Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR Review: Wide, grippy, and fast-feeling tyres

New for 2025, the Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR tyre is the brands latest all-round tubeless road race offering combining fast rolling resistance, low weight, puncture protection, and high grip. It’s directly aimed at the likes of the Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS, Vittoria Corsa Pro, and Continental GP5000 S TR racing tyres, and sets its sights firmly on being one of the best road bike tyres on the market.

This new version comes with claims of improved rolling resistance, grip, and reduced weight. In practice, those performance appears to live up to those claims. Weight is lower than many competitors at this level, while the dry weather grip is on par with the best. Rolling resistance can’t be tested without lab testing, but out on the road these appear to roll fast in basic comparative testing.

What is particularly impressive, is that all these stats are equal to or better than the competition, but the price is a good chunk cheaper. That makes the S-Works Turbo TLR tyres possibly the best value race tyre offering out there given that you can buy three of these for the price of two of some competitor tyres.

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Design and specifications

The Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR is built on the brands own proprietary Gripton T2 and T5 compounds which it claims reduces the rolling resistance by 10%, most likely against the previous model. So as to reduce rolling resistance further, the tread does not cover as much of the casing as previously, which also contributes to reducing the weight by 20g.

The casing is a 3-ply construction of 120 TPI with a puncture protection strip across the middle to reduce the incidences of punctures.

Specialized claims this tyre is its fastest and most durable tyre for racing or training, while the Rapid Air TLR is the fastest outright but lacks the additional puncture protection in much the same way as the Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed time trial tyre. The Turbo TLR is therefore a good comparison to the GP5000 S TR tyres.

Both black and tan options are available, with the tan walled offerings weighing 10g less than the black side walled tyres across both sizes. Just 28c and 30c are available, given that these are designed for road racing, and Specialized saw no reason to go larger or smaller so as to best balance aerodynamics, rolling resistance, and weight.

These tyres are also both tubeless and hookless compatible.

Performance

Initially, setting up the tyres was a bit more on the difficult side compared to the likes of Pirelli and Vittoria tyres, but quite similar to Continental. Part of this admittedly might have been from fitting to a pair of test wheels with a 25mm internal width rather than the usual 21mm which can make it more of a stretch the get the final bead on. However, with some grippy gloves it was done without levers. Sealing the tyres on the wheels was very easy, and with around 30-40ml sealant I was able to get the tyres seated with just a track pump.

Pressure stayed in well for the immediate few hours, however when pumped up to around 80psi, by the next day the tyres were down to 40psi, potentially showing a bit of air permeability. On the 25mm internal rims pumped up to 80psi, these tyres also come up quite wide at 30.55mm, but that’s not abnormal on a wider rim and also not unheard of for a 28mm tyre to come out more like a 30mm.

A benefit of this 30mm actual width and a fairly supple feeling casing was that they immediately felt plush and absorbed road imperfections well. Race tyres needn't feel harsh, and these certainly don't, which has added performance gains in cornering feel.

In the dry, this is an area where these tyres perform very well, as good as the likes of the Continental GP5000 S TR I would say. From the outside, the tread on the tyres doesn’t look like it extends overly far around the casing, but it’s plenty enough to bank the bike over and still feel great levels of grip. On a few techy descents I use for testing, these tyres were nicely confidence inspiring and never felt out of hand even when leant over to a high degree. Unfortunately with the impressively dry summer weather that we’re having, I have not been able to put these to the test in the rain yet.

Another area where these tyres subjectively feel to perform well is the rolling resistance. These tyres are a direct replacement of the older tubeless S-Works Turbo TLR, but with the new range including the RapidAir TT tyres as well, but there is also a new Turbo Cotton tubeless tyre on the way from Specialized that we have seen in competition this year, which will likely usurp this 'normal' Turbo option in the pro ranks.

It’s also hard to gauge rolling resistance properly without lab testing, but we saw from our own testing that Specialized S-Works Cotton tyres did perform well overall against other established racing tyres, and this model claims to be even faster. If we take the data from our testing and Specialized’s claims, the old Turbo Cotton Hell of the North 28mm used 11w at 9m/s and 18.3w at 11m/s. Take 10% off that, and this puts the new S-Works Turbo TLR in the same region as the Continental GP5000 S TR, our benchmark tyre. Obviously, feeling out on the road is not a very accurate measure of performance, but average ride speed on very similar equipment does yield, on average, fairly similar speeds for the same power levels. A watt or two here or there is going to be fairly negligible to feel or detect, but I would say the S-Works Turbo TLR are up there with similar grade racing tyres.

Where these tyres start to jump ahead of the competition though is the weight, or rather a lack of it. At 261g for what measures a 30mm tyre, this is a similar weight to more TT spec tyres such as the Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed and Schwalbe Pro One TT tyres. This means that accelerations feel noticeably faster especially on steeper inclines, mainly due to the decreased weight right at the edge of the turning wheel where lower weight has a larger impact on changes in speed.

More impressive still is this low weigh has not been achieved with the removal of puncture protection, as a puncture protection belt is still present. This helps make these tyres quite versatile and also effective all-round as a road race tyre. To finish first, first you must finish, and a puncture will make any watt or weight savings all but useless. I’ve ridden through some fairly grubby lanes and roads with patches of broken glass, and so far I’ve not been puncture free.

Durability wise these tyres also appear to be reasonable. After 600km of riding, the wear indicator holes still have plenty of life left on the rear tyre, while the front looks like it’s hardly been used. Of course a way to get tyres to last longer is to switch the front and rear as the rear reaches about halfway through it’s life. That or accept that the rear will get changes likely twice as often as the front.

Value

With all this great level of performance, solid puncture protection, and impressively low weight, you’d expect that the Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR tyres would be priced in the same £70-90 range that a lot of similarly performing tyres sit at. Impressively, these retail at £60, making them a reasonably priced tyre in and of themselves.

Vittoria, Continental, Pirelli, Panaracer, Schwalbe and even the previous generation Specialzied tyres all exceed this price by varying degrees. Only the Challenge Criterium RS comes in cheaper for a similar rolling resistance but it is genuinely the most aggravating tyre I’ve ever encountered to try and fit to a wheel to the point that I cannot recommend it.

I would say that for an all-round performance tyre, thanks to wet weather performance, and potentially faster rolling, the GP5000 S TR are still a marginally better performing race tyre, but costing £40 a pair more. The S-Works Turbos are arguably the best value race tyre that I’ve encountered so far though.

Verdict

The latest Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR might just be the best value road race tyre available at the moment. With rolling resistance that promises to be up there with some of the best, impressively low weight, great levels of grip, all without a compromise to puncture protection or durability make this a very good tyre. Add to that a price that undercuts almost all of the comparable competition, and that great value is clear to see.

The only slight limitations could be the tight fit to get on, and the limited size range. However the sizes available are the sizes that are generally viewed as optimal for modern road racing tyres and racing itself, balancing rolling, aerodynamics, and weight. It’s an unapologetic race tyre, and I think it’s a genuinely brilliant one.