Upon riding the Specialized Allez Elite it’s immediately obvious why it’s such a popular choice for new riders, crit racers and everyone in between. The bike is fast to accelerate, holds its speed with ease and handles in corners and on descents like a machine costing four times its sub-£1,000 pricetag.
Before getting further into the bike’s performance, its appearance deserves almost as much attention.
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Kaleidoscopic colours
The Red Hook edition paint job catches the eye in a way few bikes I’ve ridden do.
In fact, this is the only bike I’ve ridden across London that has had other cycle-commuters break the usual rules of never daring to speak to one another, complimenting and enquiring about the bike and its pleasing decals.
Specialized makes track bikes with the pattern covering all available space, but this one is slightly less in your face, leaving a fair it of plain blue tubing on show.
The seat tube and fork are the most colourful parts of this frameset, along with the logo, giving the bike the appearance of having ridden head on into a rainbow of colours.
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The fork
Following a product recall of the fork that had previously been specced on Specialized’s lower-end bikes, the Allez lines are now fitted with the FACT carbon set taken from the S-Works Tarmac SL5.
‘With regards the Allez fork recall, we have now completed our commitment and plan to replace first riders’ forks in the field, second our partner dealers’ stock, and then third our own stock,’ explains William Watt, Public Relations Specialist-Road at Specialized UK.
‘Our commitment to and investment in quality control at manufacturing and with our vendors remains as proactive and as thorough to ensure we best meet the demands of riders and make them product that delivers the best riding experience.
‘The fork sourced as replacement has been the S-Works Tarmac SL5 fork. This is of course a FACT carbon full monocoque fork that formed part of the Rider First Engineered.
‘The S-Works Tarmac SL5 was one of the first Specialized bikes to have development time in our “Win Tunnel”.’
After the inconvenience and perhaps even embarrassment of going through a product recall, Specialized has bounced back by supplying entry level bikes with an aero-optimised carbon fork usually found on much higher-end race bikes.
The fork itself does the expected job of carbon blades on the front of an aluminium frame, and that’s to soften the ride and increase rider comfort, which it does well.
Ridden around some beautiful but bumpy lanes in Somerset and Devon on a trip in late-Spring, comfort was never in question from any part of the bike.
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Frame and ride quality
As touched upon, the ride quality is enhanced by the use of a front fork taken from a higher end bike.
The aero-profiled fork cuts through the air with ease and works hard to take the brunt of the vibrations that come from the rutted British roads.
At the back of the bike, the rear stays have been dropped away from the top tube in the same way as on Specialized’s race bikes, the intended merit being increased aerodynamics.
At times it was necessary to give the toptube a little tap and hear the tinny reply of aluminium rather than the dull echo of carbon, while at the same time recalling that is a £999 ‘entry-level’ bike not something worth three to four times more.
The bike handles superbly on the flat, gained my full confidence through corners on descents, and despite its slightly higher weight it climbs well too.
At 9kg it’s heavy but not hefty and the responsiveness of the bike does much to overcome the difference between this and 7kg climbing bikes.
So impressed was I with this bike that I would gladly add it to my own repertoire, a feeling furthered by the fact the frame comes with eyelets for mudguards, meaning it could quickly become an all-round ride once dressed for winter.
Although at the front it would need clip-ons as the high-end fork hasn’t been designed to take guards, while the now-recalled fork did come with the necessary eyelets.
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Components
Nominally, the bike comes with a Shimano 105 groupset but it’s where it deviates from this that results are mixed.
Positive first: the chainset is provided by Praxis Works and no faults with its performance come to mind.
It works perfectly well with the Shimano chain and front mech, its plain matt black does nothing to draw attention away from the Red Hook frame’s paintjob and it nicely matches the black version of the Allez.
The front and rear derailleurs, chain and cassette are all Shimano 105, leaving just the brakes.
These are supplied by Tektro, and here’s the negative: their performance leaves a gulf between expectation and reality.
Descending behind a ride companion running the most recent previous version of Shimano Ultegra, we were forced into a sudden stop while descending on a winding, narrow lane in the Surrey Hills.
They came to a near immediate halt, unclipped and stood still, while behind I saw their rear wheel getting closer and closer to my front wheel as my brakes struggled to scrub away any of my speed.
I turned the bike out into the road, the rear wheel locked then I sideways-skidded to a halt just as my leg bumped the rear tyre of the rider in front.
Mix-and-match groupsets are common practice in the bicycle industry, it’s an obvious and easy way to drop costs and pass on the savings to consumers, hence having an otherwise excellent bike for under £1000.
But I would advise anyone buying this bike – which would be a good purchase – to get some Shimano 105 brakes on there right away, maybe even at the point of purchase at your local bike shop.
The additional cost will be worth every penny, and the buyer would still come away with a bargain of a bike.
Conclusion
An excellent bike that belies its low price tag; a machine capable of year round riding from sportives to long days out and even crit races. But check those brakes.
Specification
| Specialized Allez Elite | |
|---|---|
| Frame | Specialized E5 Premium Aluminum, fully manipulated tubing w/ SmoothWelds, 1-1/8"- 1-3/8" tapered head tube, internal cable routing, threaded BB, 130mm spacing |
| Fork | FACT carbon |
| Groupset | Shimano 105 |
| Brakes | Tektro Axis |
| Chainset | Praxis Works |
| Bars | Specialized Shallow Drop, 6061, 70x125mm, 31.8mm clamp |
| Stem | Specialized, 3D forged alloy, 4-bolt, 7-degree rise |
| Seatpost | Alloy, 2-bolt clamp |
| Saddle | Body Geometry Toupé Sport, steel rails, 143mm |
| Wheels | DT R460, sealed cartridge hubs, 14g spokes, 24h rear, 20h front |
| Weight | 9.00kg |
| Colours available | Red Hook; Gloss Light Blue/Rocket Red; Satin Black/White Clean |
| Contact | specialized.com |
Specialized Allez Elite 2018: Launch and gallery
Words Peter Stuart, June 2017
Specialized has revamped its supremely popular aluminium entry-level racer, shedding weight and changing focus
The Specialized Allez is quite possibly the most ubiquitous road bike on the planet, with its gently sloping toptube almost an icon for affordable aluminum. While it may seem odd to alter a winning formula, Specialized has undertaken a significant redesign of the whole platform.
Taking cues from the Roubaix range of endurance bikes, Specialized has re-evaluated the geometry of the entire Allez range, now offering a more relaxed endurance fit.
The Allez bikes now sits closer to the Roubaix than the Tarmac in geometry, adding 10mm to the headtube of a size 56, while adding 10mm to the wheelbase.
The chainstays have lengthened to 415mm and the fork rake angle has been relaxed.
It’s the detail of the frame where the really impressive changes have taken place on the Specialized Allez Elite 2018, which target both improved performance and broader functionality.
Fresh Fork
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First and foremost on the performance front is Specialized’s FACT full carbon fork. While traditionally the Allez has used carbon fork blades bonded to an aluminium steerer fork, we now see a full carbon fork and steerer.
Across the size range this fork sits at a weight of between 340 and 370g, which will make for a saving of several hundred grams over the part-alloy predecessor.
Together with some tweaks to the frame, it’s seen Specialized pull around 500g off the total weight of the frameset.
The E5 frame uses Specialized’s E5 Premium Aluminium, which was common across the higher spec frames in the previous line of Allez bikes, but is now being used from the very bottom of the range.
Indeed, all the Allez framesets are now identical from lowest price to most expensive.
Despite the entry-level price point, Specialized claims the bike has seen wind tunnel development, which we don’t doubt given the brand’s privately owned wind tunnel at Morgan Hill.
That has influenced the design only minimally, but there are elements such as internal cabling and dropped seatstays that demonstrate aerodynamic considerations.
Easy rider
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As well as tweaking the geometry, there are some clear signs that the Specialized Allez Elite 2018 is catering to less racey long distance riders and commuters in practical terms such as the accommodation for mudguards.
Both the front fork and rear stays have fully-fledged muguard eyelets, as well as an eyelet on the bridge between chainstays. It means that a permanent and effective mudguard can be mounted for the winter months. The Allez can also mount panniers on the front and rear.
The Specialized Allez Elite is equipped with Tekto Axis brake callipers with a long reach between the bolt and brake pads, meaning the brakes won’t impede wide tyres.
The bike comes specced with 25mm Espoir Sport tyres on DT Swiss R460 wheels, but could easily fit 28mm tyres.
With the current spec of tyres, an easy upgrade would be a bump to a Turbo Pro tyre which would significantly improve the racey feel of the bike, while the Espoir Sports will function well as a workhorse tyre.
The Elite comes specced with a Praxis Alba 2D crankset with compact gearing, while Specialized has specced a KMC chain. The remaining groupset is Shimano 105, but with the aftermarket brakes and cranks that does account solely for the shifting system and the cassette.
While there is a little compromise on the shifting specification, this is still an impressive package for £1000. Particularly, it will come in substantially lighter than similarly priced alloy competition – Specialized speculate it will come in around 400g lighter than similarly pitched alternatives in the next season.
A wide variety of sizing is available, stretching from 49mm to 61 in three different colour schemes.
We'll be hunting down a sample as soon as possible to get a full verdict of the performance on the road. On the surface, the Allez Elite looks like an excellent option for a winter bike, and for those new to the sport an excellent gateway into competitive riding and sportives.
