New model year, new models. Well, sort of. 

No one quite symbolises the continued/reduced significance of the bicycle industry’s change of season (a moveable feast: typically occurring from late July to September) than Specialized, one of the biggest players in the game, who have already unveiled, raced, and won (the Tour de France, since you ask) with the latest incarnation of their race bike, but who have withheld a more practical machine until more recently.

The new Tarmac is the biggest story from the Morgan Hill concern’s road range this season, but the Diverge is equally interesting: a machine with potential to be a bike for all seasons.

We made our way to Specialized’s UK headquarters to cast an eye across the entire road range for MY2015 (as well as the steed on which Vincenzo Nibali sewed the seeds of his Tour de France victory among the cobbles of Arenberg) and we’ll bring you our findings in separate articles that will also include the new CruX Evo, an updated and expanded Roubaix range, and the impossibly beautiful S-Works Allez – proof, were it needed, that aluminium’s days as a material for exotic bicycles is far from over.

We’ll set the ball rolling with the Tarmac (McLaren and S-Works), and the Diverge.