While we saw Tom Boonen race (and crash) a shiny new Venge Disc in custom farewell livery for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad back in February, for the properly brutal cobbled Classics he was bound to end up on the new S-Works Roubaix with its Future Shock suspension for a bit of a smoother ride over the rougher roads of Belgium & northern France. Introduced last fall where we had a chance to take it to the same pavé as well, Specialized painted up a white and gold winged S-Works Roubaix (plus a couple of Tarmacs) for Boonen to race at his last Tour of Flanders, and then be ready for next weekend at Paris-Roubaix. They’ve even decided to make the special S-Works Roubaix Boonen edition frameset available to consumers as well. We caught up with his Quick-Step team over the weekend to get a closer look, plus checked out what tire pressure he was running, and got a glimpse of what had derailed his prospects on one of those cobbled climbs…
Only fellow Belgian teammate Iljo Keisse also joined Tom Boonen in starting the day on the new Roubaix frame & fork with its Future Shock suspension integrated in the fork’s steerer tube. The rest of the Quick-Step team were riding the more typical S-Works Tarmac. Boonen sits perched on top of a Specialized Romin saddle, but one from a previous generation that offers a bit thicker padding than current models.
Niether Boonen or Keisse were racing with Specialized’s cobble gobbling CG-R seatpost, instead opting for a more standard K-Force setback post from cockpit sponsor FSA. With the seatpost clamp below the top tube at the dropped seatstays, there is plenty of flex in the standard round 27.2mm seatpost especially since there is a gap around the top of the seattube that gets covered by that rubber grommet to allow to to flex fore & aft.
A shiny gold name tag removes any doubt about who the bike belongs to. Then a pair of Tacx Deva carbon & plastic cages seemed to hold the teams’ bottles in place securely, both installed here in the higher of two positions that the Roubaix makes available for carrying bidons in the frame.
Drivetrain on Boonen’s A-bike which was this Roubaix stuck with the same Shimano 9000 Di2 groupset that he raced last year instead of the newer, recently available R9100 group. He raced on a Dura-Ace 11-28 cassette with its ti smaller cogs, unlike teammate and Belgian champion Gilbert. Up front curiously, both of Boonen’s bikes with Dura-Ace 9000 cranksets were setup with standard road 53T big rings and the larger than standard 42T inner ring, which should normally be paired with a 54 or 55T outer ring. Inside a K-Egde catcher prevents the chain from dropping off onto the bottom bracket. Pedals are standard Dura-Ace 9000 affairs as well.
The bikes that Boonen & Keisse were racing were also unique in that they use rim brakes. The new Roubaix introduced by Specialized last fall is disc brake only. Specialized’s rim brake solution though was also a bit unconventional. Like the production disc brake bike, this rim brake iteration does not get a standard brake bridge joining the two seatstays, but uses a road direct mount brakeset that simply required a brake post mounted inside each seatstay, which left the brake itself responsible for lateral stiffness, but also ensures maximum tire clearance.
Like the special farewell edition Venge before it, this Roubaix (and the Tarmacs) gets the same subtly metallic white paint and gold colored logos and wings, outlined in properly shiny gold leaf which really shines in the sun. They also all get the quote on the back of the seattube: “heroes get remembered, but legends never die”.
Boonen’s cockpit is finished out by an alloy FSA stem and alloy bar with a compact bend. He also had a set of sprint shifters peeking through the white tape for easy thumb access. His bars also got a double wrap of grippy tape since he like to race without gloves, and then is finished off with gold alloy bar plus and cotton tape wrapped close to the stem. A new style K-Edge Race aluminum mount puts his Garmin out front and easy to see.
On top of the 20mm of steerer tube travel Boonen has a pretty aggressive long and low stem to get his bar position where he wants it. It also provided ample space to tape on a list of the climbs (just after we photographed the bike.) We wouldn’t say it is very pretty and have to say that isn’t a production stem, but it does bear a striking resemblance to the previous generation of SL-K stems from FSA, most likely something they keep around to get the bars where some pros need it on more upright bikes.
Like race-winning Gilbert and the rest of the team Boonen was rolling on Roval CLX50 Rapide carbon tubulars wrapped with handmade cotton Specialized S-Works Turbo “Hell of the North” edition 28mm tires. Of course Boonen got a set with gold decals to match the glittery gold paint of his frameset though (even on one of his spare bikes). Also like Gilbert, his mechanic set them up with 6.4bar (92.8psi) of air for the start of the race, so a bit of air would make its way through the latex inner tubes for ideal soft pressures once racers hit the toughest cobbles and climbs late in the day.
One extra nice touch that we noticed was that even Quick-Step mechanic Kevin Desmedt got his own name & country deal on his Topeak tire pressure gauge. When you are tracking riders’ tire setups everyday, it’s always good to know that someone else isn’t sneaking off with your tire checker.
Specialized was handing out Boonen masks at the start, primarily to young fans, but they also said that they had enough printed up that they should be able to give one to almost every contender in the race to make sure a Boonen won, no matter what.
If you feel like you can live up to the Belgian legend yourself, head on over to Specialized.com to get your own white and gold frameset. For $4250 it is the standard disc brake only version, and comes as a frameset including fork, CG-R seatpost and the integrated aero SWAT glovebox.
Tarmacs & dropped chains
Like most serious riders in the race Boonen had a few spare bikes on the roof of the team’s support cars in case of a mechanical along the road. Since he was racing on the nice custom white and gold bike, it was easy to pick out his spares. While he took the start on the Future Shock equipped Roubaix, both spares we spotted before the race were the more typical road racing Tarmacs.
While many racers had spare bikes, Boonen was fairly unique in that each of his were setup differently. This bike that it seems didn’t get any racing action over the day was sporting a complete new R9100 series Dura-Ace group. In fact it is the R9150 Di2 group that we detailed back in January.
Besides having the newer groupset, this spare bike was setup with the first 4iiii power meter we have yet seen on the new R9100 crankset with a white electronics cover that somehow blends in with Boonen’s white bike even on the black crankset. The bike also sticks with the stock 53/39T chainrings (see how you can see the tips of the teeth on the inner ring), unlike the 53/42T setup on his other bikes.
This Tarmac did see some race action, although not to a positive outcome. When Boonen dropped the chain on his Roubaix on the Taaienberg climb, this bike with the same Dura-Ace 9000 groupset and 53/42T chainrings was on the closest car behind him.
Unfortunately for Boonen, when he hopped on this bike on the cobbled climb, he presumably downshifted up front immediately and his first pedal stroke dropped the chain between the large and small chainrings. That’s obviously not supposed to happen, and it got stuck enough that neither him nor his mechanics could quickly free the chain, so it stayed like that on the roof of the team car until the finish.
We wondered what might have happened. Shimano had previously told us that the new R9100 group had slightly revised front chainring spacing for improved shifting and quieter running in cross chained gear selections. But close inspection of the chainring after the race confirms that this 9000 crank was using a 9000 inner ring. It was however a 42T inner ring designed to work only with a 54 or 55T outer ring, so perhaps there was enough misalignment of the shift ramps of this 53T big ring to allow the chain to get jammed where it didn’t belong. We’s guess that further supports the idea to only use matched pairs of chainrings on your Dura-Ace cranks.
