Vengeful, Vengeance, Revenge: These are just some of the headline opportunities for the McLaren/Specialized Venge
Formula One car-maker McLaren and bike company Specialized have teamed up to “reinvent the road bike.” Have they done this? No, but they have made a bike that looks pretty damn awesome: The Venge.
Trust a car company to concentrate on aerodynamics. You can’t make a competition road bike any lighter, thanks to strict UCI (the racing governing body) rules. But you can reduce drag, and McCaren says that the bike is 8% faster thanks mostly to this aerodynamic shaping. The chain-stays, for example, are shaped to let both front and sidewinds flow around them, maybe accounting for half of the speed increase by themselves.
Those wheels don’t look so great for crosswinds, though. Aerodynamic rims work great until the wind blows in from the sides, when they turn into sails. Just ask any fashionable fixed-gear rider who is sporting deep-Vs.
Stiffness has not been compromised, and the chain-stays are quite circular, allowing for good power transfer from the pedals without losing anything to flex.
The seat-post is adjustable, the cables are all routed through the frame, and the carbon sheets that make up the frame are cut by computer. This accuracy means that the overlap between carbon sheets is minimal, reducing weight.
The gears are, of course, electronic Shimano Dura Ace.
This thing looks ridiculously fast. It is also ridiculously priced (and has a ridiculous name: Venge sounds like some kind of tropical disease). The Specialized version will cost up to $9,100, or $4,000 for just the frame. The fancier, lighter McLaren Venge will cost you $8,000 for the frame, and a scary $15,000 complete. I recommend a big lock if you take this to the supermarket.
McLaren Applied Technologies teams with Specialized [McLaren. Thanks, Chuck!]
Specialized Reinvents the Road Bike [Adventure Journal]
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