INTRODUCING AETHOS BREAK THE RULES
What if the Specialized team used every ounce of experience they've gained serving riders over the past 46 years and built a bike made simply for the love of riding? When Specialized set out on this project, They promised themselves that they would make a bike that elevated the moments when human and machine become one, when we lose ourselves dancing up a climb or carving through a turn. Well, they did it, and in keeping that promise, they broke every design, ride, and race rule along the way. And they’re not sorry.
Specialized THREW OUT THE RULEBOOK TO CREATE THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE
AETHOS (ay-thoss)
BILLIONS OF CALCULATIONS ONE EPIPHANY
An almost out of body test lab experience birthed Aethos. Meditating on the breathing and swaying of a bike under load in the lab, lead engineer Peter Denk had an epiphany when he realized that true performance lies in the shape, not the material. After a few hundred thousand supercomputer simulations, they knew they were right.
LET’S FLIP THE SCRIPT “SHAPE UP!”
A frame’s shape is what drives the vast majority of a bike’s performance. Through Specialized’s obsessive simulation, they learned that tubes with subtle, elongated conical sections - aka their Continuous Curvature Design strategy - deliver the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio ever tested. Turns out the obsessive Germans at the Zedler Institute agree.
NO LAZY FIBERS
This discovery of shape driving performance then gave Specialized the opportunity to improve the ride quality delivered by material and layup. They were able to eliminate traditional stiffness layers, reducing the plies necessary to build the bike by 11% compared to a Tarmac SL6. Utilizing longer, unbroken plies, every fiber is structural and reduces weight substantially. This ensures that the only thing along for the ride is you.
TESTING GROUND
“The first frame was 545 grams. We put it on the test machine and the frame behaved so beautifully—it was so stable. We only had to add 10 grams, and we could test-ride the frame. That was the moment we knew we had discovered something big.”
—Peter Denk, Aethos Engineering Lead
RULES? WHAT RULES?
*Turns out, this bike may be Illegal in some circles. With Aethos, Specialized chased ride quality, not a number, but we know a light, stiff, and balanced bike is magic at the pedals. The result? The lightest disc road frame ever produced with builds as light as 5.9kg, and all with the telepathic handling, response, and stiffness targets you’ve come to expect from every bike we make (*Psst…don’t tell the UCI).
PERFECTION IS IN THE DETAILS
From dropouts to derailleur hangers, no gram was overlooked. The same can be said about the approach of their partners at Roval Components. They’ve been working towards the same North Star of ride quality, and the 1284-gram Alpinist wheels and new Alpinist bar/stem combo were tailormade for Aethos and the ride of your life.
FOUNDER’S EDITION
Specialized celebrates every new platform they introduce with a Founder’s Edition. Limited to 300 bikes globally, this Aethos is the lightest build on offer, and it features an exclusive, stunning paint scheme.
