- 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.