With the 2025 UCI Road World Championships done and dusted, let’s take a minute to check out the Specialized S-Works McLaren Venge that Mark Cavendish rode to victory in the men’s elite road race back in 2011. Lizzie Armistead (now Deignan) won the women’s elite road race in 2015 – and Britons have won various other world titles – but Cavendish was the last GB rider to win the men’s elite road race.
2011 was a huge year for Mark Cavendish. He won two stages in the Giro d’Italia and five more in the Tour de France, including the final stage into Paris. He also became the first GB rider to win the Tour de France points classification overall – the green jersey – he was awarded the MBE, and became the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
In September, Cavendish was a member of the British team at the UCI Road World Championships in Denmark.
We reported, “The 26-year-old is the new world road race champion after somehow finding his way through the traffic to win a thrilling climax to the World Championship road race in Copenhagen… Cavendish’s win followed a day on which his Great Britain teammates put in a huge effort to ensure he was in a position to contest the finale.
“Immediately after winning a hectic finish to the 266-kilometre race, Cavendish, who becomes only the second British professional to win the title since the late Tom Simpson in 1965, said there “couldn’t be any other result” after the way his colleagues, six from his rumoured future employers, Team Sky, plus his boyhood hero, David Millar of Garmin-Cervelo, had worked for him.
“While only Cavendish will get to wear the rainbow jersey next year, each of those seven riders who supported him today will forever own a part of it, from Steve Cummings, who put in an unstinting effort at the front of the peloton in the early part of the race, to Bradley Wiggins, who almost single handedly pulled the main bunch along to close down a four-strong escape group in the final lap.
The team also included future Tour de France winners Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. It really was an all-star cast, and the finish was classic Cav, the Manx rider outsprinting Matt Goss and Andre Greipel to take the win. The great Fabian Cancellara was fourth.
Cavendish was riding an aero-optimised Specialized S-Works McLaren Venge in 2011 (the 2012 model is still on Specialized’s website). The Venge was the aero model that sat alongside the lighter Tarmac at the time. This is a decade before Specialized united the streams, introducing the Tarmac SL7 as its ‘one bike to rule them all’.
Naturally, Specialized claimed that the Venge was the fastest bike in the world – that’s pretty standard – and it worked with the McLaren Technology Centre to refine the design, saying that the collaboration led to a weight saving over the standard S-Works frame design, with increased stiffness. The claimed weight for the McLaren Venge was 950g, although this bike was really about the aerodynamics. Specialized said that many of the aero features were inspired by those of its Shiv time trial bike and that in track testing, it saved 23W over the Tarmac SL3 at 45km/h (28mph).
The Venge was Specialized’s first foray into the aero road bike market. The profiles of the tubes were shaped to a 3:1 airfoil specification, seen in the head tube, seat tube and most easily in the down tube. The fork blades were shaped to reduce drag too, while beefy were designed to ensure efficiency
Back in 2011, all bikes in the pro peloton were fitted with rim brakes rather than disc brakes, of course, although Cavendish had switched from mechanical shifting to Shimano’s Dura-Ace Di2 groupset. 10-speed Di2 was first introduced into the professional peloton in 2010. His power meter was from SRM, the German company that ruled the market at the time. Unlike today, there were few rivals.
Although the hubs were from Shimano, the dimpled rims on this bike were from Zipp – owned by SRAM – fitted with Continental tubular tyres. The whole peloton was on tubs back then, whereas tubeless systems have pretty much taken over since. Cavendish was using a handlebar and stem from Shimano-owned Pro, and a Fizik Arione saddle.
mark cavendish green venge (credit: road.cc)
Cavendish moved to Team Sky for 2012, so he was riding Pinarello bikes that season, but he was back with Specialized when he moved to Omega Pharma-Quickstep in 2013. Specialized introduced a limited edition Venge frame to mark Cav’s 100th career victory that year.
mark cavendish green venge 03 (credit: road.cc)
Notable victories and dates, including his 23 stage wins (at the time) in the Tour de France, were printed on the top tube. As we now know, there were plenty more to come, Cav finishing his race career last year with a record 35 Tour de France stage victories to his name.
> Mark Cavendish makes history with record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win