Zwift’s February update included the 19th frame in game from US-based Specialized. Named the “Crux”, this is the first gravel bike from Specialized in Zwift’s Drop Shop.
Here’s how the Crux is described in Zwift’s Drop Shop:
“The Crux is the lightest gravel bike in the world, with the exceptional capability of massive tire clearance and performance gravel geometry. It’s not just the ultimate expression of gravel performance, it’s your one-way ticket to gravel enlightenment.”
This frame is priced at 869,800 Drops, making it by far the most expensive gravel bike in the Drop Shop. (To be fair, it costs a pretty penny IRL). It’s level-locked at 17 and rated 2 stars for aero, and 3 for weight. But Zwift’s star ratings aren’t precise enough to communicate actual performance in game in a useful way, so we ran the Crux through our standard battery of tests.
Here’s everything you need to know about the performance of the new Specialized Crux frame in Zwift.
Aero (Flat/Rolling) Performance
The Specialized Crux turns in a mid-pack poor aero performance, faster than the Canyon Inflite, Lauf True Grit, and Zwift Gravel, but slower than the Cervelo Aspero and Canyon Grail.
Its test time of 53:50.5 is 3.5 seconds faster than the default Zwift Gravel frame. By comparison, the current fastest gravel frame in Zwift (Cervelo Aspero) turns in a time of 53:47 on our test course, which is two laps of Tempus Fugit, totaling 34.6km.
Climb Performance
Since the Crux is billed as the world’s lightest gravel bike, we expected its climb performance to be best-in-class. And we weren’t disappointed! The Crux out climbs all other gravel bikes in game on our test course.
The Specialized Crux turns in an Alpe climb time of 51:18. The next fastest gravel bike is the Canyon Grail at 51:24. (By comparison, the fastest bike in game (Specialized Aethos) completes the test is 48:50.)
Note: all test results above are from a 75kg, 183cm rider holding 300W steady using the Zwift Gravel wheelset.
Conclusions
With more bikes in Zwift than any other manufacturer, it makes sense for Specialized to have a gravel offering available. The Crux fits into a nice niche in the Drop Shop, too, as the first sort of “climber gravel” bike. It could prove quite useful in gaining valuable seconds up Yumezi’s Temple KOM!
The Specialized Crux has been added to the following posts, and it can also be found on our Master Zwift Frames List:
- Learn How Zwift’s Gravel Bikes Perform
- Which Bike Should I Use on Zwift’s Makuri Islands Routes?
- Zwift Shopping Guide: What To Buy At Each Level
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
Important note: this post contains speed test results for Zwift frames or wheels. These results may change over time, and a bike's performance relative to others may also change. We don't always revise posts when performance rankings change, but we do keep current, master versions of our speed test results which are always available. See the frame charts, wheel charts, and Tron vs Top Performers for current performance data.
Nice bike IRL, but pretty disappointing in game. When you hit the dirt roads, hop on the standard mountain bike, which performs much better.
Something tells me that this is about to change (at some point).
look for new wheels making a diff
Watch this space… gravel bikes are making a comeback on Zwift. 🙂
Since the only place I use gravel bikes is the Temple KoM, this seems like a good fit. It’d be interesting to add this to that comparison page between the Trek Supercaliber, the Canyon Grail, and the Tron up Kappa Quest. I’m guessing the climb is short enough that it wouldn’t make a difference on the climb, but the Crux would be slightly slower on the Tarmac and Forest parts of the route. Maybe the descent too, but that’s short enough that all the bikes are pretty clustered there.
Interested to see how the wheels change things, if they do at all. The text talks about having the most clearance. Now, if you could put mtb wheels on it and get the Crr advantage of mtb wheels with the lightness of this frame, that might be worth thinking about.
Doing test laps to update that page now. Watch for a post on the new gravel wheels… their performance on the Temple KOM is going to change some things!
I think one reason you want to see more results is because in a race you probably won’t be able to switch onto your frame right before the temple kom then switch back at the top and still have an advantage
I’m wondering:
With the addition of gravel wheels I expected one would be fixed to combine the same type of frame and wheels, being either gravel or road. Your note “all test results above are from a 75kg, 183cm rider holding 300W steady using Zwift’s stock 32mm carbon wheelset.” suggests otherwise. Is that right?
My mistake. I fixed that text just now.
You are ridiculously responsive and conscientious. That you’d be jumping to make a fix like that… It’s cool.
This site adds a *ton* to my experience. Thanks Eric.
Does Specialized pay Zwift to have all those bikes availalbe? Just curious why there are so many options ffrom them when other manufacturers have the same offerings but nothing or very little in Zwift.
According to Zwift, they don’t have paid partnerships with any of these brands. It’s more of a “we’ll put your stuff in game if you hold events that bring users to our platform” sort of thing…
Specialized were a big contributor of the last funding round for Zwift.
“Specialized’s investment represents the beginning of a strategic partnership between the global cycling brand and Zwift. Both brands share the belief that cycling, whether indoor or outdoor, has the power to improve lives. Chris Yu, Leader of Product and Innovation at Specialized, stated “our goal is to pedal the planet forward by getting more riders riding, and we are beyond excited at the opportunity to partner with Zwift to break down the barriers to riding indoors on the world’s most engaging platform.””
https://news.zwift.com/en-WW/191648-zwift-raises-450-million-investment-series-c-round-led-by-kkr
Seems like a couple of runs on the jungle loop to test MTB and Gravel bikes would be much more helpful information than testing on paved roads. It’s really hard to know what to do with this bike, or any other, if I were doing a ride on the jungle loop or other dirt/gravel road, which is where I’d choose to use them, never on Tempus Fugit or AdZ.
right? or that mixed loop of gravel/road in islands where the choice is between gravel and road bikes. i think that is these comparisons get interesting especially with the new gravel wheels.
The paved road tests are standard tests that tell us how a bike performs relative to all others on flats and climbs. A Jungle Loop test wouldn’t tell us that.
That said, I’ll be adding timings for this frame to the posts referenced at the end of this article, ASAP. I don’t expect it to be any faster than other gravel frames on the Jungle Circuit.
Agree, but given this is all done by Eric gratis, I just extrapolate as best I can among gravel bike testing results.
For climbing on Temple, it seems that there would be only about 5 seconds of difference across all of the gravel bikes. For the top 3 gravel, 3 seconds or less. (20 sec over 50+ min on AdZ turns into roughly 3 sec for 5-7 min on Temple, depending which direction.)
For Jungle Loop, tests already show there’s only 4 sec difference across all of the gravel bikes – 40-50 sec faster than “fast” road bikes.
They’ve also introduced some new gravel wheels, will be interesting to see a comparison between the MTBs and the gravel bikes with these newer fancier wheelsets
Working on it. Watch this space.
Awesome, thanks for all your information on the frames and wheels.
I wonder if this bike suffers from the same AXS groupset bug as the Cervelo did.
I think Zwift needs to add more ranking levels to their bikes so they can find tune them more accurately.
On gravel mountain bikes shouldn’t be faster. But how do you set up these bikes so a gravel bike on pavement isn’t faster than a road bike? Well, you need more levels to the performance ranking, that’s how. Maybe 10 stars? That would make it easier for them to dial in bikes performance more accurately.
Now locked until level 35. /sigh
Asked ChatGPT to suggest a gravel bike for me today, was 100% sure as I am level 24, that I can buy a specialized CRUX today. 100% confident that it doesnt unlock at level 35 in game, but that ZwiftInsider must be correct (4 years down the line)
You’re saying ChatGPT said you could buy this at level 24?