The lightest buckle road shoe on the market, a 184-gram helmet worn by five ProTour teams and a host of new and refined bicycles were just a few of Specialized’s planned road offerings for 2008, shown to the international media late this week in Navacerrada, Spain.

There was plenty to gawk at, including the Transition time-trial rig with hidden rear brake and the new Tarmac SL2 featuring a beefy 1.5-inch lower steerer tube and massive chainstays.

The Tarmac SL2 also offered the first semi-public glimpse of the upcoming top-shelf road group from SRAM, dubbed Red. Although none of the demo bikes at the Specialized launch were built with the Red group — a lighter, sexier version of SRAM Force — the Specialized catalog featured a few images of it.

For a few years, the California-based company has rated its carbon products on a scale of 1 to 10. For 2008, company engineers — much like Nigel did with his amp in “Spinal Tap” — turned it up all the way to 11. The Tarmac SL2 features higher-than-ever torsional stiffness, bottom-bracket stiffness and rear-triangle rigidity and increased vertical compliance for comfort. The trick? A careful selection of carbon material put together with sharp engineering.

“We were really going for a huge jump in performance stiffness; that was our main focus,” said Luc Callahan, Specialized’s senior engineer. “But we were also able to make it a little more vertically compliant.”

Originally a mountain-bike bearing dimension, the 1.5-inch lower steerer has begun cropping up on road bikes — Pinarello, Cannondale and Trek already offer such models, as now does Specialized. One difference in Specialized’s 1.5-inch design, however, is the placement of the lower bearing, which is 12mm higher than normal to transfer load from the fork into the massive down tube.

“It’s a small tweak that makes a big difference,” said John Swanson, Specialized’s dealer education program instructor.

The 1.5-inch design also allows for the continuous carbon fibers to be laid out straighter, which in turn allows for a stronger design.

Built up with Specialized’s 1060-gram Roval Alpiniste SL Carbon wheels, a 56cm bike weighs a svelte 13.5 pounds.

For women, Specialized’s new S-Works Ruby is a no-compromise race bike with every last component tailored to the female body. Weighing in at 940 grams, the carbon frame comes in sizes 44cm to 56cm and decked out with Shimano Dura-Ace and a selection of Specialized’s best components.

Components are spec’ed sensibly, with 165mm cranks on a 44cm bike, for example. Additionally, Specialized Slim Shims bring the Shimano Dura-Ace levers closer to the handlebar (Shimano has a similar system, but only for its Ultegra-level shifters).

On the soft-goods side, Specialized has aggressively pushed the envelope with both product and ProTour placement. Its American competitors Trek and Cannondale have bicycles in the ProTour, but have you ever seen a Cannondale helmet or Trek shoes in the Tour de France?

Milram’s Alessandro Petacchi debuted the 2008 Specialized S-Works helmet at the final stage of the Giro d’Italia, where he took the victory.

“That was entirely due to the helmet,” joked Sean Sullivan, Specialized’s executive vice president.

At 184 grams, the helmet has 20 meters of Kevlar laced through two types of foam. Besides balancing weight and ample ventilation, the helmet also features superlight straps and hollow buckles. Watch for special-edition lids on riders like Alexander Vinokorouv at the Tour.

The S-Works Road Shoe, at 250 grams, is likely the lightest production shoe on the market with a mechanical buckle. It uses a new BOA closure, a vented tongue and a tightening option that lets you choose between equal pressure through the shoe, or higher pressure towards the top of the shoe versus the pressure at the middle.

---

Look for a full report on the 2008 Specialized road line in the next print issue of VeloNews.