Tarmac SL8

The Tarmac SL8 launched on the day of the men's road race at the 2023 UCI World Championships in Glasgow — Specialized's pointed answer to the SL7's one weakness, which was that the previous Tarmac generation was actually slower in drag than the discontinued Venge aero bike. With the SL8, Specialized claimed the fastest production road bike they had ever built: a 685g size 56 S-Works frame, a redesigned 'Speed Sniffer' nose with a slimmer head tube, a narrower seat tube and dropped stays, all combining to be faster than the Venge, stiffer and lighter than the SL7, and somehow also more compliant. The SL8 effectively buried Specialized's separate aero category for good — there is no more Venge, there is no more 'climbing vs. aero' choice, just one platform meant to do everything. Remco Evenepoel won the 2023 Worlds road race on a pre-production SL8, which is the kind of debut that locks a model into the top of WorldTour for a generation.