Specialized Dominates Battle of the Bikes at Tour

July 27, 2014 – While the French may have begun wrestling domination of their home Tour from foreigners for the first time in almost 30 years and Vincenzo Nibali brought a popular victory home to Italy, it was an American brand that dominated on the road to Paris in ways never before seen at the Tour.

Ben Edwards/Yuzuru Sunada

After calculating win tallies in week one and week two of the 2014 Tour de France the final count reveals that in three separate categories the Morgan Hill brand was victorious. Of course, they had more product on the road than any other brand by far. With three teams riding its bikes and wearing its helmets, Specialized’s bets were well hedged. Both Omega-Pharma – Quick-Step and Tinkoff-Saxo showed their incredible depth by responding to the loss of their team leaders to win multiple stages. Even its shoes topped the leaderboard and its wheel brand , Roval, made a good showing under only Tinkoff–Saxo. As exciting as this may be for Specialized we hope it is not the way forward for every brand. If all the heavy hitters – Trek, Giant, Cannondale, SCOTT (which already has two teams) – follow suit the variety of tech in the peloton would be sadly reduced.

Winningest Bike

1st: 2015 Specialized Tarmac – Nine Stages
Specialized’s new Tarmac dominated the Tour de France. Obviously Nibali’s victories got the ball rolling but once Saxo Bank recovered from Contador’s loss and Majka and Rogers grabbed victories in the final week to add to Omega-Pharma’s Martin and Trentin victories, no other bike was going to come close. Add Martin’s TT victory and the California brand won almost half of the stages on offer.
2nd: Giant Propel (Kittel) – Four stages.
3rd: Tie – Ridley Noah FAST/Helium (Greipel, Gallopin) and Canyon Aeroad (Kristoff) – Two stages each.
4th: Tie – Bianchi Infinito CV (Boom), Focus IzalcoMAX (Kadri), Cervelo (Navardauskes) Specialized SHIV (Martin) – One stage each.
Honorable Mention: Cannondale EVO (Sagan).

Winningest Group
1st: Shimano Dura Ace – Eight Stages
Shimano snuck past Campagnolo thanks to Kittel’s win on the Champs Elysees and Navardauskas superb solo win in the rain, but the real mover in the Tour’s final week was SRAM with Martin, Rogers and Majka grabbing three wins to double its entire total from the first two weeks.
2nd: Campagnolo Super Record  (Nibali, Greipel, Gallopin, Kadri) – Seven Stages.
3rd: SRAM Red (Martin, Trentin, Majka) – Six stages.

Winningest Wheels

1st: Shimano Dura Ace – Five Stages
Despite the best efforts of newly crowned Tour champ Nibali, Marcel Kittel’s dash to final stage victory gave Dura Ace C50’s the crown as winningest wheels in the 2014 Tour.
2nd: Corima (Nibali) – Four stages.
3rd: Mavic (Kristoff, Navardauskas), Zipp (Martin, Trentin), Roval (Majka, Rogers) – Three stages each.
4th: Tie – Campagnolo (Greipel, Gallopin) Two stages.
5th: Fulcrum (Kadri) One stage.

Winningest Helmet

1st: Specialized S-Works Evade/Prevail/S-Works McLaren TT – Ten Stages
Another dominant performance from Specialzed with its strategy of sponsoring multiple teams. The brand won with its light Prevail, its aero road Evade and its TT helmet.
2nd: UVEX Race 5 – Four stages (Kittel).
3rd: Tie – Lazer Z1 (Greipel, Gallopin), Giro Synthe (Kristoff) – Two stages each.
4th: Tie – Bell Star Pro (Boom), Ekoi Ekcel (Kadri), POC Octal (Navardauskas) – One stage each.

Winningest Shoes

1st: Specialized S-works Seven stages.
Sense the pattern here? Despite the Omega guys wearing SIDI, Astana and Tinkoff–Saxo still put the Specialized S-Works on top of the shoe category.
2nd:  SIDI Wire (Boom, Martin, Trentin) Five stages.
3rd: Tie – Garnae G.Chrono (Kristoff, Greipel, Gallopin0 – Shimano R320 (Kittel) – Four stages each.
4th: Mavic Pre-Production Shoe (Kadri) – One stage.