Christophe Desimpelaere gives Cyclingnews the low-down on the world champion's bike
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Custom world champion's paint job on World champion Peter Sagan's Specialized S-Works Tarmac(Image credit: Sadhbh O'Shea)
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) wins Gent-Wevelgem(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) sprints for the win at Gent-Wevelgem(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
World champion Peter Sagan's Specialized S-Works Tarmac(Image credit: Sadhbh O'Shea)
Michal Kwiatkowski leads Peter Sagan in the closing stages(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Peter Sagan deep in thought(Image credit: Sadhbh O'Shea)
Peter Sagan finally won a race in his world champion’s rainbow jersey on Sunday, when he outsprinted Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo), Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) to win Gent-Wevelgem.
He did it on his new Specialized S-Works Tarmac, which is custom painted in the colours of the world champion. He will use the same bike in Sunday's Tour of Flanders.
The Tarmac is Sagan’s bike of choice for the cobbled Classics, with Tinkoff mechanic Christophe Desimpelaere explaining to Cyclingnews in this exclusive video that he will use it in around 90 per cent of his races, mixing different wheel and tyre options depending on the races and the weather conditions.
At 6ft tall, or 182cm, Sagan rides a 56cm Specialized frame. He has a custom Prologo Scratch 2 saddle and Look blade pedals, which are both decorated in the same rainbow colours that his bike was decorated with in 2015. As well as the black and rainbow paintjob, the names of all the world champions are listed in tiny detail in the S-Works logo. His name and his personal 'PS' logo adorn the top tube, with the Slovakian flag on the bottom tube.
Aside from the small custom elements, Sagan’s Tarmac is set up in the same way as the other riders. It is kitted out with FSA components, with the vision handlebars that measure 42 centimetres from centre to centre. It also uses a Shimano Dura Ace 11s groupset with a 53x39 set-up on the front chainring and 11x28 on the back.
Click here to see a photo gallery of Sagan’s custom Specialized S-Works Tarmac.
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Born in Ireland to a cycling family and later moved to the Isle of Man, so there was no surprise when I got into the sport. Studied sports journalism at university before going on to do a Masters in sports broadcast. After university I spent three months interning at Eurosport, where I covered the Tour de France. In 2012 I started at Procycling Magazine, before becoming the deputy editor of Procycling Week. I then joined Cyclingnews, in December 2013.
