Inside Specialized HQ: See the wind tunnel, prototyping, museum and more
The two Joshes - Croxton and Ross - from the Cyclingnews tech team were on the ground in Monterey, California recently, heading to Sea Otter Classic to bring you all the latest tech from cycling's biggest outdoor trade show. While Josh Ross was riding a 200-mile day on his way to the area. I had an easier day and took the short drive up to Morgan Hill, home of Specialized for a peek inside, where the company founder Mike Sinyard was on hand to greet us.
The brand's global headquarters is dubbed by many as one of the coolest offices in the bike industry, and we can see why. There's a games room with pool and foosball tables, there's a bike shop, and the corridors are covered in hanging bike racks full of employees' bikes. There's even a locker room that I'd guess is bigger than the average British home, complete with Tarmac SL5 towel racks, of course. One employee even told us that between around 12 and 2 pm, there's an "expectation" that employees will probably be away from their desks and out for a ride.
There are exciting things for bike nerds to see at every turn: the walls of the maze-like building are peppered with memorabilia of the brand's past successes, there's a museum full of iconic bikes that have shaped the brand's history, a mezzanine dedicated to wild prototype bikes, and an in-house prototyping facility - The Machineshop - dedicated to turning the design team's ideas into a working reality.
And that's all before we head over the road to what aero engineer Lionello Bardina described as a "one-stop shop for pro athletes," complete with the brand's own in-house dedicated wind tunnel, complete with Retul bike fit room and metabolic testing equipment.
I took a camera along and snapped away at all the interesting things I could see, and I've shared them all in the gallery below.
The Machine Shop
The first stop on the tour was the 'Machine Shop', a facility dedicated to prototyping both alloy and carbon fibre products. The former comes through the use of various CNC machines, including three-, five- and seven-axis machines that can create a working prototype in just minutes.
Blown away... literally
Next on the whistle-stop tour was a walk to the other side of the business park to an all-black building that is home to Specialized's wind tunnel, other athlete services such as a Retul fit room, parts storage, metabolic testing, and unexpectedly, where its custom-design water bottles are made.
The museum
For visitors, one of the more unique and interesting areas within Specialized's California HQ is the museum that adjoins reception. It is a huge space in which you'll find dozens of Specialized bikes from across all disciplines, as well as a lifesize recreation of the garage where Mike Sinyard first founded the company.
Highlights include early Specialized Allez and Sequoia models, winning bikes ridden by Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara, and Peter Sagan, and even original handwritten invoices from Sinyard's early days.
