The Specialized Chisel and I go back a long time. I remember when she first appeared on the testing scene. Coyly showing the ridiculously skinny, sculpted alloy tubes that a revolutionary new ‘SmartWeld’ tube junction allowed. A genius bit of ‘ends formed like Coke cans’ engineering that I first chatted to Specialized design savant and ‘Director of Advanced Research and Design' Chris D’Alusio to over a decade ago when it first appeared on road bikes. He related the story of how closed end tube set experiments that were just meant to make welding and fabricating easier, revealed almost unbelievable fatigue test results. Because the much stiffer formed ends essentially stopped flex in the weld junctions, SmartWeld frames were lasting twice or three times as long as traditional alloy frames even when the mid-tube wall thicknesses were paper thin. The formed tubes with cutaway head tubes also created a much more stable junction to weld too while removing weight where it wasn’t needed. That meant as soon as the concept had been proved on the sweet riding Allez road bike, Chris and his team set about creating the Chisel XC MTB.
