Could the Belgian spring a surprise aboard this custom racing machine?
As the 2024 Tour de France enters its crucial second phase, Remco Evenepoel sits second overall, just over a minute off the race lead.
Could the young Belgian, riding his first Tour, spring a surprise on the two hot favourites, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard?
Whatever happens, his bike setup won’t be holding him back.
At this year’s race, Evenepoel is riding a Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8. As you’d expect, it has a ‘no expense spared’ build, with flagship components and an ultra-lightweight (and extremely bling) custom paintjob.
It also has a set of tyres that could be the oldest piece of equipment being raced at this year’s Tour.
Intrigued? Let’s take a closer look.
One bike to rule them all
Specialized can arguably be credited with kick-starting the modern trend for all-rounder road racing bikes.
An evolution of the Tarmac SL7 – that was intended to combine the low weight of a climbing bike with the aerodynamic performance of an aero road bike – the Tarmac SL8 doubles down on this no-compromises approach.
According to Specialized, the SL8 gained from lessons learned during the development of the S-Works Aethos, the American brand’s flyweight climber.
Taking inspiration from its tube shapes helped shave a claimed 115g from the frame, resulting in a feathery claimed frame weight of 685g for a painted size-56cm Tarmac SL8 frame.
For context, that’s only 100g more than an equivalent S-Works Aethos frame, despite the Tarmac having (ostensibly) far superior aerodynamics.
Despite this weight reduction, Specialized says the Tarmac SL8 is even more aerodynamic than the old S-Works Venge, its now defunct aero bike.
Specialized says this was achieved by remodelling the frame’s leading edge (or the ‘speed sniffer’ as Specialized prefers to call it), narrowing the rear of the bike and adding a fully integrated cockpit up front.
It also claims the bottom bracket, head tube and fork have been stiffened up, resulting in a net stiffness-to-weight improvement of 33 per cent.
Liquid metal paint
Despite being only 24 years old, Evenepoel is an undisputed star of road cycling and, as such, gets treated to handsome custom paintjobs.
Not wishing to sacrifice any performance in pursuit of style, though, this latest paintjob is both bling and ultra-lightweight.
According to Specialized, the ‘liquid metal’ chrome finish was achieved using a technique called ‘Physical Vapour Deposition’ (PVD), via which the frame and components are covered with vaporised metal inside a vacuum chamber.
As a result, Specialized has been able to paint both the frameset and components, such as the seatpost and handlebar, without adding excess weight traditionally associated with a bike’s paintjob.
There are hints of colour throughout, too, with red and yellow hues accenting the outer edges of the bike.
With its high-gloss finish, it also reflects the colours of everything around it, meaning the effect changes depending on how and where you look at it.
All that said, though, it’s possible that even the small amount of weight added by the ‘liquid metal’ paint was determined to be too much, because we spotted Evenepoel cresting the Galibier aboard a simpler, black and white Tarmac SL8 on stage 4.
A flagship team build with classic tyres
Beyond the frameset, Evenepoel’s bike is built up with a mostly team-issue spec.
That means a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 groupset, with Evenepoel opting for the new ‘standard’ 54/40t chainrings up front, paired with a wide, 11-34t cassette out back.
The bike we photographed didn’t have a power meter, although Evenepoel has been using Shimano’s FC-R9200-P dual-sided power meter throughout this year’s race.
It did have short, 165mm cranks, though. At 1.71m tall, Evenepoel isn’t the tallest rider in the Tour, but many pro riders have moved to shorter cranks in recent years.
The bike is also equipped with a direct-mount rear derailleur hanger, with a small section of inner tube helping to keep the Di2 wire tight to it.
According to Shimano, using a direct-mount rear derailleur hanger can help speed up wheel changes because it keeps the derailleur out of the way when the rear wheel is removed.
Manufacturers of such hangers also typically claim their stout construction helps improve shifting accuracy due to their improved stiffness.
So far at this year’s Tour, Evenepoel appears to have used the new Roval Rapide CLX II Team wheelset for every stage except the individual time trial (where he used a Roval Rapide CLX II Team front wheel paired with Roval’s 321 Disc wheel at the rear).
An update to the highly rated Roval Rapide CLX II wheelset, the Rapide CLX II Team wheelset is claimed to weigh a feathery 1,390g – 130g less than the old wheelset.
This is due to updates to the carbon layup in the rims, saving 80g, and new ‘low flange’ hubs, which cut another 50g.
According to Specialized, the reason the hubs are silver is not to match Evenepoel’s custom paintjob, but to save excess weight that would otherwise be added through powder coating and painting them.
While the rim profiles are the same as before, the new wheelset is claimed to be 0.5 watts more aerodynamic, thanks to its updated DT Swiss Aerolite II spokes and Roval LF hubs.
An improvement of 0.5 watts might not sound like much (because it isn’t), but according to Specialized that can save a rider one second over 40km.
Again, one second over 40km isn’t a great deal of time, but considering the 2024 Tour de France is a total of 3,498km, even the most marginal of gains can add up to something significant.
The oldest tyres in the peloton?
The Rapide CLX II Team wheelset also sticks with hooked rims (as opposed to hookless rims), to retain compatibility with clincher tyres.
This is useful because Evenepoel and many other Specialized-sponsored riders still prefer to use the brand’s decade-old Turbo Cotton clinchers, instead of its more recently updated S-Works Turbo tubeless tyres.
The Turbo Cotton clincher was first raced at the Tour de France almost 10 years ago to the day, when Tony Martin used them to win the individual time trial on stage 20 (which took place on 26 July 2014).
Evenepoel’s tyres won’t actually be 10 years old, of course, but it nevertheless seems odd that a design ostensibly so dated is still the pick of many of the top riders in the WorldTour.
One possible explanation is that the combination of the Turbo Cotton tyres and Roval wheels is simply the fastest option available to the team.
When Specialized launched its first-generation, clincher-only Roval Rapide CLX wheels, back in 2020, it said the combination of those wheels and its Turbo Cotton tyres provided the best balance of aerodynamics, weight and rolling resistance, adding that the extra material (and therefore extra weight) required to make the rims tubeless-compatible would have outweighed the benefits of doing so.
Of course, that was then and this is now.
Roval’s updated Rapide CLX II and CLX II Team wheelsets are both tubeless-compatible (Specialized also admitted the original Rapide CLX wheels were intended to be tubeless-compatible, but that a rim failure during the latter stages of development led it to designate them as clincher-only).
Specialized also refreshed its range of tubeless tyres in 2022, saying its latest flagship road tubeless tyre, the S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2BR, is “world-class in terms of its efficiency, handling and durability”.
So why doesn’t its sponsored professional teams use those instead, given most of the professional peloton has overwhelmingly adopted tubeless systems in recent years? Could the Turbo Cotton tyres be even faster than the RapidAir tubeless tyres?
According to independent tests by Bicyclerollingresistance.com, the S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2BR set up tubeless is faster than the Turbo Cotton with a butyl inner tube.
Pairing the Turbo Cotton with a latex or TPU inner tube could see it pull ahead, though, as both typically exhibit tangibly lower rolling resistance than butyl tubes.
Another possibility is that the riders simply prefer the ride quality the cotton tyres offer in comparison to the tubeless tyres.
With their 320 TPI (Threads Per Inch) cotton casings, the Turbo Cotton tyres are extremely supple, which can decrease rolling resistance and improve ride feel and grip, all else being equal.
In contrast, Specialized’s S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2BR uses a two-ply 120 TPI casing, that is likely less supple and therefore may not deform to imperfections in the road as well.
Flagship finishing kit and a low overall weight
Up front, Evenepoel is using the Roval Rapide integrated cockpit, with a 120mm stem paired to a 360mm handlebar width (measured centre-to-centre at the brake hoods).
His saddle of choice is a Specialized S-Works Power with Mirror (‘Mirror’ being Specialized’s name for its 3D-printed saddle technology).
According to Specialized, the Mirror padding adds around 30g compared to the standard S-Works Power saddle, but Evenepoel has clearly decided that’s worth it for the improved comfort.
Finishing things off is a pair of Tacx Ciro Carbon bottle cages, a Garmin Edge 840 Solar bike computer and a set of Shimano Dura-Ace SPD-SL pedals.
The Belgian rider also appears to be using a set of unreleased Specialized S-Works shoes at this year’s Tour.
With a single Boa dial up top and a Velcro strap at the front, could these be a lightweight update to the current S-Works Torch? Specialized has yet to release any details, but an official launch probably isn’t too far off considering one of its star riders is wearing them at the most important race of the year.
Last but not least, we weighed Evenepoel’s bike at a feathery 6.985kg – a little over the UCI’s minimum bike weight limit.
Might Evenepoel switch to Specialized’s lighter Roval Alpinist CLX II wheelset for the toughest mountain stages? Such a switch could save him around 125g, so it’s certainly a possibility.
Specs | Remco Evenepoel’s custom Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8
- Frameset: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 (size 52cm)
- Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9200
- Wheelset: Roval Rapide CLX II Team
- Power meter: Shimano Dura-Ace FC-R9200-P
- Tyres: Specialized Turbo Cotton, 700x28c (measured width 28.7mm)
- Handlebar: Roval Rapide integrated cockpit (120mm stem and 360mm handlebar, centre to centre)
- Seatpost: Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8
- Saddle: Specialized S-Works Power with Mirror
- Bottle cages: Tacx Ciro Carbon
- Pedals: Shimano Dura-Ace PD-R9100
- Weight: 6.98kg