Specialized 2019 S-Works Venge

Another day another aero bike. It’s the week before the tour so everyone is launching their flagship race bikes. Today it’s the turn of Specialized with their new 2019 S-Works Venge.

Specialized are making a big point of this not just being the 2019 version of the existing Venge. But a completely redesigned bike. Specialized say that the new 2019 Venge is 460 grams lighter, 8 second faster over 40km than the 2018 bike.

The 2019 Specialized Venge shares many of the design characteristics of other new aero bikes such as the Cannondale SystemSix. This includes the bike being disc only and having modular integrated stem and bars. To improve the frontend profile of the bike while allowing riders to tailor the fit to suit them. It can also take super-wide tyres, up to 32mm.

How Is It Designed?

Unlike Cannondale, Specialized are not claiming the Venge is the fastest bike in the world. They are saying that there are significant improvements in aero performance, power transfer and rider comfort over their 2018 bike. Although Specialized have their own wind tunnel to play with. They started the design of the 2019 Venge in their custom software. Which allows them to compare thousands of different tube shape variations to find the best ones. Once the computer had done its thing Specialized were left with a collection of super-efficient tube shapes they call the FreeFoil Shape Library. Those shapes were then used as the basis for the Venge.

As well as being super aero Specialized wanted to make a bike that is comfortable to ride. They are using the approach they call ‘Rider First Engineered ™’. To tailor each size of the bike is built in a slightly different way to get the optimum performance. The result being that stiffness to weight ratios vary between a 54cm and 60cm bike as they are built differently. While stiffness is obviously a big factor on a top end race bike like the Venge. Specialized have added 40% more compliance into the seat tube area. So that the bike soaks up bumps and road buzz more effectively.

What's Been Released?

At the moment Specialized have just announced one S-Works model of the Venge for 2019. Which comes equipped with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and a £9,5000 price tag. If Specialized follow the model they’ve used in previous years. We can expect to see a cheaper non-S-Works variant later in the year.