Every year, the Tour de France brings out
a number of special edition custom paint
jobs and this one is particularly
special because it belongs to the World
Champion Peter Sagan.
Sagan is riding the brand new Specialized S-Works Venge
for the 2018 Tour de France and it's
been given this pretty pimp paint job.
According to Bora's team representatives,
Sagan is particularly into his American
muscle cars and this glittery green
finish reflects some of the designs you
might have seen in yesteryear.
If there's one rider who can pull off a
bike like this, it's certainly the World
Champion and we expect to see Sagan on
the Venge at the front of the pack more
than a few times this year.
This new Venge was released just before the Tour
de France and it's the third version of
Specialized's aero bike.
Specialized say this bike is eight seconds faster
than the previous Venge ViAS, but more
importantly they've shed a lot of weight
from the frame – 240g.
That takes the claimed frame weight down to 960g,
which for a disc-specific aero bike is
pretty damn impressive.
There's also Specialized's brand new Aerofly 2 cockpit, which is not only
designed to slice through the wind but
to be much more user-friendly for the
team mechanics.
Sagan's also running Shimano 'Sprint' shifters on the drops so
he can change gear regardless of his
hand position, and there's also a neatly
integrated computer mount for his Wahoo
ELEMNT Bolt.
Bora are one of two teams
sponsored by Specialized at this year's Tour de France and this is almost
exactly the same bike that's being ridden by
Quicksteps Fernando Gaviria.
It'll be really interesting to see how those two
get on head-to-head in the sprints.
In terms of the build, Sagan's running a
full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and
that's with a 54/42 chainset.
We expect that will probably change when the
parcour gets a little bit lumpier, but
for the sprints, Sagan is certainly a
rider capable of getting on top of that
gear.
There's also Shimano Dura-Ace pedals
and Specialized's new double-sided power
meter.
In terms of the rolling stock,
there's Roval CLX 50 wheels and they're
wrapped in Specialized tyres.
In terms of some of the smaller details, the Shimano Di2
junction box is hidden in the back of
the seat post. We think that's
particularly cool and otherwise it's a
really clean, slick-looking aero bike
with not a cable in sight.
There's also a number of
personal touches that mark this out as a
custom bike for Sagan.
It's got his name
on the top tube, there's also a reference
to his rainbow jersey on the seat tube.
Underneath the bottom bracket, it also
says the words 'we'll see'.
Whether we'll see
Sagan winning sprints this year, we
don't know, but we think it's pretty likely.
That's Peter Sagan's rig.
We think this one is particularly special.
Not because it's just the brand new Venge,
but because of that paint job.
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