Specialised’s Roval elements model has formally launched its carbon one-piece Rapide Cockpit at this time. It says that the brand new cockpit is its quickest ever, and shaves 4 watts over the separate Roval Rapide bar and the inventory stem of the S-Works Tarmac SL7 race bike ridden by its males’s and ladies’s professional groups.
With a separate bar and stem, there are virtually all the time uncovered bolts and {hardware} that spoil the airflow on the entrance finish of the bike, the place aerodynamic enhancements can have the best impact; a one-piece design avoids this.
Roval says that the brand new design isn’t just aero, but additionally mild and stiff, claiming that the one piece design reduces weight by 50g for a 100mm x 420mm bar dimension, which it says weighs 310g. As you’d anticipate, there’s full inner cable routing and compatibility with digital groupsets.
It says that its excessive modulus carbon one-piece building ends in a better stiffness-to-weight ratio than any of its two-piece bar and stem combos and that this enables the bar to deal with the stresses positioned on it by its WorldTour professional sprinters.
Roval has used Specialised’s Retul bike becoming database to make sure that the Rapide Cockpit’s ergonomics additionally match a variety of riders. There are a minimum of 15 completely different size/width combos provided with stem lengths from 75mm as much as 125mm and widths from 380mm to 440mm, all with -6 diploma stem angle.
Roval says that the radius of the drops, with a 125mm drop and 75mm attain, is designed for optimum wrist clearance each in an aero tuck and an out-of-saddle dash.
As you’d anticipate, Specialised’s sponsored professional riders have been let free on the brand new Roval Rapide Cockpit forward of its official launch. Each Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky used the cockpit of their Spring campaigns and Fabio Jakobsen rode it to victory on Stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico.
The brand new Roval Rapide Cockpit is obtainable instantly and priced at £475, $600, €580 or AU$850.
