Two years ago the sports car company, McLaren, approached the bicycle manufacturer, Specialized, to collaborate on a bicycle frame project utilizing a material that both companies are familiar with – carbon fiber. McLaren pioneered the carbon fiber monocoque construction technique used in their Formula 1 race cars all the way back in 1981. Since the 1990s, Specialized has been using carbon fiber in their higher end bikes either as main tubes with aluminum lugs or as complete carbon fiber frames. In 2009, McLaren’s Applied Technologies division approached Specialized with the idea of designing a carbon fiber bicycle frame utilizing their years of extensive research and racing know-how to make an even lighter, stiffer and more aerodynamic frame. McLaren hoped they too could learn something from this endeavor to make an even better sports and racing car.
The team started out with a production version of the Specialized S-Works Venge and went to work. The frame was computer analyzed for everything from stiffness to how air moved around each part of the frame. Everything down to even the programming of the computer used to guide the cutting of the carbon fiber sheets was examined. The end result McLaren frame was a Venge redesigned as a sub-950 gram frame with a one piece bottom bracket and chain stay construction; chambered airfoil x-section seat stay; a carbon 3:1 airfoil fork; a reversible and adjustable carbon fiber seat post; and a $18,000 price tag. Also created is a bike that Specialized is touting as the “…World’s fastest UCI-legal road bike…” The McLaren Applied Technologies team was able to shave 108 grams from the Venge. This does not sound like much, but I think Michael Frank summed it up best in his article discussing the S-Works Venge in the June 2011 issue of Automobile magazine:
The result: the McLaren Venge drops a whopping 108 grams (3.8 ounces) versus the S-Works bike. Paltry, you say? 108 grams is five percent. Five percent in a sport where races are won or lost by tenths or hundredths of a second. It’s like Jenson Button finding another 38 hp in his Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26, which might sound like nothing, save that it’s about five percent of the horses he has at his disposal.
Specialized will be offering a version of the S-Works McLaren Venge at its retailers for $8800 and appears to be a SRAM Red equipped bike.