Product News/First Ride: The Specialized Venge has been one of the fastest bikes on the market for a number of years. The big disadvantage, however, was often the rather high weight. With the completely new Specialized Venge, a racer was developed that is not only faster but also significantly lighter than its predecessor. Even before the launch, we had the opportunity to test the new Specialized Venge 2019 on the 2018 World Championship track in Innsbruck.
The Specialized Venge stands and always has stood for aerodynamics and speed. But aerodynamics and speed alone do not make a perfect bike. With the previous Venge, aerodynamics were compromised in many areas such as weight, handling, speed or complexity.
With the new third-generation Specialized Venge, they've designed a racer that's faster everywhere, over any terrain, while improving aerodynamics, shedding weight, and perfecting responsiveness and handling. The brand new Venge of the third generation excels in every imaginable area. It's faster than a Venge Vias and lighter than a Tarmac SL5.
Specialized Venge 2019 - The Evolution
To achieve these goals, completely new approaches were taken for the aero frame design. Instead of starting in Specialized Win Tunnel, optimization software was first developed that generates millions of tube shapes and analyzes them based on aerodynamics, surface area and stiffness. This process resulted in a collection of shapes called the FreeFoil Shape Library.
Specialized Venge 2019 - Aerodynamics
The Venge Vias already made a real declaration of war in terms of aerodynamics. But with the new Venge, improvements have been pushed even further. Compared to the fastest aero road bike to date, the Venge ViAS, the new Venge is 8 seconds faster over 40km. On the road where riders face crosswinds, the new Venge is even faster with its tube optimization that excels in crosswinds.
Specialized Venge 2019 Weight
As a system, the new Venge module is 460 g lighter than the Venge ViAS Disc. That's right, 460 grams! How much that really is can be seen in the following picture.
The 2019 Venge frame weighs just under 960 g +/- 30 g in the size 56 cm in the "Satin Black / Holographic Foil" color scheme. The total weight for a 56cm S-Works Venge with Dura-Ace Di2 in Satin Black / Holo Silver is approximately 7,1kg which is a real statement for an aero bike.
Specialized Venge 2019 – Handling
The new Specialized Venge uses a Rider-First Engineered™ design to ensure that every frame performs flawlessly, regardless of size. This is achieved through a mix of extensive data collection, expert feedback from professional riders and a meticulous approach to carbon construction. This gives you perfect handling for every frame size.
Specialized Venge 2019 Cockpit
Working with the pro teams, it became increasingly apparent that stem stiffness is very important for riders, especially the powerful sprinters. The Venge stem surpasses all stems tested by Specialized in stiffness, including the Zipp SL Sprint stem, which is the benchmark for stiffness and widely used in the pro peloton. The all-new Aerofly II is faster, lighter and stiffer, and the surfaces have a textured pattern for added grip and control. An integrated bar tape stop keeps bar tape looking super professional and makes wrapping a breeze.
Specialized Venge 2019 Compatibility
The Venge is fitted with 26mm tires to offer the best combination of aerodynamics, handling and rolling resistance. However, tires up to 32mm are possible. The new Venge has been engineered to be compatible only with disc and electronic shifting drivetrains. It is compatible with Shimano Di2, SRAM eTap and Campagnolo EPS systems - provided they use an internal battery. The Venge's disc brake system follows the Shimano flat-mount standard. Also, it comes with standard 142x12mm thru-axles for the rear and 100x12mm for the front, and the thru-axles are Venge bolt-on with a 6mm hex. Axles with the DT RWS ratchet handle are available from Specialized Service.
Specialized Venge 2019 - First Ride
After riding the Venge Vias and the Tarmac for the whole of last season, I was of course all the more excited about the first few kilometers with the new Specialized Venge. The theory is one thing, of course, and it sounded convincing at first, but of course you can only really judge a bike if you ride it yourself. But I can anticipate this much, the new Venge has also been able to fully convince in practice.
During our test drives on the World Championship track in Innsbruck, everything was topographically available that you need to put such a racer through its paces. On flat passages you can roll super well with little effort, but that would be boring, because the Venge really invites you to ride fast. The power transmission is first-class and converts every step directly into propulsion. You notice that especially when accelerating, when you have to start again after corners. Of course, we were able to climb quite a few meters on the World Cup route, but this can be done very well with the new and significantly lighter Venge.
The climbing properties (almost) come close to those of the Tarmac and especially in long sections with gradients of up to almost 10% I would choose the Venge because of the additional good rolling properties. Of course you can already feel in hell with an incline of up to 28% that it is not a pure climbing bike, but up to this climb you can save so much energy that it didn’t make a big difference here either.
The performance on the descent is also gigantic, which we also noticed when we took a longer descent KOM on Strava more by chance and in passing. The first-class handling and the braking behavior of the discs also play a role here, with which you can dose every curve well and approach it at optimum speed. Fortunately, one almost has to say that it rained on one of the rides, which allowed us to fully enjoy the advantages of the disc brakes. These offer the necessary safety when it comes down to it, even in the wet on fast and technical descents.
A real highlight is also the new cockpit with the coated handlebars, which offer a good grip even without handlebar tape and despite the wet. The rest of the equipment fits, as it should be for a top model, like a glove. With the Roval CLX 64, Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, Turbo Cottons and SWorks Power saddle, nothing stands in the way of a fast and varied ride.
Images: Valentin Rapp