Peter Sagan's Specialized Tarmac wins Best New or Custom Product in 2017 Cyclignews Reader Poll

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Peter Sagan’s custom painted Specialized Tarmac has been voted the Best New or Custom Product of 2017 by the Cyclingnews readers. The iridescent paintjob on his new Tarmac SL6 smashed its rivals in the category with the Shimano Dura-Ace R9170 disc groupset finishing in second place 1,406 votes behind Sagan’s bike.

Rounding out the podium was Castelli’s Body Paint 4.0 Time Trial Speed Suit, which was worn by Team Sky at the Tour de France.

Specialized unveiled the SL6 range at the start of July and Sagan had his hands on his custom model for the Tour de France, which started on that same day. Sagan’s Tarmac SL6 was combined with team issue Shimano Dura-Ace 9150 groupset, Roval CLX50 wheels and Specialized Aerofly handlebar. Not so team issue was the Zipp SL Sprint stem, which has been favoured by Sagan for some time.

Shimano launched the disc version of their flagship Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, the R9170 at the start of the year. Shimano has been producing electronic shifting and hydraulic road discs for some time, but the R9170 was the first time that they brought the two together. Team Sunweb were the first to ride it in race conditions when they debuted it at the cobbled Classics on their Giant Defy Advanced SL frames in March. Some, like Sagan, have trained on it but have not yet used the system in a race.

Team Sky’s Castelli Body Paint 4.0 Time Trial Speed Suit caused controversy at the Tour de France when they rode it to yellow in the opening time trial. FDJ’s coach Fred Grappe questioned the legitimacy of the suit, which had a textured pattern on the arms that were designed to act as a ‘vortex generator’ and smooth the airflow over the body. The team had already used the suit earlier in the season, but it was the new white colour scheme that had made it more obvious. Whatever the team’s rivals thought, the commissaires had already given it the green light, deeming that it hadn’t broken regulations surrounding the wearing of ‘non-essential’ items in time trials.

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