Specialized Allez Sprint drops hammer on carbon

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Specialized is upsetting the apple cart somewhat with the stunning Allez Sprint – a brand-new alloy racing chassis that claims to offer comparable performance to carbon frames(Image credit: James Huang/BikeRadar)

Recent advancements in technology have really brought alloy frames up in performance, and it's no longer viewed as a vastly inferior material to carbon. In fact, Specialized is so pleased with the new Allez Sprint that it's offering a gleaming raw, polished finish on the frameset. And ignore the unsightly zip-ties; those were only present on the prototype. Production bikes have far cleaner internal setups(Image credit: James Huang/BikeRadar)

This article originally appeared on BikeRadar

The Smartweld bottom bracket shell is a truly brilliant, 'why-didn't-I-think-of-that' piece of engineering, comprising two stamped thinwall aluminum halves and a machined central sleeve that's all brazed together to form a hollow monocoque-like structure. The much bigger cross-sections not only yield expected stiffness increases in that immediate area; they also allow for much bigger down tubes and chainstays for greater overall frame rigidity.

Even better, Specialized says there are substantial improvements in strength and long-term durability, too. Welds typically are weak points for the frame since they're generally more brittle than the surrounding tubes and situated at high-stress areas. Smartweld moves the weld beads away from the traditional joint locations, shifting them further down the frame tube and positioning them in between two parts that are more similar in shape and where stresses are substantially lower.

"Ultimate weight wasn't the criteria for this," said Specialized senior advanced R&D engineer Chuck Teixeira, an industry veteran with more than three decades of experience under his belt, much of which was spent at Easton. "This is more of a crit bike so we wanted really good stiffness. That comes at the expense of a little extra weight. We have lots of opportunity to make it lighter. In many of the pedaling tests, it's stiffer than the Tarmac."

As part of that rather narrowly focused design goal, Specialized is launching the new Allez Sprint in just two complete builds and one frameset to start – none of which have provision for a front derailleur. By Specialized's reasoning, bikes specifically used for criterium racing or fast lunch rides simply don't need that wide a gearing range, and the bare seat tube that results looks sleeker and cleaner.

That approach is undoubtedly going to be met with a healthy amount of resistance from riders who might be interested in such an advanced alloy chassis but need more realistic gearing – including us here at BikeRadar. That said, Specialized is already hedging its bets. Front derailleur-compatible Allez Smartweld frames (that are otherwise identical save for the multiple chainring capability) will be released in December, just three months after the release of the 1x-specific 'X1' models in September.