The next Emonda has its work cut out (pun intended).įinally, stability in crosswinds. I was so impressed with its performance that I kept forgetting Trek also has the Emonda climbing bike. So it passes ‘comfortable’ and ‘fast’ with flying colors (actually Deep Smoke for this one).Īt 7.5kg it’s light for an aero bike - or any disc brake bike - and it leaps up hills as if it weighs even less. The shortish 90mm stem section of the cockpit could have made it a little twitchy, but thanks to the sweeping shape I found my weight sufficiently over the front wheel in the hoods position, and steering was fast but balanced on descents and tight corners. And this is on 25mm tires that aren’t even the best (at this price they really ought to be). It feels like a coiled carbon spring - full of potential energy and floating over bad road surfaces seemingly without any effect on its speed. So you might expect that with its suspension system gone, the latest bike might have gone backwards in comfort. This was undoubtedly the reason why Trek bolted the IsoSpeed decoupler onto the Madone two iterations ago. That’s the first thing that strikes you, or rather doesn’t strike you.Īero bikes used to supply a harsher ride simply because deep, bladed tubing doesn’t flex like round tubing. The rideĭespite the fact that the fit wasn’t optimal - I could have done with the size up - the ride quality of the Madone is absolutely incredible. This model comes with Bontrager Aeolus Pro 51 tubeless-ready wheels, set up with Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite 25mm tires and inner tubes - again, surprisingly narrow. There’s clearance for 28mm tires max, which is tight by modern standards. Trek says this is its lightest ever disc Madone. The new SLR bikes are all made from Trek’s 800 OCLV carbon - from the 105-equipped SLR 6 up to the flagship SLR 9 - and are impressively light, especially compared with other aero bikes such as the Cervelo S5. The kamm-tailed rear of the stem is much closer to your knees than you’d expect. The reduced reach combined with the shorter reach of the swept-back bar works very well for that super aero hoods position, but it does feel surprisingly short. The latest geometry is called H1.5 (halfway between the old H1 race and H2 endurance). Our size 54 with a standard short mast could only manage a maximum saddle height of 74cm and the reach felt very short with the 90mm stem cockpit it comes with. The cutout in the seat tube leaves less room for a long seatpost and less adjustability (around 6cm minimum to maximum) so if you are long-legged but prefer a smaller frame you may need the tall version that comes with the size 56 upwards (as I ideally would have done). You can change this at point of purchase at no extra cost, Trek told us, or the 1 1/8in steerer is compatible with a non-integrated stem and bar (though the frame is electronic groupset only). There are 14 different combinations available and, since the backsweep gives the bar a shorter reach, it’s important to get the right one - if you’re like those of us who rode this bike, you’ll need a longer stem. Trek has entered the integrated cockpit wars (along with Colnago, Canyon, Cervélo et al) with a completely new and very slick-looking design but it’s neither adjustable nor V-shaped: according to Trek it saves watts by changing rider position rather than via the aerodynamic properties of the cockpit itself.Ī standard 42cm bar becomes 39cm at the hoods and 42cm at the drops and there’s a backsweep so that a flat-forearms aero position on the hoods becomes very aero indeed. It turns out that only half of the claimed watt saving comes from the IsoFlow hole. The aerodynamic explanation for it is: “It’s a way to direct some high energy flow into a low energy region of the bike.” What that means is that the seat tube area creates a disproportionate amount of drag and the hole helps to dissipate this by adding what Trek calls a “jet of fast moving air.” Let’s peer a bit more closely into that hole or, to give it its real name, IsoFlow.
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