2018 Women's S-Works Tarmac

It's simple—when someone attacks on a climb, you want to respond quickly and with confident assurance. And when it's you who's breaking away, you need to accelerate with snappy intensity and leave everyone in your dust. The Women's S-Works Tarmac SL6 with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 is born to race to any strategy, and it's at the absolute top of the women's race bike heap in terms of performance, quality, technology, and handling.

For the construction, we utilized advanced aerospace composite optimization software to revolutionize the construction and layup of our new FACT 12r carbon. It's the most advanced material and schedule we've ever made—the shape, schedule, and material optimization allowed us to shed nearly 200 grams. That's right, a 20% reduction in frame weight—the perfect recipe for your next hill climb PR.

We started by further improving our Rider-First Engineered™ technology to ensure that the new Tarmac is stiff and compliant in exactly the right places, all while shedding some serious weight. With this revamp, we also updated the geometry—basing it on countless Retül data points and professional rider input. This enabled us to develop a performance road geometry that perfects the combination of a responsive front end and short wheelbase, delivering instantaneous response and optimal power transfer.

And while stiffness aids in the aforementioned, compliance must also be utilized for an optimal ride quality. That's why we designed a seatpost that builds compliance into the upper 120mm where clamping doesn't happen, dropped the seatstays, and altered the seat tube shape. We also added tire clearance up to 30mm, which translates to a 28mm Turbo Cotton on a Roval CLX 50 wheel. This allows lower pressures for decreased rolling resistance, increased traction, and more comfort. Altogether, these additions still have the Tarmac riding like a true race-machine, but just takes a bit of the sting out of those road imperfections. You'll thanks us on your next long ride.

And while this is all great, we know that aerodynamics are the most important thing we can do to make you faster. Our Boels-Dolmans Pro Tour riders, after all, are demanding aero improvements on every bike. With this, the aero goal was to discover where we could essentially "add aero for free," by not taking anything away from the hallmarks of the Tarmac design. During the six-month iterative process, three areas were discovered where we could do this—a new fork shape, dropped seatstays with aero tubes, and a d-shaped seatpost and seat tube. The result? A bike that's approximately 45 seconds faster over 40km compared to other lightweight bikes in the same category. A speed savings that you'll feel when you're attacking off the front of the peloton.

The new Women's S-Works Tarmac comes ready to race with Shimano's new Dura-Ace 9150 Di2 groupset with direct mount brakes, and the lightweight, yet impressively aerodynamic, Roval CLX 50s with 26mm Turbo Cotton tires. It's also spec'd specifically for female riders, from the handlebar width, to the crankarm length, all the way down to the saddle.

• Featuring our Rider-First Engineered™ design that ensures every frame size has the same legendary climbing responsiveness and descending prowess you'd expect from a top-performance race bike. The S-Works FACT 12r frameset is our highest quality carbon frame, offering the ideal blend of light overall weight and targeted stiffness.

• S-Works-specific FACT full carbon fork with tapered construction provides incredible front end stiffness and steering response for instantaneous accelerations and high-speed descents.

• A 52/36T S-Works carbon fiber crankset offers the ultimate in power transfer, with a chainring grouping that's equally suited to big alpine climbs as it is to throwing down the gauntlet on the flats.