Not to mention that 99% of riders are going to have a GPS out in front negating all of those watt savings.
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And those magical 44cm handlebars 
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I think im keeping my sl7
Don’t think anyone is making a definitive conclusion….but directionally it seems pretty clear, by Specialized’s own statements, that there is not a lot of aero to be gained from the SL8.
So if you can get a S7 S-Works and match it with the new Roval HB, then you are in the area of gains provided by the SL8, and assumingely cheaper too. Sounds like a win for the poster who asked about the two.
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And what about an SL6 rim brake with the new Roval cockpit. It will be even lighter than the new SL8
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About the frame, I may be incorrect here, but it seems like some people are assuming aero power savings are linearly additive.
For example, if a handlebar change saves 12W independently, and a frame change saves 8W, the change together might only save 15W, rather than 20. In this example, it doesn’t mean that the frame alone only saves 3W. I guess it depends on how you look at it. Watts/$ are another story. The handlebar is the clear winner there.
As with the SL8 specifically, a big reason I’m not getting one is the lack of long, narrow cockpits and the inability to customize that on a $14k bike. The relatively short, wide cockpits spec’d on the bikes more than negates the aero benefits or adds even more cost.
I kind of get the feeling that we are starting to get to “Peak Aero” with road bikes. There are a lot of bikes that have landed in the 205-209 range in Tour’s test. You could get more agressive with aero design like the Simplon Pride and get to 199. But you would be making compromises.
For a road bike I personally wouldn’t choose one over another if we are talking <5 watts difference (maybe even up to 10). For a TT bike, I’d search for every last watt. But on a road bike there are so many variables that can come into play that I’d sacrifice a little bit of aero for things like weight, ride quality, stiffness, compliance, yada, yada, yada
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Yup, once you’ve got aero tube shapes at the front, clean and aero cockpit and deep section wheels it’s all pretty marginal from there on in which is why they’re now all competing on saving weight, stiffness to weight ratios, compliance, etc.
Keep hoping that the next step in road bike evolution is going to be on configuration. I.e. the ability to choose a frame colour and size and then spec everything else to my personal preference - stem length, bar width, saddle, what power meter I want, groupset, wheels, etc. Crazy to me that anybody would pay £12k for a bike and not be able to decide those things. And seems crazy to me that a company like Canyon hasn’t made this evolution yet, I assumed they would introduce that several years ago but maybe Covid and all the supply issues everybody was facing meant it just wasn’t worth doing when bikes were flying out the door as fast as they could get them. Hopefully now supply and demand seems a bit more balanced we’ll see it happen.
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It is a logistical and forecasting nightmare and not worth the incremental cost for major suppliers.
Your inventory holding costs are huge and the more choices you provide, the greater the likelihood that you will be out of stock on something, which potentially kills the whole purchase.
For example, for most sizes, you would need to ensure that you have at least 3 sizes of cranks available in your system for every sale. Now expand that into HB, stems, saddles, power meters, wheels, etc.
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I still don’t get why they don’t make it easy for themselves though…
- 170mm cranks across the board
- 40cm handlebars across the board
- Rapide Cockpit in 36 and 40cm only, 90mm to 130mm stems
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Because a lot of people don’t want 170mm cranks, etc.
You basically just laid out the case for making stock bikes.
Struggling to see how it could be that bad for a company like Canyon who must already have a large amount of inventory in one place. If, say, you’re out of 165mm cranks and can only offer a 170mm, I don’t see how that kills the purchase any more than offering a bike that only comes with 170mm in the first place. In the market we’ve had for the last few years where bikes sell out as fast as you ship them then I agree the incremental cost isn’t worth it. If we move to a market where bike sales drop and companies have inventory sitting on the shelves, I would think it’s a no brainer.
E.g. I’m looking at a new race bike purchase at the moment. Of the frames I’m considering (Supersix, SL8, Aeroad, Propel) not one of them comes built as a bike in a spec I would want. Giant have ruled themselves out because they don’t sell the Propel as a frameset, and their Dura Ace build comes with a Shimano power meter and I don’t want that POC. Canyon at least sell a frameset but it comes with bars already installed in the wrong size for me, so they’re out. I’ll likely end up buying an SL8 or Supersix frameset and building it up the way I want it, but if any of those 4 brands offered instead to just let me swap a few parts when ordering a bike they would get my business straight away as that to me would be worth more than the few grams or watts of difference between those bikes.
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Factor is doing a pretty good job with customization:
You get to choose your:
- Wheel set
- Crank length
- Stem length. (From a huge variety)
- Bar width (from a huge variety)
- group set
- seat post set back
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Because the whole point of a custom program is to get the “right” bike that you want, not accept compromises.
They can’t even keep their current selection of components in stock. Ask anyone who has ever tried to source a different one-piece HB / Stem configuration from them.
170mm cranks would suck for someone who is 6’3
I was in the same boat but when googe-ling around one day I found one shop that is selling the Propel as a frameset only. The shop seems to be legit though it is odd that you can’t find the frameset (or that color) anywhere else at all.
They also have the frameset with the ISP for sale:
Unfortunately neither includes the surprisingly expensive stem:
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Because they are used to being told that 175 is right for them. There is literally no difference between 170 and 175 from a performance perspective, other than that 170mm is better for 99% of people from a hip perspective, position perspective etc.
Since we were discussing all different crank lengths, handlebar widths etc I just thought that I’d be wise to simplify it a bit.
I promise you that if Specialized did 170mm on all bikes, and 40cm handlebars on all bikes, no one would complain and everyone would follow…
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I’ll reiterate that the point of a custom program is so the user can get all the components that they want……what they need ( right or wrong) is irrelevant. if you have a “custom” program that only offered 170 cranks and 40cm HB, it would fail spectacularly.
I’m happy my 49cm Tarmac came with 165mm cranks but wish it came with a 35 or 36cm bar instead of 38cm (will eventually swap) and didn’t come with a 155mm saddle (swapping right away).
No no, I just meant that instead of even 44cm handlebars existing, stop offering those sizes on race bikes.
My thought was just that if they weren’t going to offer custom sizing, at least put reasonable sizes on the bikes that they do sell. Shorter cranks and smaller handlebars in general.
No one “should” ride 175mm and 44cm.