since last year, Specialized firmly believe that the value of an SL4 frame exceeds the increase. The same build, but with Shimano Dura Ace 9000 mechanical shifting will cost £6,500. The Tarmac range tops out at £9,000 with an S-Works frame dressed in Shimano Dura Ace Di2 9070, a Specialized FACT carbon crank, and Specialized Roval CLX 40 wheels, with Specialized-designed, DT-manufactured hubs rolling on ceramic bearings. In the meantime, here’s a look at the new bikes. Have they succeeded with the model year 2014 iterations? We’ll be visiting Specialized HQ in the near future, so watch this space. Specialized’s goal for its SL4 construction were those of most manufacturers: to increase stiffness in the bottom half of the bike and compliance in its upper half. “It sounds simple, but it helps us keep ride characteristics consistent across the board.” “The person buying a 49cm frame isn’t going to weigh the same as the person buying a 60cm frame,” Booth explains. The SL4 continues Specialized’s use of size specific tubing, where tube lengths and diameters change with the frame size. The claimed gains in compliance come from a “less dramatic” taper in the headtube. For Specialized, the reduction was driven by the search for greater compliance without sacrificing stiffness: look closely, says Booth, and the downtube wraps more effectively around the headtube, making it stiffer. The diameter of the lower bearing has been reduced from 1.5” to 1-1/38” for MY2014 – an increasingly popular trend. The S-Works Tarmac was the first with the SL4 construction to be launched and the MY2014 incarnation will continue to use the technology With the SL4, he explains, the headtube, top tube and downtube are made as a single entity, as are the bottom bracket and seat-tube, before both are bonded together. “To be honest, a lot of things,” says James Booth, Specialized’s team liaison in the UK. The Morgan Hill firm’s big news for 2014 is the use of SL4 throughout the Roubaix and Tarmac ranges. Its successor, the SL2 was debuted by QuickStep, who have continued their association with Specialized, launching the SL4 at the Ronde van Vlaanderen just two years ago, when their S-Works frames were the only ones on which the then-new construction was deployed. The SL4 is the latest incarnation of a design family whose first generation was supplied to the now-defunct Gerolsteiner team. Read on for more on the Tarmac, Venge, and what is meant by the term, SL4. We’ll also cast an eye over the new Venge line, made with a different process to SL4, and subject to more subtle changes for the year ahead.įor a detailed look at the MY 2014 Roubaix and CruX ranges, click here. All Tarmacs – even those at lower price points than the flagship S-Works – will share the SL4 construction