The Specialized Roubaix launched in 2003 and to date has taken top spot at the event it’s named after an impressive five times. But nothing lasts forever, so just over two years ago the engineers at Specialized began to ask, ‘What’s next?’
There was a general belief among the team that ‘smoother was faster’, but by their own admission they had no way of quantifying that, so they turned once again to their partners at McLaren.
‘Taking precise measurements is something we’ve been doing in F1 for a long time,’ says Duncan Bradley, design director at McLaren Applied Technologies. ‘You need to be able to understand every part of a full system before you know what changes to make in something as complicated as a car or a bike. We went a little bit further than just collecting data, as data without insight is useless, so we built a computer model of a bike and rider.’
Clik here to view.
The beauty of a computer model is that it can measure and replicate thousands of different inputs and component changes without the need to manufacture anything. The Roubaix project was remodelled ‘virtually’ more than 2,000 times, which meant that just six physical prototypes were required to bring the design to fruition.
‘Our model is unbelievably complex and it generates information that’s accurate to the real world,’ says Caleb Sawade, lead simulation engineer at McLaren. ‘We can change the stiffness of a steerer tube and see what effect that has on the torque in a rider’s elbow. We used a chassis dynamics rig to see how vibrations come through the bike to the rider. We used our wind-tunnel to match it with aerodynamic data, then added in the data from the tyre lab to find out what effect it has on comfort and rolling resistance. All of this fed into the model and increased the accuracy.’
Back to the future
For Specialized, the study confirmed that smoother was indeed faster, but also that there isn’t just one kind of ‘compliance’. There are two: splay and axial.
‘Splay is the most common way we’re used to feeling compliance and it’s basically the bending [flexing] of an item, be that a fork, stem or seat post,’ says Chris Yu, head of applied technologies at Specialized. ‘We found that while the tangible feeling of something flexing is effective [in terms of comfort], it’s not the most efficient way, and so it’s not the fastest.
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‘Axial compliance refers to something being able to move straight down [along its axis] in the direction of the input, and we found that not only is that more efficient at extracting smoothness [read: delivering comfort] it’s also more efficient when it comes to speed.’
Confused? Let us try to explain. Think about the most common method of adding suspension ona mountain bike – a regular telescopic suspension fork. This is the perfect example of axial compliance – the fork compresses directly along its axis when a force is applied, as opposed to flexing back and forth like a carbon road fork might to help reduce the amount of road shock a rider feels.
That brings its own problems, however – most noticeably unwanted compression caused by the rider shifting their body weight and pedalling, which robs you of speed.
With us so far? OK, so, through its complex modelling Specialized discovered that if you place the axial suspension unit above the head tube, rather than below, it’s no longer supporting the entire weight of the rider, just a small percentage of their upper body mass. Now you can exploit the benefits of axial compliance without any of the negatives caused by undesirable compression. And so, FutureShock was born.
The FutureShock is a steel insert with a coil-sprung suspension unit that sits in the steerer tube. It provides 20mm of suspension travel, which Specialized claims makes this new Roubaix 1,000% more comfortable than the outgoing model.
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FutureShock comes with three rider-tunable spring options, the idea being that these should be chosen according to riding surface, rather than rider body weight. The real beauty of FutureShock is that it contains no wiper seals, dampers or other sources of friction, so it’s fully active all of the time. If you run over a piece of paper, Specialized claims, FutureShock will move to account for it.
Built to race
Specialized points out that not all splay compliance is bad, and it’s actually still preferable at the rear, as axial compliance here would alter the pedal stroke too much. Either way, this has been designed to be a race bike. The new frame geometry aligns more closely to the Tarmac than the outgoing Roubaix, and the frame is considerably stiffer. The fork has been lightened to account for FutureShock, so the overall weight remains virtually the same, and the whole system has spent time in the wind-tunnel to ensure it’s now slipperier than ever too.
The elephant in the room is the addition of disc brakes. The Roubaix has been designed for discs entirely top to bottom, and not a single bike in the range features callipers, which is fine for us consumers but should the UCI remain staunch on its ban it could pose a problem next spring.
We test rode this bike on the cobbles of Northern France to find out if the Roubaix lived up to Specialized's hype. You can read more about that here: Specialized Roubaix first ride
Model range and prices
Despite a huge technological leap forward, the FutureShock and associated Roubaix range is actually quite far reaching and even slips below £2000 for the Elite model.
| Model | Groupset | Price |
|---|---|---|
| S-Works Roubaix Etap | Sram Etap | £7,500 |
| Roubaix Pro | Ultegra Di2 | £5,500 |
| Roubaix Expert | Ultegra Di2 | £3,800 |
| Roubaix Expert | Ultegra | £3,200 |
| Roubaix Comp | 105 | £2,400 |
| Roubaix Elite | Tiagra | £1,900 |
| S-Works Roubaix frameset | - | £2,750 |
The current Ruby features Specialized’s Zertz inserts (viscoelastic dampers inserted in the seatstays and fork) and Trek’s IsoSpeed decouplers claim to provide an additional 10% front end and 14% rear end compliance on it’s Domane frame. Using technology developed in partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies - think Formula 1 - the Ruby and it’s updated sibling, the Roubaix, take eliminating road chatter one step further by using an active suspension system. And while this is not a completely new approach the positioning and the ability to personalise the experience is a novel.
Clik here to view.
Bicycles move and flex in lots of places causing vibrations that are felt by the rider. A more compliant bike filters these vibrations giving a more comfortable ride. However, the technology used to dampen road noise can create a corresponding loss in power transfer and at worst, a sluggish bike. In designing the new Ruby the engineers at Specialized concluded that to create a fast, efficient bike splay compliance should be reduced.
The resulting technology was the ‘Futureshock’, a series of springs that sit within the headtube and allow the handlebars to move very subtly up and down. “What this does is to suspend the rider rather than the bike,” explains Mark Cote, Head of Integrated Technologies at Specialized. “The compliance is all up top, so there’s no compromise in the stiffness of the frame,” add Cote.
Offering up to 20mm of travel, the system has one interchangeable spring that can be easily swapped out to adjust for terrain or rider preference – the ‘active’ spring has the longest travel, ‘sport’ offers a middle ground and ‘race’ has the shortest travel, giving the stiffest experience on the road.
Clik here to view.
Another feature that claims to negate the vibrations of the road is the oval shaped seat tube and dropped seat clamp - a drop of 65mm puts the seat clamp below the seat stay - that allow the seat post to make micro movements forward and back within its housing, another method that lets the bike do the work and not the rider.
Yet with all of this technology surely there is a compromise on power transfer and weight? “No”, says Cote. “This is the lightest Ruby frame we’ve ever made, the weight cost is none - a 51cm Ruby Comp frame weighs 940g and the fork 380g. Combined that with the Roval CLX32 disc wheelset - 1350g - and for a bike that is aimed at the endurance market this is a certainly a lightweight offering. (Although Specialized don’t publish the total weight of their bikes a fair comparison would be the Cannnondale Synapse di2 disc 2016, at 8.02kg.)
Clik here to view.
With the ability to run up to 33mm tyres, the new Ruby heralds a shift towards a different, more flexible form of road cycling, where on hoping off onto a gravel path for a few kms has increasing appeal and where comfort does not compromise performance.
Does it all add up? We found out: Specialized Ruby first ride
Model range and prices
| Model | Groupset | Price |
|---|---|---|
| S-Works Ruby Etap | Sram Etap | £7,500 |
| Ruby Expert Di2 | Ultegra Di2 | £3,800 |
| Ruby Expert | Ultegra | £3,200 |
| Ruby Comp | 105 | £2,400 |
| Ruby Elite | Tiagra | £1,900 |
By Susannah Osborne
