SL8 vs SL7 vs Venge Specialized Road Bike Comparison
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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00:00Today we are down in Winchester and we're currently sat in the South Down Social Cafe
00:09and today I've been joined by Specialized Ambassador Alan Murchison because this is
00:13a man who has ridden over 70 Specialized bikes, he has an in-depth knowledge of the S-Works
00:18SL7 and has recently taken delivery of the SL8.
00:22So the question that I'm asking him is, what is the difference between the two?
00:27We've been out on the roads to do some real-world data testing, it's a little bit ghetto, it's
00:31a bit of a car park test, but it is going to give us some numbers to have a look at
00:35to see how these two really perform.
00:42I think a really good place to start actually is just going to be looking at the similarities
00:46between both of these bikes because, you know, this is the eighth generation of the Tarmac
00:50so it is another iteration of it and that means that there are a lot of similarities
00:55and I think one of the key ones actually is just the shape of the frame, they're still
00:59sticking with the drop seat stays, the frame shape itself actually hasn't changed all that
01:04much and the geometry is identical.
01:06It's also meant that comfort of the bike I think is also going to be quite similar, Specialized
01:10did quote that there was a 6% improvement in compliance at the saddle.
01:14When you've ridden this bike, your short experience with it so far, could you feel any difference
01:18in comfort between the two bikes?
01:19No.
01:20No.
01:21I think 6% is a very small margin.
01:23I couldn't feel any real difference, it just felt really, really responsive without being
01:28mega stiff because normally you say, well it's responsive, that means stiff and stiff
01:32means uncomfortable, it seems responsive but it doesn't feel like you're riding a plunk
01:37of wood for example.
01:39The only other similarity that I can really draw from this bike actually is the fork of
01:44the bike really replicates that of the Venge fork, I'd say the two between the SL7 and
01:49the SL8, I think they're actually quite different, the SL7 fork is a bit more circular and actually
01:54a bit narrower, whereas the SL8 fork is definitely flatter and a bit longer, they've really
01:58dialled in the aero at the front of the bike.
02:01I think the other thing is the head tube as well, there's a chunk there and that's more
02:05reminiscent of the Venge, so when I first saw this bike, it looked quite odd because
02:10it looked very front heavy because it was built up at the front and then very, very
02:13small rear stays and I wasn't convinced about the aesthetics of it, whereas when you see
02:18it built up, yeah it looks pretty good.
02:22Looking at the price and weights of the bikes on offer, an interesting picture emerges.
02:27Not only is the SL8 now cheaper compared to the SL7 in certain builds, but now you don't
02:32need the S-Works SL8 to beat the S-Works SL7 in weight.
02:37The difference between the top end SL7 and SL8 is a claimed 120g, however the lower grade
02:4410R carbon version of the SL8 is just 100g heavier than the S-Works version.
02:50So if you want a bike as light as the S-Works SL7, then opt for the cheaper variant of the
02:55SL8 and then build it up in a matching spec.
03:05I was really surprised at how fast the SL7 was and climbing it was considerably faster
03:11than anything else.
03:12The only time the Venge came into its own was when she started getting over 50kph, like
03:15dual carriageway stuff, which is rare.
03:18Let's be brutally honest, we all have delusions of riding everywhere at 50kph, it's not something
03:22that any of us do on a regular basis.
03:25So the Venge was still very, very fast above 50kph, but rolling A roads, climbs, the time
03:30up was just fast from the box, it was really, really fast, easy to get on with the bike
03:35and it felt fast and then the numbers, the little test that we did, it proved to be really
03:40fast on the road.
03:42It's day-to-day riding, it's fast.
03:43So just run us through, what did that test consist of in terms of the parkour?
03:47It was a climb, an 800m climb, it was a couple of k of rolling bumpy A roads, mixed surface
03:54and then there was 5k of dual carriageway.
03:57So a little bit of everything, nothing too technical and I was looking for repeatability
04:01as well, so I did it on a bit of road that I think, according to Strava, I've done over
04:06700 times, so another road and we did it based on heart rate and power.
04:11So we did a run on the Venge, we did a run on the SL7 and we did a run on the SL8.
04:17Bikes were pretty much set up the same, they're all running Dura-Ace Di2, power saddles, CLX
04:23wheels, tyre setups almost identical, so they were all as close as they could be.
04:28Now one caveat, obviously I like to tinker with bikes, the Venge and the SL7, ceramic
04:34bottom brackets, ceramic jockey wheels, waxed chains etc, the SL8 straight out of the box,
04:41literally no changes at all, so it's got a standard bottom bracket, it's got a greased
04:45up chain from the factory and it's got a stack on it like a Big Mac.
04:5035mm of stack there, so compared to the SL7 which has 15mm, that's a sizeable difference
04:56and I think the other thing as well was that on the SL8 there is no oversized pulley wheel
05:02system.
05:03It's completely standard, straight out of the box.
05:05Cool, okay, so run us through some of the numbers, so first off we had the Venge, then
05:08the SL7 and the SL8, how did the Venge perform?
05:11The Venge was really good, today we had a tailwind on a dual carriageway which is always
05:17going to favour a full aero bike, so climbing, we did a climb, the Venge was climbing 19.9kph
05:24and it did the little loop that we did in 10 minutes and 8 seconds, maxing out at 66kph,
05:30it was fast, it climbed okay and it was good and it felt really stable, so the Venge was
05:36good.
05:36Okay, cool, and then the SL7?
05:38SL7 was climbing like an absolute demon, putting in context, the same climb it averaged 20.4kph,
05:45so half a kilometre an hour faster on a climb that's only a minute and a half long, it was
05:51almost identical speed, maxed out at 65kph, not quite as fast as the Venge and honestly
05:58it was within 1-2 seconds.
06:00So to be honest, in the real world that's kind of negligible differences?
06:03Yeah, it was what you'd expect, the SL7 climbed faster, it was faster on the bumpy rolling
06:09aero road, the Venge was faster above 50kph, we're not telling anybody anything they're
06:13not going to expect.
06:14Exactly, yeah.
06:15And if you went to the aero engineers that specialised and said that to them, they'd go
06:19yeah, that's what you make sense.
06:20For sure.
06:21Then, the bog standard SL8, now bear in mind, this was the first time I rode this bike today,
06:27so I've done nothing to it, I went out, it climbed at 20.6kph, so that's 0.2 faster than
06:34the SL7 and 0.7 of a kilometre faster than the Venge.
06:38Wow.
06:38Down the fact is, when the climb was flattening off, I was actually going down the gears,
06:42I was speeding up, it was remarkable.
06:45And it did it actually 7 seconds faster over 10 minutes.
06:50And again, very short climb, so as soon as you start to extrapolate that out over something
06:53longer, you know, the gains will kind of compound.
06:56It was mad, and it also maxed out at 69k an hour.
07:00So quicker than the Venge?
07:01Quicker than the Venge, and nearly 4k an hour faster than the SL7.
07:05Now, bearing in mind, that's running that stuff, I can't get down, so it was really,
07:10really quick, but it just felt fast.
07:12And there's quite a lot of things I can do to make this bike faster and personalise it,
07:15but it was fast, so it was faster on the climb, it was faster max speed, and it was faster
07:19A to B, so if you actually put that into context on a 10 minute test section, you go half an
07:25hour, 21 seconds, over half an hour faster than the SL7, based on real ghetto aero testing,
07:32but it felt comfortable, it felt easy to ride, I hadn't dialled it in at all, there was nothing
07:38I'd done, I just rode it, and it was bloody quick.
07:41Well, okay, I think that's a really important point, I reckon, because in the real world,
07:45how many of us are really accurately tracking, I mean, most people ride bikes because they
07:49enjoy riding a bike.
07:50For a lot of people, it's not all about the data, sometimes it's about that kind of intangible
07:55feel a bike gives you.
07:56So, in terms of ride qualities, like we were saying, you are so dialled in with the SL7,
08:00you really know that bike.
08:01Obviously, this is still new to you, but that also means you're going to be able to pinpoint
08:06where things are different.
08:08So, how does the ride feel compare from the SL8 to the SL7?
08:13Okay, that, it feels more comfortable and it feels more responsive, which those two
08:18things really go hand in hand.
08:19So, you think comfort, you go Roubaix, comfortable bike, ah, it's comfortable, you could be on
08:23it all day.
08:24Responsive, you think, I could do an hour and a half, two hours on this, that feels
08:29comfortable and it feels responsive and it feels fast.
08:32Like, doing just under 70k an hour, that's pretty fast on the first time out on a bike.
08:38And it was planted, bear in mind, cross tailwind today, so you've got the wind gusting in,
08:41it's running the same wheels.
08:43There's something they've done with the back end and how it feels, it just feels fast.
08:48So, actually, one thing I found with my time with the SL8 is how stiff the bike felt, but
08:52I'd be interested to hear from you, how do you think the stiffness compares, not only
08:56to the SL7, but also the Venge?
08:58The Venge was always a fairly harsh ride.
09:00Yeah, because there was no comfort, basically, in that bike.
09:03Nah, it was never about comfort.
09:05It won a lot of races, but it wasn't as easy to get on with, you know what I mean?
09:09You felt tired after it, whereas you could ride the SL7 day in, day out, you could do
09:14long days, you could do a training camp, you could do 25 hours in a week and you wouldn't
09:18feel completely battered.
09:19Yeah.
09:20I would defy anybody to do 25 hours on a Venge and not feel tired.
09:25It was a ruffled ride.
09:26Yeah.
09:27With this bike, I think immediately it just feels more comfortable.
09:30Now, I'm not going to be deluded, it's got a high stack, it's got wide bars, that's always
09:34going to feel more comfortable, but it's bloody quick.
09:36That shouldn't be quick in that setup for me.
09:38Not at 69k an hour with 35mm stack, that's really surprising.
09:42It shouldn't be.
09:42So, you think I take that out and then I would play about with the position a bit, it's good.
09:46If we come away from ride feel and we come away from the numbers, in terms of aesthetics,
09:53there's a lot of ethos found within this bike, specifically towards the rear end.
09:57What are your thoughts in terms of look?
09:59I like the look.
10:00I didn't like it as a frame set when I saw it initially, just because of the bulbous
10:03head tube on its own.
10:04I wasn't convinced and it looked very skinny at the end.
10:07It looked almost like a TT triathlon bike at the front and a crit bike at the rear.
10:12I thought it's an odd combination.
10:13It just looked unbalanced.
10:15When you have it built up, it looks great.
10:17This one's obviously some pearlescent, funky matte white, which that monochrome look is
10:22really cool.
10:23I love it.
10:24So, built up, I think it looks ace.
10:26I think it looks really good and it's also gone away from the kind of aerofoil tubes.
10:30There's quite a lot of round tubes going on.
10:31I like it.
10:33So, you and I have been privy to some of the data from Specialized, you know, Vontu, Milan
10:38Sanremo.
10:39What does that mean to you, a man, a woman, a cyclist in the street?
10:43Not much.
10:44Not an awful lot.
10:45And the thing is, my issue with that data as well is that it is so far extrapolated
10:48from a real-world race situation.
10:51That just, to me, feels a bit like marketing.
10:53But, yeah, for the man in the street that's going to go and buy one of these bikes, what
10:58does he or she care about?
10:59Yeah, and that's the thing.
11:00That's why I always like to do this ghetto testing because people are like, ah, the
11:03tires or the power meter or the crank length or whatever.
11:06That feels fast.
11:07I ride my bike a lot.
11:09I've had a lot of S-Works.
11:11I've had a lot of road bikes.
11:12I think that gives you an opinion that's valid.
11:14Yes.
11:15As opposed to saying, well, it'll be however many seconds faster at Vontu or it'll be x
11:19minutes faster than Milan Sanremo.
11:20None of us are going to race Milan Sanremo.
11:23Not this week, I don't think.
11:24It's fast.
11:25It's easy to ride fast.
11:26I think that's something that's really important.
11:28So look at the data that you're going to get from marketing.
11:30My gut feel, having ridden it, is the numbers we're getting from Specialized Marketing
11:34downplay how good it is.
11:36Interesting, okay.
11:38They've actually erred on the side of caution, in my opinion, because they did it with the
11:43SL7.
11:44I remember when it came out, they gave you these numbers on the SL7 and I did some ghetto
11:47testing on that.
11:48I was like, nah, it's faster than that.
11:50And I spoke to some pretty key people within Specialized.
11:53I said, it's actually faster than the Venge.
11:54And they were like, is it?
11:55I said, it is.
11:56On real roads, as a real person.
11:59And the problem is, is if you've got a World Tour Pro testing the bike or you've got a
12:03wind tunnel, neither of those are the real world.
12:06And having tested them.
12:07It's a completely staged situation.
12:08Yeah, and how a World Tour rider will ride a bike with a position, a pedalling technique,
12:15it's completely different.
12:15And how they hold their head and how they hold their hands, it's all very different to
12:18normal cyclists.
12:19Even people like yourself.
12:21For sure.
12:21We love a bike and we ride a bike a lot, but we're not World Tour level cyclists.
12:25And then you go to wind tunnels and you get data.
12:28Wind tunnel is only part of the parcel.
12:30It doesn't take into consideration the texture of the road, how fatigued you are.
12:34It's a finite number.
12:35But it's a very controlled environment.
12:37So I think that's why you've got to ride the bike.
12:39And I think if, I don't know if they're going to run demo bikes or whatever.
12:42I'm sure they will.
12:43Because people go, well, why am I going to change this really good bike?
12:46That bike's easy to ride real fast.
12:48So that's what you've got to say is these numbers are great, but they're only a guideline.
12:51And that's why I would say get on the bike, ride it, play about with tyre pressures, play
12:55about with tyre weather and see how you get on with it.
12:57Obviously, as we said, it's kind of the speed data is one thing, but it's the ride feel.
13:01That's what people are going to care about.
13:03And I think we've both experienced the fact that this feels markedly different to the SL7.
13:08It does.
13:08It does.
13:09And even today, you look, we're going down a dual carriageway, nearly hitting 70k an
13:13hour with a side tailwind.
13:15I never felt uncomfortable.
13:17I never felt unstable.
13:18I felt completely safe battering down the dual carriageway like that.
13:21No problem at all.
13:22There's not many bikes you could do that on straight out of the box.
13:25And it felt really, really fast.
13:27And it just feels intuitive as well.
13:29So it's cool.
13:31But I'd say use the data numbers as a guideline.
13:34Don't use them as a benchmark, because I actually think that the numbers are going to be far
13:39better in real life than they are on a paper that's published by marketing.
13:43So there we have it.
13:44Now, obviously, I think we do always have to make sure that we take a little pinch of
13:48salt when we're speaking to an ambassador.
13:50But this is someone who has got a vast amount of knowledge of the SL7 and the Venge and
13:55basically every S-Works bike.
13:57Let us know your thoughts, though, down below.
13:59What do you think of the differences between the SL7 and the SL8?
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