Specialized has announced a major overhaul to its Roval Rapide aero wheel range with the release of three brand new wheelsets. The Rapide Sprint CLX, Rapide CLX III and Rapide CL III.
Product launches are coming thick and fast at the moment in the run-up to the Tour de France, the biggest event on the cycling calendar. This news follows on from Specialized releasing the new S-Works Torch Remco shoes at the start of this week, the most expensive pair it has ever released.
We have spotted some prototypes and different-looking Specialized wheelsets this year, from as early as Opening Weekend. Where Bora Hansgrohe riders ran deeper front wheels and slightly shallower rears.
Now, though, we know for sure what the new wheelsets are, and it seems Specialized has been hard at work behind the scenes for some time to produce what the brand believes to be 'the fastest road racing wheelsets in the world'.
We have a brand new Rapide model in the Sprint, and new, third generation Rapide CLX III and Rapide CL III models, which all feature deeper front wheel rim depths for an aero front end gain whilst saving weight at the rear, all are hooked and tubeless compatible.
We consider the Roval Rapide CLX II some of the best road bike wheels around, and they have won an awful lot of bike races. We unpick all of the tech details and design philosophy of the new wheels below.
Developing new race wheels
Specialized opened its presentation with the tagline 'everything you thought you knew was wrong', and whilst it's a catchy tagline for a new product launch, this does represent an interesting development in race wheels and what appears to be a great deal of R&D for Specialized. Will everyone be running deeper front wheels before long?
A large part of the motivation for this project was apparently the 2024 Olympic Road Races, which Specialized anticipated would end in a sprint before a course change proved otherwise. It still got its win - two in fact that week - thanks to Remco Evenepoel.
The Specialized Science club (the name for the brand's R&D crew) knew that the leading edge of the system, i.e. the front of the bicycle, matters most when it comes to aero gains and had already seen positive signs from pairing 64mm and 33mm deep Roval wheels in the Morgan Hill wind tunnel.
The team apparently first tested a range of tyre sizes for rolling resistance using a roller drum test, landing on 28mm as the fastest option. They then scanned a 28mm tyre on a 21mm internal rim, which they found to be the fastest rolling combo, with a medical CT scanner to provide the exact complete shape for the rim to be designed around. They then ran thousands of CFD ( computational fluid dynamics) models to find the fastest rim shape setup overall.
The point that riders and bikes win races, not just bikes seems not to be lost on the Specialized team, and it ran 923 simulations across the Milan-San Remo and Champs-Élysées courses using a pedalling wind tunnel mannequin to see how the wheels would fare on a bike, with a rider, on a real life race route.
Safety also seems to have been a factor in the wheels, and the point that riders need to get to the sprint before they can win still rings true.
Crosswind stability was analysed, and algorithms were used to model gust patterns and rider response times to crosswind gusts. The Rapide CLX III maintains the same front-specific rim profile to provide crosswind stability, whilst the Sprint rim gets a slightly different profile.
All wheels are also hookless compatible and use hooked rims, which Specialized calls 'flatstop bead hooks', said to be the widest on the market at 8mm, which create a 39% increase in the force needed to create a pinch flat, at times a risk with the advent of lower pressures for race tyres.
All wheels are also UCI approved and meet the ISO 5775-2 standard regarding tyre and rim fit.
Rapide CLX Sprint
The CLX Sprint wheels are, you guessed it, billed as the fastest wheels for sprinting, and the brand claims they are '18cm faster than the CLX II wheels in a 250-metre sprint', though the specific parameters under which this distance gain occurs are unclear. In any case It sounds like if it's fairly flat and you want to go fast, these are the wheels to go for.
They feature a 63mm deep front rim mated to a 58mm deep rear and weigh in at a claimed 1,395 grams per pair, with the front wheel weighing a claimed 640 grams and the rear 755 grams, which is very competitive considering the depths. It wasn't so long ago that wheels with that depth of rim were north of 1,600g per pair.
Part of that weight saving comes, like a lot of wheelsets at the moment, from the use of composite spokes, 18 front and 24 rear, which are made by California-based composites company Arris, which also interestingly make the carbon plates in some Brooks running shoes. These spokes produce a 96.6 gram saving over steel whilst being 20% stronger.
It's all about aero at the front of the bike now, and Specialised says that 90% of the wheel's aero benefits come from the 63mm front wheel, which, along with the rear, is optimised around a 28mm tyre.
Lastly, the wheels use the new, lighter Roval LF hubs, which use DT Swiss 180 internals with 36T ratchets and Sinc ceramic bearings.
Pricing:
Roval Rapide Sprint: Front: $1,500 / €1499 / £1,299
Rear: $2,000 / €1,999/ £1,699
Rapide CLX III
The popular and generally very successful Rapide CLX II is now superceded by the third generation CLX III. The III is claimed to be as fast as the CLXII but drops weight whilst it does it.
The new wheelset weighs in at a claimed 1,305 grams, making them 215 grams lighter than the CLX II, and features a 51mm front rim alongside a 48mm rear.
The CLXIII wheels share a lot of the same tech as the Rapide sprints, but are a bit lighter and are aimed to be all-around race wheels, not just for all-out speed on the flat.
To that end, the same aero principles of a deeper front rim are employed here, and the wheels are again optimised around a 28mm, though bigger sizes can be fitted.
The wheels have the same spoke count as the sprints and get the Arris composite spokes, Roval LF hubs with DT 180 hub internals and Sinc ceramic bearings.
Pricing:
Roval Rapide Sprint: Front: $1,500 / €1,499 / £1,299
Rear: $2,000 / €1,999/ £1,699
Rapide CL III
The Rapide CL III supercedes the CLII and are described as the 'fastest road racing wheels in their class'.
The same deeper in the front principles are there, are the wheel feature 51mm front and 48mm rear rim depths, and weigh in at a claimed 1,555 grams per pair.
The price is balanced with the use of DT Swiss competition steel spokes, stainless bearings and DT Swiss 350 hubs with 36T internals.
Specialized says the CLIII's are for riders to 'want aero, stability, and tubeless protection, at a more accessible price point.'
Pricing:
Roval Rapide Sprint: Front: $950 / €849 / £719
Rear: $1,250 / €940/ £829
