After nine months of teasing, Specialized finally launches new tubeless cotton tyres

Specialized has officially launched a tubeless-compatible version of its Cotton tyre today.

The Turbo Cotton and Cotton tyres have been in the Specialized family for many years, with the original clincher tyre being used by Tony Martin to win the World Time Trial Championship way back in 2012.

We spotted these tyres being raced in both 32 and 30mm sizes at Opening Weekend by riders from Bora Hansgrohe, Soudal Quick-Step and FDJ United – Suez. Demi Vollering also used the 32mm version to win at Omloop, and we included them in our tech gallery from the race.

This wasn’t the first time we’ve seen them, however; we spotted them with logos Sharpied out all the way back in June 2025 at the Critérium du Dauphiné, so they’ve been a long time coming.

We speculated that a new tyre was in the works, and only had to wait just over 24 hours to learn the official model name and details of the new tyres.

It seems Specialized has given its most supple, fastest tyres the tubeless treatment, whilst simultaneously upgrading them to 30 and 32mm sizes, which are only becoming more widely used.

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Bora Hansgrohe were using 32mm versions of the tyres at Opening Weekend and appear to have been involved in it’s development (Image credit: Tom Wieckowski)

At times, I believe the Specialized tyre product range can feel a little confusing. Here’s some clarification on how things stand.

The original Turbo Cotton is still available in 24,26 and 28mm sizes. This is a tube-only tyre with the easy-to-recognise golden/yellow sidewalls. Specialized also made a HOTN – Hell of the North version with a little more protection and tread, but that can no longer be found on site.

There’s also the ‘Turbo Cotton Folding Racing Only tyre’, which is available in 26 and 28mm sizes. This 320TPI tyre has the T2/T5 compounds and a cotton casing, but is for tubes only.

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This time last year, at Opening Weekend, we spotted teams using the S-Works Turbo TLR tyre, most easily recognised by its different sidewall colour and tyre hot patch logo. This model is tubeless-friendly and goes upto a 30mm size.

It seems the requirement was there for a tubeless tyre with the properties of the cotton sidewalled model, but in a larger size, this is now what we are looking at with the Cotton TLR. The tyres have a polyester core, with a cotton wrap, which presumably helps with containing tubeless sealant.

Specialized claim ‘the new tyres bring the feel of cotton with the speed and precision of modern tubeless technology.’ Interestingly, the Specialized press material for the tyres explains that only six pairs of the new tyres originally existed. Bora Hansgrohe had them and wouldn’t give them back (allegedly), so Specialized just made more and went into full production.

This is interesting in itself, and if nothing else, it’s a good PR hook, but what caught my eye at Opening Weekend was what appeared to be some kind of clear sealant applied to the outside of the Cotton tyres over at Red Bull Bora. The team mechanic told me it was for protection, but we will try to find out more about this.

The tyres will be available in 38, 30 and 32mm sizes, and Specialized quotes weights of 280, 290 and 320 grams for the tyres respectively.

They use a 320 TPI (threads per inch) construction and use the Specialized Gripton T2/T5 compound. Specialized launched five new tyres just under a year ago, including the S-Works Turbo TLR tyre, which uses the same compound but with a 120 TPI casing.

The brand also states that the tyres are manufactured to ISO standards, though they don’t mention which specifically for seamless tubeless setup.