Peloton - August-September 2011

RIDE LIKE A GIRL.

I DARE YOU.

We sent Heidi Swift out into this crazy world to ride the updated Specialized Amira with the HTC-High Road women’s team.

Here’s what she told us.

competitive girl’s heart. A brand new Women’s SL shallow reach handlebar (75mm reach, 123mm drop) provides comfort and control in the cockpit while the all-new women’s specific Body Geometry Oura Pro Gel saddle leverages years of testing to create a seriously comfortable seat (not to mention a sleek asthetic). Super stiff Roval Rapide SL 45 wheels were replaced with a lighter all-around wheel, the Roval Fusee SLX (25mm) for greater versatility out the door. Throw in an S-Works SL FACT Carbon crank with integrated bottom bracket and ceramic bearings and sprinkle it with some SRAM Red and you’ve got yourself one hell of a bicycle machine (that weighs in around 13. 7 pounds, no less).

separate molds and tooling for each. The result is a range of sizes that really fit, giving women a more comfortable, more efficient ride for everything from vicious weekend group-ride attacks to serious pro racing calendars.

Engineered to meet the needs of the world’s fastest women, the 2012 Specialized S-Works Amira delivers a new definition for lightweight stiffness and overall performance. This is the bike that we’ve been asking for - a bike designed from the ground up for serious women who want serious speed. A bike designed for the likes of cycling’s winningest women’s pro team, HTC-Highroad, a squad stacked with legends like Judith Arndt and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg.

Bottom line You want to go fast? (You can’t handle the fast!) The Amira will not let you down. In fact, it will climb like a scared monkey, handle like it can read your mind and descend the way you know you like it. It will hit stores sometime in September with 5 different build levels ranging from Base to S-Works. Retail prices have not yet been determined, but you can expect to pay somewhere around $8,000 for the top rung of this truly elite ladder.

Never known for resting on their laurels, Specialized came out swinging with significant upgrades to the successful 2011 Amira frameset including increased stiffness throughout, a carbon OSBB bottom bracket (instead of alloy), and tapered seat-stays. The oversized tapered headset ( 1 1/8” - 1 3/8”) has slightly rounded surfaces, creating a 25% increase in stiffness from 2011.

None of this means anything, of
course, if we don’t also acknowledge
the fact that one of the reasons this
bike is so f*cking fast is that it actually
fits. Gone are the years when the
words “women’s specific” sent a
shudder down my spine - this is the
real deal. Working with a decade
of women’s fit data, Specialized has
engineered this bike from the ground
up. Each size of the
Amira is engineered
individually and has
a specific geometry requiring

Just so you know... The Amira was engineered by a charming former-minor-league-baseball-player-turned-engineer named Kyle Chubbick. He has been responsible for women’s specific engineering greatness from Specialized since 2005, when he engineered the first carbon fiber Ruby. After spending a week in Spain with him, I can tell you definitively that he’s a gem and a gift to women cyclists everywhere. Unfortunately, he is not single. –Heidi Swift