Both parties have been collaborating since 2014, and the brand was following Ellen van Dijk from Specialized-Lululemon (now Canyon-SRAM) to the then Boels-Dolmans team.
In that inaugural year, the team raced aboard the s-Works Amira, Van Dijk had success not only on the Ladies Tour but also on the Tour Of Franders, and Lizzie Deignan had similar success in the Commonwealth Games road race.
Like all of its sponsor teams, Team SD-Worx Rider has worked closely with specialized in developing its products in the nine years since the partnership began.
Importantly, they helped provide the data that led to the brand's decision to completely discard women-only bicycles. Seeing that various professional riders chose to ride the brand Tarmac "Men's Bike", painted as Amira, it began to study. In 2019, when it comes to bike fit needs, we launched the Beyond Gender philosophy after discovering that there is a bigger difference between 2 men than between men and women in general.
Demi Voreling, winner of the 2023 Tour de France Femme, is the brand's leading product tester. She was pivotal in the development of the brand's latest race bike, the Tarmac SL8.
"Last year was a year I will never forget," Vollering said, referring to the Vuelta A Burgos Feminas, Dwales Door Vlaanderen, Strad Bianche, La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, Tour de Romandie Féminin, Amstel Gold, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Dutch national championships road race and, of course, the tour de France. She won Femmes.
"Along with the specialty, it was a dream come true, without continued support and trust, it would not be the same. Next year will be very special, we will make even more dreams come true on the Tarmac SL8."
Her team manager, Danny Stam, was in the headlines during Vollering's tour victory for less good reasons when he was booted from the race for dangerous driving, but was equally free of the American brand.
"As a team, we have been working with Specialized since 2014 with great satisfaction. We are proud to announce that the long-standing partnership between Specialized and Team SD Worx will be extended until 2028. We can be proud of what we have achieved together as partners over the past few years in specializing in women's cycling."
Today's commitment is to provide it performs its term, the collaboration between the two will be extended to 14 years in duration.
This is a move that mimics the brand's 2021 commitment to the men's World Tour team Deceuninck-QuickStep (now Soudal-QuickStep). The two companies will have until 2027 for 6 years, when Mike Sinyard, then CEO, described the team as "contributing to the development of cutting・edge technology" for the brand.
These words echo loudly in today's comments from Scott Jackson, the leader of S-Racing. He says the deal will allow the brand to "really dive into the technical details of each of them to support the best athletes in the world.""
This commitment and the failure of Jumbo Visma to acquire Soudal-QuickStep (called Visma-Lease a Bike in 2024) means Specialized's commitment to the 2024 world tour team remains 3, and Bora-Hansgrohe will continue the brand in its 3rd spot." It means that it is believed that it has been used for a long time.
However, the brand's contract with total-Energy, which occurred in 2022 when a personal contract with Specialized and Peter Sagan was extended to the team at the time of his signing, remains unclear after his recent retirement.
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