- This is the bike
that the legendary Pete
Sagan will be using
at the 2019 Tour de France.
It's his Specialized S-Works Venge.
(whooshing)
(dub step music)
For the first time in his entire career,
Pete Sagan will start the first road stage
of the Tour de France
wearing pretty much
standard Bora-Hansgrohe kit,
albeit with a rainbow band at
the end of the sleeves here.
And that is because he's
no longer world champion,
Alejandro Valverde took that last year,
and he's no longer national champion,
because his brother, Yuri, took it
just a couple of weeks ago.
But that doesn't mean he
hasn't got a custom bike,
of course, because he's one
of the biggest champions
of the sport.
So, S-Works and Specialized
have made him this one
for this year.
Slightly more subtle than the one
that Jon Cannings brought you
at last year's Tour de France,
which had that green
glitter towards the front.
Still does have the glitter,
but on a much more subtle gray,
and it transitions into the
matte gray here at the top
and right through, down to the back here.
Now, I don't do so many pro
bikes for videos these days.
I leave that to the more
tech-savvy Jon Cannings
and Angry Lou himself, Ollie Bridgewood,
but I quite often get
annihilated when I do do one
for not doing the free hub sound test,
so I'm going to get that in early doors.
Ready, here we go.
(wheels rapidly whirring and clicking)
The other thing I get criticized for
is not doing it properly, so here we go.
(wheels whirring and
clicking more rapidly)
Right, that's enough of that.
Now, along with the glitter,
which, I have to say, does look very good
in the Belgian sunshine at the moment,
there are a few other subtleties
in terms of this custom bike for Sagan.
Of course, there's his
name here on the top tube.
He's got his initials there
at the front of the top
tube, too, while down here,
which is the same as last
year's bike, in fact,
it's got his three world championship
victories written down.
They were won consecutively, of course.
2015 was Richmond, 2016 was Doha,
and 2017, he won in it in Bergen,
and, I dare say, it won't be long
'til he wins his next one
and I'll have to add a fourth one here.
This version of the Venge
was released by Specialized
before last year's Tour de France,
and he was using that green version
that Jon Cannings showed you last year,
so I won't go into too many details
about what they did
versus its predecessor,
but just a quick run-through.
They've managed to make
it more aerodynamic
through wind-tunnel tests.
The frame is over 200 grams
lighter than its predecessor.
The fork is 25 grams, and at the bars,
which I'll get onto in a minute,
they saved over 100 grams,
which is a lot.
Like last year, Sagan is opting
for a threaded,
CeramicSpeed bottom bracket,
as opposed to a press-fit,
I think, basically, just
because it's more reliable.
Speaking of reliability,
on the bike is an almost-complete
Shimano Deore HDI-2
groupset behind the wheels,
which I'll get onto a little bit later on.
Start down here at the cranks, actually.
172.5 millimeters are the
length that he's running.
On them, though, are 54-
and 42-tooth chain links.
Reasonably uncommon, I would
say, although, that said,
we are seeing more and more sprinters
running a 54-tooth chain
ring for the flatter stages.
Just inside the chain rings,
he has got this K-EDGE chain catcher,
just to prevent it dropping off
and hitting the bottom bracket.
At the rear, his cassette
for the fast stages is
11 up through to 28.
That will, of course, change
during the Tour de France,
as, indeed, could his bike,
'cause he also has access to
a Specialized S-Works Tarmac
for the hillier stages.
Now, one thing that a
lot of you commented on
on last year's pro bike of
Pete Sagan's S-Works Venge
was the fact that the
Specialized 4iiii power meter
was a rather garish orange,
and I think they've listened to you
because it's now a much more subtle black,
which I think is in keeping
with the rest of the bike.
There, at the top, he's using
an Aerofly stem and bars,
and that stem is a whopper.
I've just measured it,
and by my calculations,
it's 14.5 centimeters,
from the center of the stem
cap to the center of the bars.
Speaking of the bars, they
measure 42 centimeters,
center to center, at the
end of the drops there.
I actually particularly
like the bar end caps
that Specialized they provided here.
On those bars, he's also
got the satellite shifters,
so that he can change
gears while he's sprinting
in the drops.
And then right at the front there,
you can see his Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT.
That one's on a particularly
neat mount there, at the front,
which is just a single unit
going back into the stem.
I do like that one.
Almost all the cables on this
bike are hidden from view,
except just a couple here
coming out from the bars,
and they go underneath the stem here
and just into this headset space,
where they go down into the frame.
The other very neat
thing about this bike is
where the Di2 junction box is hidden.
Not anywhere near the
stem, it is, in fact,
in the Aero seatpost behind
here, so you can barely see it.
On the top of that seatpost
is an S-Works Romin EVO saddle
with the FACT carbon rails.
Height of the saddle?
76 centimeters, just over,
from the center of the bottom
bracket to the tip here.
And now, he's running
a 56-centimeter frame,
which is the same as, of course,
he's had for quite some time.
Lots of pro rides, as we all know,
would downsize one frame size.
It's just more aerodynamics
and, also, to get a
little bit more stiffness.
But he is quite a tall chap, actually.
Just bumped into him
after his training ride
and looked his stats up.
One meter 84, which is
a little over 6 foot.
Let's move onto the wheels now,
which come from the Specialized
in-house brand, Roval.
The ones that he's got on this bike,
which is, in fact, his spare bike,
with a number two on the back here,
are the CLX 64 deep-section ones,
and mounted onto them are a pair
of S-Works Turbo tubular tires
with the GRIPTON compound.
Now, I can't actually find a size on here,
but to me, they look like 25 millimeters.
As you can well see, Sagan
is running disc brakes
on this bike.
At the front there, we've
got a 160-millimeter rotor
from Shimano, while at
the rear is only 140,
and they're both flat-mount calipers.
Beyond that, I think I've
mentioned the pedals yet.
He's running Shimano Dureos there, too.
These are the R9100 version,
which is the newest one.
He's also got Tacx bottles and cages.
The one measurement I
haven't given you just yet
is his reach, from the
tip of the saddle here
to the center of the bars,
and given that humongous
stand, it's a long reach.
62 centimeters is what
I've just measured it at.
He's a tall bloke, but
that's a big stretch.
Right, now I normally would
give you the weight of the bike,
but unfortunately,
Ollie Bridgewood nicked
my scale this morning
to do a couple of pro bikes himself,
so I can't tell you the weight.
I know that, last year,
it came in at 7.46 kilos,
and I think it might be slightly lighter,
because there seems to be
a little bit less paint,
but it will be around about that.
What's going to be interesting
is to see how long it is
before he wins his first stage
and how long it is before
he goes into a green jersey.
I guess we'll see,
which is exactly what
he's got written down here
underneath the bottom bracket.
Right, let us know what you think
of Sagan's 2019 Tour de France bike
in the comments section just down below,
and if you can't get enough
of your Tour de France tag,
you can find our latest
video just over there.
