HOW ONE BIKE CHANGED THE RULES FOR EVERYONE
IS THE SPECIALIZED ROUBAIX THE MOST INFLUENTIAL ROAD BIKE EVER? WE LOOK AT HOW IT BROKE THE MOULD...
John Cordoba, Head of Road and Gravel Product Management at Specialized, makes a bold claim when he says, “We believe the Roubaix is the most influential bike in the road endurance space.” Of course, this is the kind of thing you’d expect a brand insider to make, especially when a new model of bike is released. But is Cordoba right?
When the Specialized Roubaix was launched in 2004 it could certainly be argued that it ushered in a new era of road-bike design. It was the first performance bike to really bring comfort to the fore – until the advent of the original carbon, bikes were either race or recreation, never both – pioneering ideas such as endurance geometry and introducing active damping to counter poor roads.
A decade and a half later, the Specialized Roubaix is, for many ordinary road cyclists a bike that’s synonymous with one hugely desirable attribute: comfort. It’s become a firm favourite for riders looking for a bike to get them through long days in the saddle and is, arguably, the benchmark machine other brands look to
when building endurance bikes. “It has allowed the riders to go long distance,” confirms John “while having more confidence (with the bike’s handling and control) and still having that highperformance feel.”
But while comfort is definitely one of the Roubaix’s key selling points, it shouldn’t be forgotten that it has serious race-winning chops too – Roubaix models have been ridden to seven victories in the legendary, bike-and-rider breaking Paris-Roubaix, and achieved multiple top 10 finishes at cobbled Classics. Despite these impressive palmarés, Specialized fans looking for a race bike have tended to gravitate towards the brand’s Tarmac or Venge models.
However, Specialized says that its latest Roubaix – released as a 2020 model just prior to last year’s Paris Roubaix – was designed to reset that balance and place the brand’s smoothest machine squarely back into the peloton. They achieved success immediately with Lotto-Soudal’s Philipe Gilbert riding it to victory around the Roubaix velodrome.
While this year’s cancelled Classics season has put the brakes on the Roubaix proving itself on the world circuit once more, we thought it was time to talk to the team behind the bike to find out if it really is one of the most influential bikes on sale today.
The wonder years
The original Roubaix was designed as a response to pro-race bikes that had been getting longer in the top tube and lower at the front. This was the result of the switch to integrated headsets, rather than traditional threaded units, which made it much easier to reduce head-tube size. Pro riders can hold more aggressive riding positions and were happy to live with the pain of more prone positions in the pursuit of speed and race wins; regular riders, however, found race bikes becoming ever more extreme.
The Roubaix aimed to give the rider the benefit of race-machine pedalling efficiency, thanks to improved frame stiffness and the low weight that modern carbon-fibre construction could afford, but with a change in geometry that would make the bike more accessible and usable by more riders.
The term, ‘endurance geometry’ entered the cycling lexicon, although in reality it was similar to what had already been seen in British and European audax style, or American ‘century’ bike geometries. These bikes had elongated head tubes and short top tubes mated with shorter upward pointing stems for an upright, relaxed riding style – perfect for comfortable long rides, less good for racing.
The Roubaix was different – it blended the racier position of the pro-ranks with the comfort of a century bike. This was achieved by using a slightly taller head tube and reducing the reach (a longer reach – the horizontal distance between the centre of the bottom bracket to the centre of the head tube – lowers your ride position, a shorter reach means you sit more upright) at the same time. But, by retaining the responsive steering geometry of a race bike, rather than the slower, stable feel of a tourer or century machine.
While the very first bikes simply used geometry tweaks to deliver extra comfort, technological advances in frame design made successive versions of the Roubaix lighter and more compliant. The carbon-frame tubing was manipulated to include flexible characteristics to make the ride smoother and, in 2010, Zertz was introduced. Zertz is a highly elastic material placed into the seatstays and fork legs of the Roubaix across every model. The principle was
ROUBAIX MODELS HAVE BEEN RIDDEN TO SEVEN VICTORIES IN THE LEGENDARY PARIS ROBAIX
that this ‘elastomer’ would absorb high frequency vibrations from rough road surfaces making for a smoother ride. At its launch it was perceived as a gimmick, the squishy inserts looking more like an afterthought. Over the years we’ve tested various iterations of Zertz-equipped Roubaix and always found them comfortable, but was this was down to elastomer or, as rival designers and engineers mooted, the fact that splitting the stays and fork legs at these sections introduced more surface area for vibrations to spread and dissipate before reaching your hands or seat. Either way, Zertz became hugely influential in a market where rival brands thought seriously about making endurance-focused bikes where handling, vibration damping and low weight was as much a priority as ride position. Without the Roubaix, one could argue, we wouldn’t have such superb bikes as Giant’s Defy, Cannondale’s Synapse and Trek’s Domane.
Gradually, the Roubaix became more aggressive in its ride position – although nowhere as much as Specialized’s race-specific machines – and it was with the advent of the second generation SL2 it started winning the race from which it took its name. Belgian legend Tom Boonen took back-to-back wins onboard an S-Works SL2 in 2008 and 2009, and Swiss star Fabian Cancellara took victory in 2010 on an SL3.
The last of the first generation, the SL4 introduced in 2013, took the Roubaix to another level. Specialized wanted to capitalise on the Roubaix’s Zertz-derived comfort but not have their riders penalised by excess weight (compared to the racer’s favourite Tarmac). This meant a whole new approach to construction. In the main most bikes at this time used a method of carbon construction based in the traditions of steel. You simply took carbon ‘lugs’ and bonded tubes to the lugs. Specialized’s new approach involved building a frame from four separate sections bonded together without the need for heavier lug sections. The seatstays got slimmer, chainstays beefier, the bottom bracket shell improved torsional rigidity.
The result hugely reduced weight and improved stiffness, and it’s production innovations such as this that still inform Specialized’s carbon construction today (and most rival brands too).
Up front it used a ‘Cobra’ design head tube whereby extending composite/carbon fibres from both top and down tube were wrapped fully around (like a lasso) creating a huge increase in front-end stiffness. The SL4 was the ultimate of the pre-Future Shock designs with Tom Boonen and Dutch racer Niki Terpstra winning aboard the design in 2012 and 2014.
Coming out on top
The biggest change in the Roubaix’s history came in 2017 when the frameset was completely redesigned, and innovations were introduced that took the Roubaix back to its comfort-oriented roots. Development was led by engineer Chris D’Alusio and Head of Applied Technologies Chris Yu who asked themselves: ‘Is smoother faster’?
That led to months of data capturing, using technical partner McLaren’s Formula 1 datalogging equipment. “From the data we gathered, McLaren developed a piece of software called the ‘rolling efficiency simulator’, “explains Yu. “Our engineers and designers use this to design our bikes to meet the needs of any road surface.”
D’Alusio goes on to explain: “We started to see that one of the benefits of compliance was also traction: if you can keep in contact with the ground more of the time then you’ll have increased control and be able to go faster. A McLaren F1 car has suspension that’s not about comfort, it’s all about traction.”
D’Alusio built a slew of radical prototypes, including a linkage fork and even a mountainbike style pivot rear end using a version of the ‘Brain’ system that Specialized uses on its XC range. “It took a while, but we realised that we’d need something at both ends,” he admits.
“Like everyone else, we’d been concentrating on the back end, which seems crazy... I mean, you wouldn’t ride a mountain bike with a rigid fork and suspension on the back!”
At the back a smart, repositioning of the seat clamp into the joint with the dropped seatstays – that sit 3.5 inches below the top-tube/seattube junction – combined with an oversized seat tube and a slimmer, elastomer-topped seatpost allowed a huge amount of unsupported post for plenty of comfort. It was up front, though, where Specialized changed the game with the addition of the Future Shock suspension unit.
We had seen road-bike suspension before with the likes of Cannondale’s Headshok-equipped tourers, the pivot-and-elastomer based Girvin Flex Stem and the Paris-Roubaix winning – and subsequently banned – mountain-bike style RockShox Ruby forks in the 1990s.
When it comes to front suspension there are two distinct types: splay – which relies on the fork being able to move fore-and-aft, and axial where the fork moves vertically up and down below the head tube. A classic slender steel fork o ers splay, while a mountain-bike suspension fork o ers axial movement. Specialized claims that splay changes the dynamics of the handling as it’s constantly changing which, it says, will slow you down, while axial movement has a tendency to ‘bob’ when climbing.
On the Roubaix and Future Shock, Specialized’s brief was to create a suspension system that didn’t have the downsides of splay or axial path movement. This was achieved by positioning the e ective suspension on top of the head tube and under the bars, which reduces any bobbing e ect because it suspends the rider and not the bike. The principle being that you maintain equal rigidity between the front and rear wheels by separating the suspension duties from the frame and fork. The original Future Shock was a minimal weight unit contained within the head tube and o ers 20mm of comfort aiding suspension travel
This year’s top model
We found the 2017 Roubaix capable, comfortable and versatile – it was our 2017 Bike of the Year so you can tell we liked it. However, Specialized also created something of a headache for itself.
“WE STARTED TO SEE THAT ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF COMPLIANCE WAS ALSO TRACTION ...” CHRIS D’ ALUSIO SPECIALIZED ENGINEER
IT TAKES EVERYTHING LEARNED FROM 2017 AND FUTURE SHOCK AND APPLIES IT TO A BIKE WITH RACING IN MIND
After the successes of Future Shock on the Roubaix it rolled out the technology on the carbon-fibre framed Diverge, which was aimed at the growing gravel market. While ostensibly taking the technology o -road, the Diverge is also highly capable on the road too. This has had the e ect of turning many riders towards the Diverge as it appealed to those looking for all-road kicks, rather than the road-focused Roubaix.
Cordoba and the R&D team felt that the Roubaix should be refocused as a performance machine, so the 2020 Roubaix takes everything learned from the 2017 iteration and Future Shock and applies it to a bike with racing in mind.
New-look Roubaix
Take one glance at the 2020 Roubaix and you can see the same design language that’s being used in the Tarmac and the Venge. Specialized’s R&D work in its own wind tunnel means that it has a tube-shape library, which has informed the design of each its current road bikes.
Specialized says that the Roubaix is more aerodynamic that the current Tarmac (which will be replaced later this year). In fact, it claims that its numbers show that the 2020 Roubaix is as aerodynamic as the original Venge – a bike designed to be as slippery as possible when launched in 2010. In real-world terms, it claims that the 2020 Roubaix is 14 seconds faster than the previous model over 40km (at 40kph).
It’s not all about cheating the wind, however. The carbon layup of the frame is designed to o er optimal sti ness where it’s needed (through the bottom bracket and head tube) and to keep weight low. The range-topping S-Works frame is an impressive sub 900g.
But comfort is still important as the new bike uses Future Shock 2.0 at the front end. This is an upgraded system that o ers riders ‘on-thego’ tuneable damping with a dial in place of the headset cap where you can alter the feel of the suspension as you ride. The original Future Shock could be tuned but only by switching out springs in the workshop (it came with three distinct grades: soft, medium, sti ).
The rear end’s simple trick of lowering the seat-clamp down into the frame to give maximum unsupported seatpost has been developed further. Using a Venge-style, aero-sculpted seat tube saves drag as does the hidden clamp. The seatpost is all-new too. The zig-zagged elastomer-topped CG-R post has been replaced with an aerodynamic D-shaped Pavé post that relies on carbon layup under the saddle clamp to o er similar compliance as the previous model.
Geometry-wise the Roubaix follows the traits of the Tarmac and Venge, sharing the same parallel 73.5-degree angles (on our 58cm test bike) it’s got a little steeper and sharper than the previous model. It does di er somewhat elsewhere, however, with a taller stack, the distance vertically from the centre of the bottom bracket to the centre of the top of the head tube (630mm compared to 591mm on the Tarmac), and a shorter reach by 10mm (392mm compared to 402mm). The wheelbase is also slightly longer (thanks to the Roubaix’s larger tyre capacity of 32c) at 1014mm compared to 1005mm. In short, the 2020 Roubaix takes its cues from the Tarmac and the Venge and appeals to racers, but we believe they’ve hit the right balance to give the bike mass appeal to a wider range of riders.
A classic in the making
In our opinion some of the Roubaix’s earlier models had become a bit too sedate and the build choices reflected that. Shorter, more upright stems and middleweight comfort-orientated component choices made some of the Zertz infused SLs a little, well, boring.
Things changed with the 2017 Roubaix, we were so impressed it won our coveted Bike of the Year award. With the improvements on the 2020 bike we found its combination of low weight and compliant ride (along with Tarmac-like handling) superior to the Tarmac on poor road surfaces. It makes for a bike that we seriously think could be all we’ll ever need.
The even better news is that Specialized is bringing a whole suite of bikes based on the new 2020 Roubaix design, starting with the Roubaix Sport, equipped with Future Shock 1.5, coming in at attainable £2600; rising to the S-Works range that features three models that all feature premium sub-900g Fact11r frameset, Future Shock 2.0-equipped fork, S-Works carbon bar, power saddle and premium Turbo Cotton tyres – all driven by Shimano Dura-Ace Di2. Top of the tree is the S-Works Roubaix Sagan, which rings up at a superbike-price of £10,000 and comes with limited-edition Sagan components too.
The 2020 Roubaix has exceeded our expectations. On the road it feels familiar – it is at heart an endurance bike, but it’s one that feels like a race bike and handles with race bike reactivity. Yes, it’s a little taller up front than the Tarmac but not so much to make it feel sedate. The key element, though, is the control you now have over the Future Shock. On normal, smooth roads swing the stem-top adjuster fully anticlockwise to minimise the movement and the front-end sinks and sits low and compressed. You still get a bit of movement from the shock – nulling road buzz – but it feels sti and maintains the point-and-shoot handling we’ve come to love about Specialized’s purely race-focused bikes: the Tarmac and Venge. At the rear, the new Pavé post feels better than the old CGR. It flexes fore and aft in a subtle and fluid manner.
On a bike with this much additional ‘tech’ you’d expect to be penalised with extra weight, but the Roubaix isn’t. This new-generation ‘system’: frame, fork, shock, post and clamp is 50g lighter than the previous generation bike. If you opt for the cheaper Pro (Fact10r) model (from £2600) the same system is 170g lighter than the previous generation. Our 58cm test bike (complete with SRAM Red Etap AXS disc and power meter with 105 Shimano pedals, 2 x bottle cages, Garmin Edge 1030 and out-front mount fitted) tipped the scales bang on 8kg. Remove the accessories and the raw weight is just shy of 7.5kg.
“With the latest Roubaix we focused on bringing more performance to the rider,” concludes John Cordoba, “We already had Future Shock technology, but we wanted to give the rider the control of adjusting their Future Shock as they needed to adapt to the di erent terrain, they’re riding in. Along with focusing on aero improvements, we delivered a bike that will allow riders to ride further, while feeling confident to take on any road.”
We pitted the 2020 S-Works Roubaix against its S-Works Tarmac cousin back in issue 355, with the conclusion being that the Roubaix came out on top with an almost perfect four and half stars out of five. So did the Roubaix live up to Specialized’s claim that ‘smoother is faster’? Well in our testing on some of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset’s most challenging roads and surfaces the Roubaix did indeed prove the faster machine over an 82-mile loop with 2000m of climbing.
Thoroughbred racers, such as the Tarmac, may be best on optimal road surfaces but the Roubaix makes more surfaces optimal. To some riders it may lack the ‘it’ factor of a Venge or Tarmac but we’re convinced that the Roubaix is the bike that makes more sense to more people. It’s a bike that’s influenced a whole genre, yet remains unsurpassed at the forefront after more than 15 years, and its future is looking bright.
“WITH THIS ROUBAIX WE FOCUSED ON BRINGING MORE PERFORMANCE TO THE RIDER” JOHN CORDOBA PRODUCT MANAGER