Peter Sagan’s gold Specialized Venge ViAS Disc

This morning, the day before the Santos Tour Down Under’s official start, world champion Peter Sagan went out for one last training ride around Adelaide. While Sagan certainly isn’t unique in getting out for a final pre-TDU spin, the bike he rode certainly was. The gold of Sagan’s custom-painted Specialized…

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This morning, the day before the Santos Tour Down Under’s official start, world champion Peter Sagan went out for one last training ride around Adelaide. While Sagan certainly isn’t unique in getting out for a final pre-TDU spin, the bike he rode certainly was. The gold of Sagan’s custom-painted Specialized ViAS Disc was near-blinding in the bright South Australian sun.

This one-off bike isn’t likely to see race use, but given Specialized sent it to Australia, it would be rude not to use it just a little.

The bike features glitter paint with the S-Works logos bordered by gold paint. It’s a detail that’s hard to discern when your eyes are being forced to the gold Roval CLX 64 disc-brake wheels. Such a lavish covering on the wheels surely isn’t light, and certainly contributes toward the bike’s weight of more than 8.4kg.

Is this bike belonging to the two-time consecutive World Champion overly garish or beautifully bling? Scroll through our photos and decide for yourself.

 

Built for the sprinters, the Venge ViAS is an aero focused ride. The Disc version, as pictured, is certainly cleaner looking than the rim brake version the team is racing on.
The Shimano centerlock disc rotors are the lighter RT-86 mode. These are lighter and likely more aero than the top-end RT-99 rotors that feature cooling fins below the brake surface. Rotors sre 160mm front, 140mm rear.
Can’t do this with rim brakes. The Roval CLX 64mm rims can be painted entirely. We suspect these were made with a paint dip method or similar.
Venge logo is raised from the paint.
A close look at that glitter paint glistening in the Australian sun.

No new Dura-Ace for the team just yet. That’ll be put on bikes when they arrive back in Europe. The 4iiii powermeters will be found on the new Shimano 9100 cranks at that point. Gearing for Sagan and the rest of the team at the Tour Down Under are 53/39T at the chainrings, and 11-28T cassettes.
That’s a long reach. This aggressive position is afforded by Sagan’s choice of a 56cm frame for his 1.83m height.
Sagan’s Specialized stem is 143mm long. It’s possible this stem is custom, but it’s more likely just the effective length of Specialized’s 140mm stem.
The whole Bora-Hansgrohe team uses SupaCaz Super Sticky bartape.
Sagan uses a S-Works Aerofly ViAS, flat handlebar. Bars are 42cm wide.
Sagan uses the new Specialized S-Works Romin Evo saddle in a 143mm width.
Sagan has new matching S-Works 6 shoes. Unlike the disc bike, he’s racing in these.
There’s something about this paint that just sworks.

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