Takeaway: A bare-bones race bike, the second-generation Allez Sprint retains the magic elements that made the original a cult classic with criterium racers. Beneath the updated aerodynamics and integrated cable routing the new Sprint is a sharp handling, slice-and-dice race bike that’s at its best diving through a corner at the edge of traction.
- The Allez Sprint now features tube profiles borrowed from the Tarmac SL7, sharing the same carbon fork and seatpost.
- Cable routing is now integrated past the headset keeping the cables mostly hidden while letting riders swap cockpit parts easily.
- Tire clearance upped to 32mm; great for riders who don't have perfect pavement on every ride.
Price: $3,000
Weight: 19.2 lbs.
Pros
- Stiffness and pure speed
- Amazing cornering ability
Cons
- Pricey for a 105 equipped bike
The new Allez Sprint is a special bike that won’t be for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not a bike for most riders and that specificity is what makes it so good. It’s not a chef’s knife made for general-purpose kitchen cutting jobs, but a sushi knife designed for a single task. It’s not an average sports sedan that’s easy to drive around town, it’s like race track only Porche GT3 RS with no air conditioning, no stereo, and roll cage. In other words, it’s a purpose-built object made for a specific task. For the Allez Sprint that task is going fast on two wheels.
Riding Allez Sprint can be an overwhelming sensory experience, particularly if you are accustomed to riding full carbon bikes. There’s obviously the tactile feel of road feedback you get from an ultra-stiff alloy frame, but even the noise of riding this bike is different. The way a freehub resonates through the massive alloy downtube, the way the frame buzzes on a fast descent, all of these things are not necessarily better or worse, they are simply different sensations.
Whether or not stiffness—probably the most casually thrown around term for describing a performance cycling product—actually makes you faster is still up for debate. But this stiffness undeniably makes the Allez Sprint feel fast.
The original Allez Sprint (launched in 2015) was stiff, aero, and relatively affordable compared to its carbon big brother, the Venge. So it quickly became a favorite bike of racers who wanted all-out performance without the carbon price tag or durability concerns. The hype around the Allez really took off with Specialized’s sponsoring the Red Hook Crit as well as the Specialized/Rocket Espresso Team that raced in the series, until it was canceled in 2018. (Editor's note: Dan won Red Hook Crit on three occasions.) Despite the bikes originally being plentiful and affordable, the prices for a used Allez Sprint are basically a running joke (because they’re so high) complete with an Instagram page that ridicules the worst offenders.
With the 2022 Allez Sprint, Specialized roughly stuck to the same recipe but added some new ingredients. Whereas the original Sprint aimed to recreate the Specialized Venge in aluminum (the two bikes shared identical seat posts), the new Sprint aims to be the aluminum version of a Tarmac SL7. The bikes not only share geometry, but the Sprint also borrows its fork and seat post from the SL7 and like the latest Tarmac, the Sprint can now only fit disc brakes.
Other highlights include a redesigned Smart Weld frame. This uses hydroformed aluminum tubes and junctions that continue to move the weld points further away from the stress junctions of the frame. The bottom bracket is now formed as a single piece with the downtube and features a 68mm English threaded bottom bracket (to the collective relief of many professional and home mechanics).
In terms of aerodynamic performance, Specialized claims that the new Allez Sprint is a bit more aerodynamic than the previous version and also claims to be within 12-16 seconds of the Tarmac SL7 over a 40km distance. Stiffness-wise, according to Specialized, the new Sprint is close to the targets they have set for the Tarmac SL7 and exceeds the previous version of the Sprint.
The new Allez Sprint accommodates tires up to 32mm, which helps a lot with mitigating how stiff and buzzy the bike feels on longer rides or less-than-perfect roads. The internal cable routing system on the Sprint allows riders to easily swap out bars or stems as well as adjust their spacer stack to dial in bike fit. The frame can accommodate any groupset, regardless of whether it has batteries, as long as it uses disc brakes.
Bike Family
Specialized offers two complete build options for the Allez Sprint. There is the Allez Sprint Comp with Shimano 105 that we tested, which retails for $3,000. For those who want to build up an Allez Sprint with their own preferred groupset and wheels, Specialized offers the platform as a frameset in six different colors (I’m partial to the raw aluminum and black fade finish) and six sizes (ranging from 49cm to 61cm) for $1,700. Finally, there is a limited edition complete bike option using a SRAM Force eTap AXS 1x groupset—complete with carbon wheels— for $6,800.
Ride Impressions
The Allez Sprint's special sauce that makes the bike awesome to ride is its jaw-droppingly cornering abilities. It makes me giddy how reliably good this bike is at entering a corner at a speed that makes me feel mildly unsafe, and then effortlessly tipping in with just a light flick of the bar. It drops into the corner predictably and carries you through the turn, then it will politely wait for you to wipe the shit-eating grin off your face before continuing on to the next corner.
On paper, the Allez Sprint will not appeal to riders looking to go for uphill Q/KOM’s. That’s because all of the new features on the bike added weight. The addition of internal routing, a threaded bottom bracket, and disc brakes to the Allez Sprint upped the weight by roughly 400 grams over its rim-brake predecessor. However, actually riding the bike uphill would not betray its weight. When you point the Allez uphill and you give the pedals a kick, it climbs with the best of them. Whatever extra grams this frame carries are erased by its incredibly efficient power transfer. Throw in the stock 11-28 tooth cassette and the Allez practically invites you to mash too big of gear up your neighborhood climb.
For all of the great ride qualities and engineering complexities of the Allez Sprint, two aspects of the bike’s build missed the mark for me: The stock tires and the stock wheels.
While the individual parts are fine on their own, when combined they hold the bike, and rider, back from tapping into the Allez Sprint’s full potential. For instance, if the stock wheels had a wider inner diameter the stock tires wouldn’t sit so narrow and would ride better. Alternatively, if the stock tires were wider, that would partially overcome the narrow rim and again, the ride quality would be improved. The best improvement to the stock configuration would be to set the wheels up tubeless and swap to a larger tire. I’d suggest a 30mm width if your local roads are in bad shape but a 28mm tire would work well for most.
But the ultimate upgrade to the Allez would be a lighter and stiffer set of wheels, maybe carbon and a bit more aero as well. Although this proposition runs into my second gripe with the Allez Sprint, its price. At $3,000 for a complete bike with Shimano 105 components, the Allez Sprint is a solid $700 dollars more than a comparable Cannondale CAAD 13. This makes the prospect of adding a wheelset to that price tag a bit daunting.
While the price is bumping ever closer into carbon territory, the Allez Sprint is not exactly an ordinary aluminum road bike. With integrated cables, wild hydroformed aluminum tube shapes, and engineering trickery the bike certainly makes a compelling case for Specialized’s claim of being “the first aluminum superbike.”
The Allez Sprint is not trying to check all the boxes and it doesn’t even come close to doing so. It’s a bike that is at its best when you’re on the limit, and when the difference between getting dropped and making the split is how little can you brake into the next corner. The Allez Spring demands your full attention when you’re riding it. It feels fast, it’s full of pop when you stand on the pedals, it’s communicative as hell, and has all the touches of a modern race bike. If that’s the kind of bike that appeals to you, then you won’t be disappointed with this bike.
Test Editor Dan Chabanov got his start in cycling as a New York City bike messenger but quickly found his way into road and cyclocross racing, competing in professional cyclocross races from 2009 to 2019 and winning a Master’s National Championship title in 2018. Prior to joining Bicycling in 2021, Dan worked as part of the race organization for the Red Hook Crit, as a coach with EnduranceWERX, as well as a freelance writer and photographer.
