{"id":613163,"date":"2026-05-31T04:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T04:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/613163\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T04:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T04:59:14","slug":"is-this-the-new-tarmac-sl9-mystery-specialized-bike-spotted-at-team-training-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/613163\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this the new Tarmac SL9? Mystery Specialized bike spotted at team training camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Specialized set tongues wagging this week with the release of the new Crux 5 gravel bike,<\/a> but it seems the brand could have another new bike in development.<\/p>\n

An image shared on the Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe team photographer’s Instagram page, now deleted and first spotted by our friends at Bikeradar<\/a>, shows images from a team time trial session in Spain where a mystery black road machine was racked up on a team car.<\/p>\n

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There is only one image to go off, but could this model be a prototype of a new Tarmac? The current Tarmac SL8 launched<\/a> at the Glasgow World Championships in 2023, and rumours of the new SL9 have been circling for some time; this bike looks different enough to make us suspect it could be a new bike.<\/p>\n

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It’s hard to see everything from the image, but the bike on the team car appears to have a different, deeper, wider fork crown and headtube area, as well as a clearly different seat tube that’s profiled more tightly around the rear wheel.<\/p>\n

The bike also had what seems to be quite a bulky rear light fitted, perhaps a radar\/camera unit, or a new piece of tech from Specialized.<\/p>\n

Specialized provided Cyclingnews with a statement regarding the unknown road machine, saying, “Specialized relies on feedback from professional athletes in both developing and testing advanced pre-production products in real-world applications. <\/p>\n

“With this top-level feedback, some of these design elements and products eventually show up in future retail product offerings. We call this Project Black.\u201c<\/p>\n

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\"Red\n<\/p>\n

The fork and seat tube look the most different on the new bike (Image credit: Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe – Maximilian Fries)Tour preperations are underway<\/p>\n

The team were time-trial training in Granada, Spain. Surely preparation ahead of the Tour de France<\/a> Stage 1 team time trial, which takes place in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

A few team riders’ time trial handlebars were fitted with some kind of sensor, possibly to measure real-world CDA or similar. Some riders’ wheels also appeared to have some kind of tape over part of the Roval logo, possibly tying into this testing.<\/p>\n

It seems plausible that a new Specialized road bike is at least in development; we tend to see a lot of new bikes and equipment at the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes (previously the Criterium du Dauphine) ahead of the Tour.<\/p>\n

Both races are fast approaching; we will be keeping an eye out for any new developments from Specialized in the run-up and during them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Specialized set tongues wagging this week with the release of the new Crux 5 gravel bike, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-613163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}