Sam Gupta and Specialized ambassador, Alan Murchison, put the SL8 and the SL7 head to head along with the 8th generation of Specialized Venge.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Today, we are down in Winchester
00:06 and we're currently sat in the South Down Social Cafe.
00:09 And today I've been joined
00:10 by Specialized Ambassador, Alan Murchison,
00:12 because this is a man who has ridden
00:14 over 70 Specialized bikes.
00:16 He has an in-depth knowledge of the S-Works SL7
00:19 and has recently taken delivery of the SL8.
00:22 So, the question that I'm asking him is,
00:25 what is the difference between the two?
00:27 We've been out on the roads
00:28 to do some real world data testing.
00:30 It's a little bit ghetto, it's a bit of a car park test,
00:32 but it is gonna give us some numbers to have a look at
00:35 to see how these two really perform.
00:37 (upbeat music)
00:40 I think a really good place to start actually
00:44 is just gonna be looking at the similarities
00:46 between both of these bikes,
00:47 because this is the eighth generation of the Tarmac,
00:50 so it is another iteration of it.
00:52 And that means that there are a lot of similarities.
00:55 And I think one of the key ones,
00:56 actually, is just the shape of the frame.
00:58 They're still sticking with the drop seat stays.
01:01 The frame shape itself actually hasn't changed
01:03 all that much, and the geometry is identical.
01:06 It's also meant that comfort of the bike,
01:08 I think, is also gonna be quite similar.
01:10 Specialized did quote that there was a 6% improvement
01:12 in compliance at the saddle.
01:14 When you've ridden this bike,
01:15 your short experience with it so far,
01:17 could you feel any difference in comfort
01:18 between the two bikes?
01:19 - No. - No.
01:20 - No real comfort. - I think 6%
01:21 is a very small margin. - Yeah, 6%.
01:23 I couldn't feel any real difference.
01:24 It just felt really, really responsive
01:27 without being mega stiff.
01:29 'Cause normally you say, "Well, it's responsive."
01:31 That means stiff, and stiff means uncomfortable.
01:34 It seems responsive, but it doesn't feel like
01:36 you're riding a plunk of wood, for example.
01:39 - The only other similarity that I can really draw
01:41 from this bike, actually, is the fork of the bike
01:45 really replicates that of the Venge fork.
01:48 I'd say the two between the SL7 and the SL8,
01:51 I think they're actually quite different.
01:52 The SL7 fork is a bit more circular
01:54 and actually a bit narrower,
01:55 whereas the SL8 fork is definitely flatter
01:57 and a bit longer.
01:58 They've really dialed in the aero
01:59 at the front of the bike.
02:01 - I think the other thing is the head tube as well.
02:03 - Yeah. - There's a chunk there,
02:04 and that's more reminiscent of the Venge.
02:06 So when I first saw this bike, it looked quite odd,
02:10 'cause it looked very front heavy,
02:11 because it was built up at the front
02:13 and then very, very small rear stays.
02:14 And I wasn't convinced about the aesthetics of it.
02:17 Whereas when you see it built up,
02:19 yeah, it looks pretty good.
02:20 - Yeah.
02:22 - Looking at the price and weights of the bikes on offer,
02:25 an interesting picture emerges.
02:27 Not only is the SL8 now cheaper
02:29 compared to the SL7 in certain builds,
02:31 but now you don't need the S-Works SL8
02:34 to beat the S-Works SL7 in weight.
02:37 The difference between the top end SL7 and SL8
02:40 is a claimed 120 grammes.
02:42 However, the lower grade 10R carbon version of the SL8
02:46 is just 100 grammes heavier than the S-Works version.
02:50 So if you want a bike as light as the S-Works SL7,
02:53 then opt for the cheaper variant of the SL8
02:56 and then build it up in a matching spec.
02:59 - I was really surprised at how fast the SL7 was.
03:08 And climbing it was considerably faster than anything else.
03:12 Where the Venge came into its own
03:13 was once you started getting over 50K an hour,
03:15 like dual carriageway stuff, which is rare.
03:18 Let's be brutally honest,
03:19 a lot of delusions of riding everywhere at 50K an hour.
03:22 It's not something that any of us do on a regular basis.
03:25 So the Venge was still very, very fast above 50K an hour,
03:28 but rolling A roads, climbs,
03:30 the time was just fast from the box.
03:32 You know, it was a really, really fast,
03:34 easy to get on with bike and it felt fast.
03:37 And then the numbers, the little test that we did,
03:39 it proved to be really fast on the road.
03:42 Just day-to-day riding is fast.
03:43 - So just run us through,
03:44 what did that test consist of in terms of the parkour?
03:47 - It was a climb, an 800 meter climb.
03:50 It was a couple of K of rolling,
03:52 bumpy A roads, sort of mixed surface.
03:54 And then there was 5K of dual carriageway.
03:56 So a little bit of everything, nothing too technical.
03:59 And I was looking for repeatability as well.
04:01 So I did it on a bit of road that I think,
04:04 according to Strava, I've done over 700 times.
04:07 So I know the road and we did it based
04:09 on heart rate and power.
04:11 So we did a run on the Venge,
04:13 we did a run on the SL7 and we did a run on the SL8.
04:17 Bikes were pretty much set up the same.
04:18 They're all running Dura-Ace Di2, power saddles,
04:22 CLX wheels, tire set ups almost identical.
04:25 So they were all as close as they could be.
04:28 Now one caveat, obviously I like to tinker with bikes.
04:31 The Venge and the SL7, ceramic bottom brackets,
04:35 ceramic jockey wheels, wax chains, et cetera.
04:39 The SL8, straight out of the box.
04:41 Literally no changes at all.
04:43 So it's got standard bottom bracket,
04:44 it's got a greased up chain from the factory
04:47 and it's got a stack on it, like a Big Mac.
04:50 - 35 mil of stack there.
04:52 So I mean, compared to the SL7, which has 15 mil,
04:55 that's a sizable difference.
04:56 And I think the other thing as well was that on the SL8,
05:00 there is no oversized pulley wheel system.
05:02 - It's a standard set up, straight out of the box.
05:05 - Cool. Okay.
05:06 So run us through some of the numbers.
05:07 So first off we had the Venge,
05:08 then the SL7, then the SL8.
05:10 How did the Venge perform?
05:11 - The Venge was really good.
05:13 Today, we had a tailwind on the dual carriageway,
05:16 which is always going to favor a full aero bike.
05:18 So climbing, we did the climb,
05:20 the Venge was climbing 19.9 K an hour.
05:24 And it did the little loop that we did in 10 minutes
05:28 and eight seconds, maxing out at 66 K an hour.
05:30 So it was fast, it climbed okay, and it was good.
05:34 And it felt really stable.
05:35 So the Venge was good.
05:36 - Okay, cool.
05:37 And then the SL7.
05:39 - SL7 was climbing like an absolute demon, right?
05:41 Putting in context, the same climb,
05:43 the average 20.4 K an hour.
05:45 So half a kilometer an hour faster on a climb
05:48 that's only like minute and a half long.
05:50 It was almost identical speed.
05:53 Maxed out at 65 K an hour,
05:54 not quite as fast as the Venge.
05:57 Was honestly, it was within one to two seconds.
06:00 - So to be honest, in the real world,
06:01 that's kind of negligible differences.
06:03 - Yeah, it was what you'd expect.
06:05 The SL7 climbed faster.
06:07 It was faster on the bumpy, rolling a road.
06:09 The Venge was faster by 50 K an hour.
06:11 We're not telling anybody anything
06:13 they're not going to expect.
06:14 - Exactly, yeah.
06:15 - And if you went to the area of engineers
06:17 that specialized and said that to them,
06:18 they'd go, "Yeah, that's what you mean."
06:20 - For sure.
06:21 - Then, bog standard SL8.
06:24 Now bear in mind,
06:25 this was the first time I rode this bike today.
06:27 So I've done nothing to it.
06:28 I went out.
06:29 It climbed at 20.6 K an hour.
06:32 So that's 0.2 faster than the SL7.
06:35 And 0.7 of a kilometer faster than the Venge.
06:39 - The down the fuck is when the climb was flattening off,
06:41 I was actually going down the gears.
06:42 I was speeding up.
06:43 - You needed to, yeah.
06:44 - It was remarkable.
06:45 It did it actually seven seconds faster over 10 minutes.
06:50 - And again, very short climb.
06:51 So as soon as you start to extrapolate that out
06:53 over something longer,
06:54 you know, the gains will kind of compound.
06:56 - It was mad.
06:57 And it also maxed out at 69 K an hour.
06:59 - So quicker than the Venge.
07:01 - Quicker than the Venge
07:03 and nearly 4 K an hour faster than the SL7.
07:05 Now bear in mind, that's running that stuff.
07:08 I can't get down.
07:09 So it was really, really quick, but it just felt fast.
07:12 And there's quite a lot of things I can do
07:13 to make this bike faster and personalize it.
07:15 But it was faster.
07:16 It was faster on the climb.
07:18 It was faster max speed and it was faster A to B.
07:20 So if you actually put that into context
07:22 on a 10 minute test section,
07:24 you go half an hour, 21 seconds over half an hour faster
07:28 than the SL7 based on real ghetto testing,
07:32 but it felt comfortable.
07:33 It felt easy to ride.
07:36 I hadn't dialed it in at all.
07:38 There was nothing I'd done.
07:39 I just rode it.
07:39 - Yeah.
07:40 - And it was bloody quick.
07:41 - Well, okay.
07:42 I think that's a really important point.
07:43 I reckon, cause in the real world,
07:45 how many of us are really like accurately tracking?
07:48 I mean, most people ride bikes
07:49 because they enjoy riding a bike.
07:51 For a lot of people, it's not all about the data.
07:53 Sometimes it's about that kind of intangible feel
07:55 a bike gives you.
07:56 So in terms of ride qualities, like we were saying,
07:59 you are so dialed in with the SL7.
08:00 You really know that bike.
08:01 Obviously this is still new to you,
08:03 but that also means you're going to be able to pinpoint
08:06 where things are different.
08:08 - Yeah.
08:08 - So how does the ride feel compare
08:11 from the SL8 to the SL7?
08:13 - Okay, that, it feels more comfortable
08:15 and it feels more responsive,
08:17 which those two things really go hand in hand.
08:20 So you think comfort, you go Roubaix.
08:21 Comfortable bike, ah, it's comfortable.
08:23 You could be on it all day.
08:24 Responsive, you think, I could do an hour and a half,
08:26 two hours on this.
08:27 That feels comfortable and it feels responsive
08:31 and it feels fast.
08:32 Like doing just under 70K an hour.
08:34 - Seriously quick.
08:35 - That's pretty fast.
08:36 - Seriously quick.
08:37 - On the first time out on a bike.
08:38 And it was planted, bear in mind,
08:39 cross tailwind today, so you've got the wind gusting in.
08:41 It's running the same wheels.
08:43 There's something they've done with a back end
08:45 and how it feels.
08:47 It just feels fast.
08:48 - So actually one thing I found with my time with the SL8
08:51 is how stiff the bike felt.
08:52 But I'd be interested to hear from you.
08:54 How do you think the stiffness compares,
08:56 not only to the SL7, but also the Venge?
08:59 - The Venge was always a fairly harsh ride.
09:01 - Yeah.
09:01 - There was no comfort basically in that bike.
09:03 - Nah, it was never about comfort.
09:05 It won a lot of races,
09:06 but it wasn't as easy to get on with.
09:08 You know what I mean?
09:09 You felt tired after it.
09:11 Whereas you could ride the SL7 day in, day out.
09:14 You could do long days.
09:15 You could do a training camp.
09:16 You could do 25 hours in a week
09:18 and you wouldn't feel completely battered.
09:20 I would defy anybody to do 25 hours on a Venge
09:23 and not feel tired.
09:25 It was a ruffled ride.
09:27 With this bike, I think immediately
09:29 it just feels more comfortable.
09:30 Now, I'm not going to be deluded.
09:32 It's got a high stack.
09:33 It's got wide bars.
09:33 That's always going to feel more comfortable,
09:35 but it's bloody quick.
09:36 That shouldn't be quick in that setup for me.
09:39 - Not at 69K an hour with 35 mil of stack.
09:41 Like that's really surprising.
09:42 - It shouldn't be.
09:43 So you think I take that out
09:44 and then I will play about with the position a bit.
09:46 It's good.
09:46 - If we kind of come away from ride feel
09:48 and we come away from the numbers,
09:50 in terms of aesthetics,
09:53 there's a lot of ethos found within this bike.
09:55 - Yeah.
09:56 - Specifically towards the rear end.
09:58 What are your thoughts in terms of look?
10:00 - I like the look.
10:00 I didn't like it as a frame set when I saw it initially,
10:02 just because of the bulbous head tube on its own.
10:04 I wasn't convinced.
10:05 And it looked very skinny at the end.
10:07 It looked like a, almost like a TT triathlon bike
10:10 at the front and a crit bike at the rear.
10:12 I thought it was an odd combination.
10:13 - It just literally kind of looked unbalanced.
10:15 - But when you have it built up, it looks great.
10:17 This one's obviously some pearlescent, funky matte white,
10:20 which that monochrome look is really cool.
10:22 - It is, yeah.
10:23 - I love it.
10:24 So built up, I think it looks ace.
10:26 I think it looks really good.
10:27 And it's also gone away from the kind of aerofoil tubes.
10:30 There's quite a lot of round tubes going on.
10:31 I like it.
10:33 So you and I have been privy to some of the data
10:36 from Specialized, you know, Vontu, Milan-San Remo.
10:39 What does that mean to you,
10:41 to a man, woman, cyclist in the street?
10:44 - Not much.
10:44 - Not an awful lot.
10:45 - And the thing is, my issue with that data as well
10:47 is that it is so far extrapolated
10:48 from a real world race situation.
10:50 - Yeah.
10:51 - It's kind of, that just to me feels a bit like marketing.
10:53 - Yeah.
10:54 - But yeah, for the man in the street
10:55 that's going to go and buy one of these bikes,
10:57 what does he or she care about?
10:59 - Yeah, and that's the thing.
11:00 That's why I always like to do this ghetto testing.
11:02 'Cause people are like, ah, the tires,
11:04 or the power meter, or the crank length, or whatever.
11:06 That feels fast.
11:07 I ride my bike a lot.
11:09 I've had a lot of S-Works.
11:11 I've had a lot of road bikes.
11:12 I think that gives you an opinion that's valid.
11:15 - Yes.
11:15 - As opposed to saying, well, it'll be
11:16 however many seconds faster at Vontu,
11:18 or it'll be X minutes faster than Milan-San Remo.
11:21 None of us are going to race Milan-San Remo.
11:22 Not this week, I don't think.
11:24 It's fast.
11:25 It's easy to ride fast.
11:26 I think that's something that's really important.
11:28 So look at the data that you're going to get from marketing.
11:30 My gut feel, having ridden it,
11:31 is the numbers we're getting from specialized marketing
11:34 downplay how good it is.
11:36 - Interesting, okay.
11:37 - That would be, they've actually erred
11:39 on the side of caution, in my opinion.
11:41 Because they did it with the SL7.
11:44 I remember when it came out,
11:45 they gave you these numbers on the SL7.
11:47 And I did some ghetto testing on that.
11:48 I was like, nah, it's faster than that.
11:50 And I spoke to some pretty key people
11:53 within specialized.
11:53 I said, it's actually faster than the Venge, you know.
11:55 Is it?
11:56 And they said, yes it is.
11:57 On real roads, as a real person.
11:59 And the problem is, is if you've got a World Tour Pro
12:02 testing a bike, or you've got a wind tunnel.
12:04 Neither of those are the real world.
12:06 And having tested them--
12:07 - It's a completely staged situation.
12:08 - Yeah, and how a World Tour rider will ride a bike
12:11 with a position, a pedaling technique.
12:13 It's completely, and how they hold their head,
12:17 and how they hold their hands.
12:17 It's all very different to normal cyclists.
12:19 Even people like yourself.
12:21 - For sure.
12:22 - We love a bike, and we ride a bike a lot.
12:23 But we're not World Tour level cyclists.
12:25 And then you go to wind tunnels, and you get data.
12:28 A wind tunnel's only part of the parcel.
12:30 It doesn't take into consideration the texture of the road,
12:33 how fatigued you are.
12:34 It's a finite number,
12:35 but it's a very controlled environment.
12:37 So I think that's why you've got to ride the bike.
12:39 And I think if, I don't know if they're going to run
12:41 demo bikes, or whatever, I'm sure they will.
12:43 Because people go, well why am I going to change
12:44 this really good bike?
12:46 That bike's easy to ride real fast.
12:48 So that's what you've got to say,
12:49 is these numbers are great, but they're only a guideline.
12:51 And that's why I would say, get on the bike, ride it,
12:54 play about with tyre pressures, play about with tyre weather.
12:56 And see how you get on with it.
12:57 - Obviously, as we said, it's kind of,
12:59 the speed data is one thing, but it's the ride feel.
13:02 That's what people are going to care about.
13:03 And I think we've both experienced the fact that
13:06 this feels markedly different to the SL7.
13:08 - It does, it does.
13:09 And even today, you look, we're going down a dual carriageway
13:12 nearly hitting 70k an hour with a side tailwind.
13:16 I never felt uncomfortable.
13:17 I never felt unstable.
13:19 I felt completely safe,
13:20 battering down a dual carriageway like that.
13:22 No problem at all.
13:22 There's not many bikes you could do that on,
13:24 straight out of the box.
13:25 And it felt really, really fast.
13:27 And it just feels intuitive as well.
13:29 So, nah, it's cool.
13:32 But I'd say, use the data numbers as a guideline.
13:34 Don't use them as a benchmark.
13:35 Because I actually think that the numbers
13:38 are going to be far better in real life
13:41 than they are on a paper that's published by marketing.
13:44 - So there we have it.
13:45 Now, obviously, I think we do always have to make sure
13:47 that we take a little pinch of salt
13:48 when we're speaking to an ambassador.
13:50 But this is someone who has got a vast amount of knowledge
13:53 of the SL7 and the Venge,
13:55 and basically every S-Works bike.
13:57 Let us know your thoughts though, down below.
13:59 What do you think of the differences
14:00 between the SL7 and the SL8?
14:03 If you enjoyed the video, then please do drop it a like.
14:05 Subscribe to the channel for more content,
14:07 and I will see you again very soon.
14:08 [WHOOSH]