Cavendish’s Specialized Venge ready to race San Remo

The new Specialized Venge aero road frame is turning heads in Milan, and is set to debut under Milan-San Remo favorite Mark Cavendish, among others, on Saturday.VeloNews' Brian Holcombe caught up with Cavendish's Venge and Specialized marketing manager Nic Sims Friday morning in Milan. As reported yesterday, the regular S-Works Venge will be available in late may, while the S-Works+McLaren version will not be available until late fall. Sims explained that the McLaren version, which is still being worked on, should be about 150 to 200 grams lighter and up to 15 percent stiffer than the regular S-Works version. The difference between the two models "comes down to layup and manufacturing processes," said Sims, adding that "one of the big stipulations was that we had to be able to make it in the same factory that we make all the other ones. We're not going to use any different material, we're going to use the same high-modulus material." Without the collaboration with McLaren, the ligher, stiffer S-Works+McLaren version would have been impossible, said Sims. "We gave them all the files for the completed S-Works bike, and then set these goals that, honestly, our design guys said 'there's no way.' We wanted to take 150 grams out of the already pretty light frame, we wanted to increase stiffness by double figures, which we couldn't do. We didn't have the technology, we don't have the computer software or the analysis stuff to do it." HTC-Highroad's Cavendish, Matt Goss, and Bernhard Eisel should all be on the Venge this weekend, along with Saxo-Banks's JJ Haedo, Matteo Tosatto, and Baden Cooke and Astana's Allan Davis and Tomas Vaitkus. Both Mark Renshaw (HTC-Highroad) and Alexander Vinokourov (Astana) received the bike only recently, so will not ride them this weekend. Photo: Brian Holcombe

The rear wheel cutaway on Cav's bike. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Cavendish's McLaren Venge ready for Saturday. All Venge frames will be painted in the McLaren colors this weekend, regardless of which team its rider is on. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Cavendish runs the Shimano Di2 sprint shifters in his drops. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Bernhard Eisel's Venge comes to life. Photo: Brian Holcombe

F1 meets cycling. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Head tube meets stem. Photo: Brian Holcombe

The base of Cavendish's seat post. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Photo: Brian Holcombe

Cav's Di2 front derailleur is guarded with a custom High Road K-Edge. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Not much there for the wind to bite. Specialized did wind tunnel testing with two bikes find out how well the bike performs in a draft. Photo: Brian Holcombe

There is a whole lot of carbon around the bottom bracket shell. Photo: Brian Holcombe

Goss was uncertain Friday morning whether he would ride the Venge in La Primavera. Photo: Brian Holcombe

The brake cables are routed internally in the top and down tubes. HTC-Highroad runs Di2, so the cable ports on the drivetrain side are capped. Photo: Brian Holcombe