@tREKBiKES FA L L 2 0 1 4
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04 Over a few beers 08 The devil is in the details 28 Things we love 38 The paint beneath 56 Alphabikes 128 Salt and the wound 144 N + Project One 164 Into the wind 170 Behind the lines 182 Gary Fisher 198 Humans race
EDITORIAL Designed and edited by Trek Bicycle Written by Trek Bicycle except as noted
IMAGES Over a few beers / Taz Darling The devil is in the details / Taz Darling, Emily Maye, Jamie Forrest Things we love / Christopher Bacarella, Jamie Forrest, Todd Herbst, Jarrod Beglinger, Zack Jones, Eric Bjorling, Justin Blumer, Ben Grace Beneath the paint / Taz Darling, Jamie Forrest Alphabikes / Chris Milliman, Todd Herbst, Jamie Forrest, Graham Watson, Sterling Lorence, Emily Maye, The Des Moines Register, Jeff Clark, Dean Gore, Matt Delorme, John Laptad, Nathan Hughes, Taz Darling, Haruki “Harookz� Noguchi Salt and the wound / Christopher Bacarella Character* / Jeff Clark, Chris Milliman, Matt Delorme N + Project One / Taz Darling Into the wind / Illustrations by Justin Blumer Behind the lines / Sterling Lorence Gary Fisher / Jeff Clark, Gary Fisher personal archives Humans race / Waterloo Historical Society
SPECIAL THANK S Trek Factory Racing, Waterloo Historical Society *Helen Keller's quotation appears courtesy of the American Foundation for the Blind
The hard part isn’t starting a bike company. The hard part is making things that last. Bikes. A brand. Relationships. The hard part is the key to what we do, and who we are.
Born in a barn, where two Midwestern guys pursued a dream of building something great. Raised on rocket science, because when you lead, you have to invent. Raced to win, because the world needs heroes—and we’re inspired by the will and audacity to put it all on the line. Warrantied for life, because our bikes—and our relationships—are built to last. Loved the world over, because riders everywhere share our belief in the power of this simple, elegant machine.
This is Trek. We believe in bikes.
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Over a few beers The walls are wood paneled. The lighting is low. The menu, classic steakhouse. The air is a comforting blend of seared ribeye, tobacco, and beer. It’s winter, and the rural Pine Knoll Supper Club is as much a refuge from the Wisconsin chill as it is a place to have a great meal at a fair price. Tonight, it’s about to witness history.
Two men sit at the bar, talking over beers. One is compact and clean shaven, the other tall and sideburned. They’re deep in a debate over the relative merits of two words: Trek and Kestrel. If you happened to catch their conversation, it probably wouldn’t hold your interest. Even the men themselves don’t realize, on this cold winter night in 1976, that they’re about to shape the future of cycling.
Bevil, the tall one, champions Kestrel, a swift bird of prey, and an apt name for an active lifestyle company (like the one Bevil would later go on to found). His partner listens intently, but stands strong behind his own travel-inspired contribution: Trek. Dick Burke’s belief in the power of a good idea proves persuasive. And just like that, Trek Bicycle is born.
Dick Burke and Bevil Hogg are performing a timehonored ritual of business in Wisconsin. Friends and business partners meet over a few drinks to hash out the day’s events, plan the future, debate ideas good and bad. Tonight, the topic is what to call their fledgling bicycle company. The debate is cordial, as supper club conversations always are.
The Pine Knoll, shuttered since 2010, still stands a few miles from Trek HQ. Rumors of a reopening swirl every now and again, more wishful thinking than fact. But one fact is indisputable: the Pine Knoll’s place in Trek history is secure, hatched over a few beers and proudly proclaimed on millions of bike frames across the globe.
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When the northern lights go out, shine on. W h y W E l O v E i t : It’s a big bright safety blanket perfectly
constructed for that time of year when the light starts to dim. bontrager.com
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raid the fridges for refreshments—but this is 2014, and Fabian Cancellara has just won the Tour of Flanders. Belgian beer alone isn’t going to do it for this party. The guy quietly correcting the deficit with an armload of bubbly is Jordan Roessingh, Team Technical Director.
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Thumping Belgian Techno from the cafés around the square drifts across the makeshift team bus park. It’s a dreadful racket. Only one bus remains in the square: the winning team’s black Mercedes. There’s a party going on inside the bus and it’s noticeably rocking.
Earlier that day we’d tailed Jordan. “I don’t have much to do today, just support the guys at the top of the Koppenberg,” he’d said, as he navigated the tiny roads around the twisting labyrinth of the Ronde van Vlaanderen parcours to the top of the hill. An ex-racer himself, he knows these races well, and so he skillfully negotiates the car a little closer than all the other team mechanics and soigneurs can manage. He’s there to hold spare wheels for the riders, because the team support cars can’t follow up the cobbled, steep, narrow incline.
Around the outside of the bus, Trek Factory Racing-clad supporters are everywhere. It’s hard to tell who’s who: a group of Norwegian bike shop owners, some fan club members, various Trek employees, even a few exhausted riders. They’ve all had a long day and a few drinks—not surprising, because this is the Ronde van Vlaanderen in a Flemish town and everybody’s celebrating.
It’s all a part of the complicated logistical strategy for these cobbled Spring races where team personnel are littered around the course ready for roadside assistance. As the race comes past the situation is tense, as Fabian’s still in the mix and it’s all on the line. A snatched water bottle later and some animated encouragement from Jordan, and we belt it back for one of the best RvV finales in years.
One guy drifts away from the melange. He heads to a nearby bar and returns with an armful of champagne bottles and a bemused-looking waiter laden down with several more. It’s hard, at this moment, not to draw comparisons to the café raids of the early days of bike racing, when racers would rush into a bar and
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I could taste the blood—there was a lot of it—and I knew I was injured but had no idea how bad
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“It was the E3—a semi classic but my first big race as Liaison. I wanted to help so I jumped in a team car with a soigneur and a local, somebody who knew the roads around the race. We pulled over at the top of the Kwaremont, and as the wrench in the car, I grabbed spare wheels, just in case. As we found our spot it comes over the radio that Cancellara had flatted coming up the climb. I’d changed thousands of wheels, but this was a baptism—now I’m doing it in a race for Cancellara. He pulls over just after the climb and I get to it. Front wheels are obviously easier, and I was happy with how quick I swapped it out. I closed the QR and looked up make sure the wheel was centered and to close the brake. That’s when everything went black.
k WA r e M o n t, k l u i S B e r g e n e A St Fl Ande r S , B e lgiuM
A little background: In 2012, Lance had taken his toll. Ben, the Leopard Trek Team Liaison at the time, was done. Five demanding, roller coaster years with fantastic highs and too many lows had left the door open for a new Team Liaison. It was Jordan Roessingh’s opportunity. But it can be tough to break into the trust of the world’s finest racers. Trust needs to be earned, never granted, especially when someone new is working on your bike, providing your equipment.
My first thought when I came to was if I had closed the QR. I could taste the blood—there was a lot of it—and knew I was injured but had no idea how bad. While I’m lying there, somebody steals Cancellara’s flat front wheel out of my hand! Anyway, Alain Gallopin, one of our directors, is arguing with an ambulance driver to take me, as he’d been instructed to only transport riders. I shared the ambulance with an injured rider, Carlos Barredo, who had accidentally run into the back of Fabian while I was changing his front wheel. I earned a broken nose, 20 stitches, half a dozen nicknames, but most importantly a place on the team. All the riders now knew the new Trek guy."
When things are going well, racers typically don’t want to try anything new. When they are not going well, fault needs to find a home. And Trek had sent a new guy. As a former national-caliber racer and experienced engineer, Jordan had the background. He knew bikes, he knew racing, he knew racers. But there is no way to really understand the intricacies of European professional racing until you get your feet wet—or nose broke, as this story goes.
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we’re confronted with the team truck—a full workshop on wheels that would make the biggest bike shop owner green with envy wheels that would make the biggest bike shop owner green with envy, as would the amount of kit crammed into the storerooms. Jordan starts to talk us through the facility.
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When you arrive at the Trek Factory Racing service course, there’s very little to announce your arrival. There’s no sign outside and the only giveaway are a couple of team cars parked out front. This is partly for security, as you don’t need to attract too much attention for break-ins and teams have had their fair share of these lately. Given that the presentation that will announce the team to the world is just hours away, the lack of fanfare is striking.
“We have enough room in here to store all the buses, all the trucks, and all the cars inside. So it’s perfect for in the wintertime when we don’t want everything sitting outside. We’ll have a couple of additional storage rooms for other Trek teams that potentially want to store material over in Europe. We have a lot of stuff across all our teams—now we have some space for all. For just Trek Factory Racing, we start with 180 frames and 500 sets of wheels—plus full Shimano groups for each frameset, mostly Di2, some mechanical. Then there’s our food room, which still needs to get populated with a little more material. We’re sponsored by SiS and First Endurance this year, and we’ve just got a delivery of five pallets of food from SiS. Then there’s Sixtus for all of the massage creams the soigneurs use, and thousands and thousands of musette bags. Normally, jobs are divided between the soigneurs and the mechanics, so the mechanics deal with everything that’s on the bike
All professional cycling teams have a service course. Most of these bases are in Belgium or Holland as it’s the best location for the season of racing in Europe, close to transport links and where most of the team personnel reside. It’s the team’s HQ, coffee shop, office, and garage all rolled into one. The service course is a huge workshop in itself, although today they are packing up for the first trip of the season, so we are immediately confronted with the team truck, a full workshop on
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sits down to discuss the next season of racing and who asks for what—but the minute he sits down he’s up again and wrestling open a box of Oakleys.
and the soigneurs deal with everything that’s off the bike. This is the soigneurs’ mess right now. They just got a massive shipment of clothing in for the beginning of the season and luggage and all that sort of stuff.” As Jordan shows us around, one of the tech crew is installing SIM cards into dozens of mobile phones spread out on the table in front of him, setting up each one for every member of the team and support crew.
“The core of my job is to make sure we get the right equipment in the building at the right time. I make sure everything gets here, and then it’s everyone else’s job to distribute, unless there are special circumstances I have to manage. I just remembered that Matt Busche asked me for some different lenses, so I should do that now, before I forget.”
The shelves in the riders’ room at the service course are lined with grey plastic boxes, each with a postcard of a rider on the front of it. The riders ask for stuff constantly—sometimes via email, but mostly they just ask Jordan when they see him—and it all goes into their bin. We continue our conversation as he fills the boxes with stuff he’s collected from around the place. He
There’s no list to prompt this, it’s just something he’s remembered, amid myriad other details he needs to mind. I’m beginning to realize there’s a lot more to this job than first appears.
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bikes around. No surprise that most of them have an opinion on how it should be done. Those who don’t simply stare into their smartphones. Jordan’s got it handled. The team will be introduced in small groups so the flow of riders can appear seamless, with no hint of the quick backstage transfers as one group finishes a lap and surrenders their bikes to the group about to be announced.
9 J A n uA r Y 2 0 1 4 t r e k FA C t o r Y r A C i n g t e A M p r e S e n tAt i o n J e A n S tA B l i n S k i v e l o d r o M e – r o u B A i X , F r A n C e
Anthony McCrossan, TV commentator and MC for this evening, looks understandably preoccupied. The team presentation is going to be a lavish affair, and in the middle of the day there’s still a lot to do. The whole team is shipped in for the occasion and, to be honest, that in itself must be like herding cats. Anthony’s an expert at this game, and when you witness the preparations and last minute changes amid the chaos, a new level of respect for his talent hits home.
Before that happens, however, he has to make sure they’re properly dressed. "We’re doing kit distribution to the team a little bit later than some of the other teams just because we’re trying to keep the jersey secret for this presentation, so the riders aren’t allowed to ride the new kit. The best way to prevent them from doing that is just to not give it to them! Just distributing clothing, helmets and winter gear and all that nonbike stuff is a huge logistical challenge. After tonight everyone kind of spreads out all over the world, so this is our easiest chance of giving them the majority of their kit for the season, just because everyone’s in one place."
Out in the lobby, the press conference is about to start. Jordan’s clucking around the team bikes as photographers and film crews gravitate towards them. Right now his concerns are less about the here and now and more about figuring out how to stay ahead of the game. The team only has a limited supply of bikes available—there’s a truckload on the way to training camp in Mallorca, as well as another fleet on the way to the Tour Down Under—and they need to get the whole team onto the indoor track for a lap. Not to worry, Jordan has a plan.
Needless to say, the team presentation was faultlessly slick. Trek Factory Racing Fan Club members got to stay late for a beer and a photo with their favorite team members. Jordan was one of the last to leave the velodrome, getting back to the hotel late to pack his bags for training camp in Mallorca.
The riders are brought into the velodrome in the late afternoon and housed in a makeshift green room. Debate ensues about how they propose to get on stage and how they share the
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cycle, they also feel like they’re part of it and that their voice counts, and then they get a lot more engaged and interested in it.”
C A r r e F o u r d e l’A r B r e – pA S d e C A l A i northern FrAnCe
It’s slightly strange being here, so far away from Waterloo where the product is made, and seeing the bikes being ridden in what can only be described as extreme circumstances. Does Jordan worry that something’s going to go wrong?
The buses from several teams are parked on the verges surrounding the restaurant at the top of the Carrefour. Traditionally, this is regarded as the hardest sector of ParisRoubaix pavé, and it’s often the race decider—making it the popular end point for reconnaissance day rides.
“Not really—well, not anymore. When I started, I was nervous as hell. When you get a rider as picky as Fabian, and he’s still one of the most demanding riders in the professional peloton, I can’t just give him a product and say, ‘Here you go, ride this and we’ll pay you a lot of money.’ That’s not how works. He won’t react well to that. You have to develop a product that makes a difference, where he can say at the end of the day, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ridden.’ Otherwise he won’t ride it. And it’s not just Fabian. We have a few select riders in the team who feel this is personally their own bike, that they helped develop it. You get great feedback that way, and a lot more honesty out of the riders when they feel like ‘this is really my project, this is really something I own.’"
As far as the Trek engineers are concerned, for now, their work is done. The days around these classic races are critical for the team, but development and reappraisal aren’t the issue. It’s all about planning for the race itself. Jordan is very much in his element. He’s the one person who has a total overview on the complete process, and he explains how that is useful for everyone on the team and at the bike company. “Now that we have our own team, we get a lot better access to the riders to do ride testing and can add a lot more alterations that end up resulting in a lot more successful race bike—and you also end up developing a lot of technologies that make it into all of our bikes. Look at Domane. It was designed for this race, but now pieces of it have trickled down to Cross bikes, women-specific bikes, inexpensive road bikes. It works, and it was first designed for this event.
The riders roll in, inevitably led by Cancellara. The awaiting press corps and fans hunting autographs and souvenirs descend on the bus, where the soigneurs are making pancakes outside under a canopy. The rest of the team arrive in ones and twos and bikes are handed over to Roger Theel, Fabian Cancellara’s personal mechanic.
The riders see that—they get it and think that it’s pretty cool. But it takes a lot of effort to get there, because even though we own the team, it’s still challenging to be able to fit ride testing in with the athletes and get their full attention and concentration on the product at hand, especially if it’s during the race season. Because at the end of the day they still have a job to do, and that’s to race their bikes. But when you incorporate them more into the product development
The atmosphere is relaxed, with the win from the previous Sunday still flowing confidence through the support crew and the team. Fabian is the only one who looks pensive. Fair enough; the pressure tells on the team leader and defending champion on days like these. Still, when Jordan asks about how the bike was, he has less to worry about. Fabian’s one word reply: "Perfect."
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You get a lot more honesty out of the riders when they feel like “this is really my project, this is really something I own�
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Aletsch Glacier overlook
ChatEl The Alps are the winter playground of the Montblanc set—but they’re just as fantastic in other seasons, too. Trek VP Joe V’s recipe for an unforgettable Alpine trip is simple: ride Chatel. Speciically, hire Lloyd from Professional Transfers for your guide. Pack a big fork, a bike with really laid back freeride angles, pads, and a good all-mountain helmet. Practice tight DH switchback turns before the trip. Eat pizza at LaFiacre. Take pictures. If you go in the fall, keep an eye out for Joe V. For more of Joe’s cycling wit and wisdom, check out his blog at trekbikes.typepad.com/rec_and_itness
Chompski Gnomes are mysterious little creatures that some say bring good luck. Who doesn’t need a little bit of that on a Monday morning? Chompski here greets Trek’s Communications Team as we arrive at work, and stands guard over our coffee and dark chocolate stash long after the lights have gone out at HQ.
Our On-site CX COurse It’s Trek’s version of playing catch in the front yard—except with a run-up, sandpit, and World Champion sightings.
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BONtR agE R fl aS h ChaRgE R tlR Pu M P With more and more people going tubeless, the need for compressed air has...blown up. Bike wheel technology is progressing fast, but air compressors remain heavy, loud, expensive energy hogs. That’s what makes this tubelessspecic loor pump such a gem. The Flash Charger creates all the compressed air you need, without the compressor you don’t want.
CHEQUAMEGON Say it. Odds are you can’t, not unless you’re from "up dere." Phonetically, it’s shuh-WAHmah-gen. Literally, it’s amazing. Mass-start 1000 rider race on 40 miles of Wisconsin Northwoods trail, like an all-mountain bike gran fondo. The taxidermy-to-human ratio is epic. If you want in, be quick. Registration ills up faster than an empty Leinenkugel’s glass at the Moccasin Bar on Main Street in Hayward.
iPa in a can Still think great beer only comes in heavy, breakable bottles? Think again. These days, more and more tasty IPAs are showing up in lightweight aluminum. Dale’s is one of our favorites.
S v E N S Ca R f How do you keep your neck warm while letting the world know you support his #Svenness? With our custom-made scarf that doubles as proof that you know how to spend your Cross-season Sundays.
BOntrager 180 JaCket Windproof up front, vented in the back, for allaround on-bike jacket awesomeness. Perfect for owning the road when the temps dip below Fred comfort levels. 29
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TREK FACTORY R ACING NECK GAITER
These classy pinstriped neck warmers were the irst piece of limited-edition team gear made exclusively for members of the Trek Factory Racing Fan Club. Join the team and ind more members-only gear at trekfactoryracing.com
a great barista This one’s for all the café sommeliers out there. The ones who don’t need to ask us which milk to use, and always know our preferred foam ratio. The world may take you for granted, but to us, you’re a gem. And that’s why we ride the three extra blocks to get to you—because we know you’re not just anywhere. We’ll go out of our way because you do the same. Thank you for stealing our hearts while soothing our souls. We promise never to ask if this is decaf.
C haMOiS But tER
Daylight saving time
Lubrication is never overrated. Try it. Once you start, you’ll never stop.
It’s our favorite transition of the year, when the enabling sun extends an hour later into the evening.
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Bontrager Podium shoe Nothing makes the podium girls’ eyes roll more than a stumbling cyclist. Don’t let a renegade cleat ruin your climb to the top step! Rock Bontrager’s lat-soled, high-styled Podium, the oficial shoe of winning. Available September 2014.
trek dodocase We respect others who share our passion for old-school craft and sustainability. Dodocase turns the art of bookbinding into the classiest way to protect your newest must-have gadget.
DIRK HOFMAN MOTOR HOMES One thing that has remained consistent throughout cycling’s biggest races is the ubiquitous presence of Dirk Hofman Motorhomes. Guerrilla marketing stunt and cycling culture classic. Also an actual Belgian RV retailer.
th E O f f i C E f O R lO St OB JE C tS The Bontrager visual designer and art director also designs furniture. Elegantly simple functional art. Kinda like Bontrager stuff. oficeforlostobjects.com
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the irst bike in Waterloo William McCracken, second-born son of Scottish immigrants Alex and Susanne McCracken, was a lamboyant lad about Waterloo, Wisconsin in the 1880s—and the owner of the area’s irst bicycle. The Milwaukee Sentinel remarked that "this vehicle was the last word in transportation in Wisconsin streets in the eighties." His 57-inch front wheel would pre-date the wheel size argument of early 21st century mountain bike forums by over a hundred years. Go 57er!
thE tREK aPP Did you miss the irst issue of @trekbikes? Want to see more great content we couldn’t it into the magazine you’re currently holding? Download our free iPad app and take the stories of Jens Voigt, Paris-Roubaix, our development process, and more with you anywhere.
trek travel guides Fun. Knowledgeable. Championship attitudes. The guides of Trek Travel will take you around the world on two wheels and always in irst class. Just like Alyssa, here. Go to Costa Rica and she’ll show you "La Isla Bonita" in a way you’ve never seen before. And if you’re lucky, she’ll teach you to surf. Visit trektravel.com for more.
PROtECtE d BiKE l aNES
COLDBL ACK® Everybody knows dark colors are hotter to wear in the summer. Well, Coldblack ® lips the script on that notion with an innovative material that relects the sun’s rays and reduces the absorption of heat. We thought that was neat, so we added it to the Bontrager SPF 40 UV Sunstop Arm Cover. Think of it as the least greasy sunscreen you’ll ever put on.
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The answer to many people’s biggest barrier to riding a bike may actually be a different sort of barrier. Around the world, protected bike lanes are the standard for street design done right.
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BONtR agER MaRquEt tE JaCKEt The need for stylish on-bike visibility doesn’t end when you trade carbon steed for city steel. That’s when you’ll reach for Bontrager’s clever Marquette Jacket, a lightweight quilted jacket perfect for fall or spring, with a hidden neon and relective lap that lips up for on-demand visibility.
GAZET TEER Strava be damned. Real adventure is out of cell range and battery life. Great rides start with the Gazetteer, the best maps of backroads anywhere. 96 detailed pages just to cover Wisconsin. Let the adventure begin.
MERMAID ROLL Midwest, Southwest, and Far East collide in this delicious mashup of culture and lavor. Avocado, tempura shrimp, spicy tuna, pickled jalapeño, kiwi, mango, and strawberry. Available only at Madison’s Sushi Red.
ShaKE Of thE day Ask any small-town Wisconsin bartender for the shake of the day and hand over a dollar or two for the pot. They’ll give you the daily number and some dice in a cup. Rules for winning vary from bar to bar, but it’s always a game of pure, even-handed chance. Your next shake could be the winner... 33
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Bäekerei Kondiforei Around 30 miles southwest of Madison you’ll ind New Glarus, a small town with deep Swiss roots. It’s a perfect 3-4 hour round trip road ride with great roads, good hills, and a stellar bakery to fuel the ride home.
ONE L AST GREAT THING Trek is a family company—and nowhere is this more evident than in One Last Great Thing, Trek President John Burke’s tribute to his father and Trek founder Dick Burke, aka The Big Guy. The book is a quick, thoughtprovoking read about family, business, and the history of Trek. A must-read for any cyclist, father, or son. John is giving away a limited number of copies—free. If you’d like one, email him at j.burke@trekbikes.com.
R AGBR AI This massive ride and pork chop festival is a slow-rolling, weeklong party across the hillier-than-youever-knew state of Iowa. It’s been attracting cyclists and pink feather boas since 1973.
BEER SigNS Whether it’s promoting the land of the sky blue waters or proclaiming that it’s time for a certain brand, we have an afinity for the vintage beer sign. If you’re playing scavenger hunt, you get ive extra points if the brewery no longer exists, ten extra points if the sign has a stilloperational moving part.
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MEat R afflE The tavern meat rafle is a regional oddity we share with Britain, Australia, and our neighboring state of Minnesota. Our version is a generous affair, with beer lowing freely and proceeds going to a local charity. And someone, of course, heads home with the meat.
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BONtRagER vElOCiS aW TREK FACTORY RACING EDITION To keep their racing appetites wet and their heads dry in the early season, Trek Factory Racing employs the closest thing you’ll get to an on-bike windshield: Bontrager’s All Weather edition of the team’s Velocis helmet.
RICE CAKES FROM HE T MOLENTJE Near the Ronde van Vlaanderen course in Berchem, Belgium lies a bakery called Het Molentje that makes handheld rice cakes. These little jersey-pocket-sized devils are guaranteed to lighten any road-weary soul sapped by tackling the Paterberg, the Koppenberg, and the Oude Kwaremont. Oficial rice cake of Trek Factory Racing.
lanterne Rouge Red apple Cider Thomas Jefferson made hard cider from apples growing on the Monticello estate. Benjamin Franklin has a famous quote about hard cider: “He that drinks his cider alone, let him catch his horse alone.” And John Adams downed a pitcher of it every morning as a health tonic. Just like our founding fathers, we like to ferment. The slightly dry, slightly sweet hard cider known as Lanterne Rouge is one of the most respected of all Trek home brews— available only in exchange for other home brews.
BEaR dEv tEaM Want to see a regional development team done right? Check out beardevteam.com. Great team, great mission, but the kits are what sold us. Design matters. So does Instagram. Follow @beardevteam.
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tR E K faCtO Ry R aC i N g R aC E S h O P li M itE d C O llE Cti O N This collection is the real deal, born of the wishes and whims of the best riders in the world. No replicas. bontrager.com 37
t h E Pa i N t B E N E at h WORDS BY GUY ANDRE WS P H OT O G R A P H S B Y TA Z DA R L I N G & J A M I E F O R R E S T
Ever wonder, when you look at your bike, what’s hidden beneath the paint? Once upon a time a simple tubing sticker would affirm the pedigree of the steel tubes a builder had used, Reynolds or Columbus perhaps, with the paint concealing the hours of craftsmanship put in. Today, Trek’s carbon fiber bikes share that hidden handwork with their steel forebears, not that you’d guess. The bikes are conceived with computergenerated designs, fluid-dynamically assessed and finite analyzed, and the resulting shapes appear seamlessly machine made. The carbon bike production process at Trek’s Waterloo headquarters has changed over the years, from gluing preformed carbon tubes into aluminum lugs in 1988, to a ground-up process that combines multiple molds with multiple carbon materials to create a completely tunable and masterfully engineered end product. Yet despite the aerospace technology, the bikes are actually built from a sheet of flat carbon fabric, completely by hand. There are no third party tube or lug manufacturers involved here and, somewhat paradoxically, what happens now at Trek is a more hand-built bicycle than it’s ever been.
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CaRBON
MOLDS ARE MADE IN THE ORIGINAL TREK RED BARN I N WAT E R L O O , W H E R E D I C K B U R K E A N D B E V I L H O G G S TA R T E D T H E I R C O M PA N Y
Every surface of the mold that will come into contact with carbon has to be hand sanded and polished to a mirror finish. The molds are then plated (to aid longevity) and fitted with hinges, springs, and associated hardware. It takes experienced engineers like Bill Frix, previously a welder and a carbon lay-up operator at Trek, a good half day to prepare one mold. Each frame size needs up to six component molds to make a complete frameset. All the parts of these complicated molds have to fit together perfectly, and the preformed inserts (pieces that add structure on the inside) need to be able to slot in without compromising closure, because the molding process will find the faults, as Jay points out.
We’re not simply talking about pressing carbon shapes into a jelly mold with some epoxy resin, though molds are where the process begins. Custom mold making for Trek is done by a team of engineers run by Jay Thrane. The mold-making facility is run out of the original Trek red barn in Waterloo, the place where Dick Burke and Bevil Hogg started their company, and where thousands of steel bicycles were made in the 70s. Now in this old barn, molds are made that help make thousands of carbon frames. Each of these molds comes out of a solid lump of aluminum or steel, depending on the application, and is CNC machined on site to suit the desired component shape. Then the hard part starts. As frames are getting into more involved shapes, so the molds are getting more and more complicated. At the beginning, the mold cutting facility was turning out five molds a week. Now, despite more machines and a 24hour running, they’re managing just one or two, such is the complexity of the new designs.
“With heat and pressure, the epoxy resin portion of the carbon liquefies, so if you’ve got the slightest crack you’ll get something in it. Basically, when you turn up the heat, resin turns into coffee. So the molds have to be perfect from the start.”
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W H AT H A P P E N S N O W AT T R E K I S A M O R E H A N D - B U I LT B I C YC L E T H A N I T ’ S E V E R B E E N
Former aerospace engineer Jim explains their respective properties.
Once the molds are shipped the mile or so West to the carbon lab, the magic black stuff can be cut and picked. Engineering aside, the process involved when laying up a carbon frame has a lot in common with dressmaking. In fact, as processes go, it probably relates more to the art of the seamstress than the traditional way of building a steel frame from tube and lugs.
"We use cloth—that standard checkerboard carbon fabric—in specific high-stress or high impact areas, because cloth has a unique property. Think of it a little like ripstop nylon: it can be more damagetolerant. It is also much more conformal in very tight, surface contours. Uni-directional stuff is just as it says—fibers that run in one direction. It is flexible too, in the plane of the fibers, but it makes more complex shapes quite difficult. Each material has strengths and weaknesses, and it takes experience and engineering to get the structures built optimally.
Jim Colegrove, composites manufacturing engineer, explains: “We have some very advanced software. First, we use CAD and make the 3D shape that is the frame. I can split this part into specific regions and then flatten them out into a net shape, a perfect pattern that I can then put back into the mold, and I know will fit exactly into the shape. We call this pattern a flat preform, which is then cut out on our CNC cutting table.”
For example, Hex-MC is a unique material of shorter, chopped fibers. They are thrown down onto a sheet in a very randomized pattern that would simulate a lay-up. We can then mold that into really complex shapes very effectively, because we don’t have long continuous fibers. But it doesn’t have quite the strength or stiffness that unidirectional or cloth does. For contrast, look the bottom bracket. It sees a lot of torsion and bending, because of the head tube load and the load that the rider puts in, so it needs both high stiffness and high strength. So we add small strips of high or ultra- high modulus material in those specific areas to help us out.”
Preforms are the key to building strength where it’s needed and weight saving where it’s not, as engineers select the right type of material for each shape and application. Carbon specialists Hexcel make all of Trek’s Waterloo carbon material, and have done so for nearly 25 years. It’s all USA-made carbon fiber from Salt Lake City, Utah, supplied in standard modulus, intermediate modulus, high modulus, or ultra-high modulus. It can be cloth or uni-directional, depending on intended usage.
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As Kelly explains, she only has to get the sheets of carbon in her experienced hands to gauge whether it is fit for its purpose.
Looking at a carbon frame, it’s so easy to think it’s made like a plastic model airplane, but it’s a complicated business. A Madone road frame has around 180 preforms, or individual pieces of carbon sheet, which can be layered up to increase strength where needed. A Session downhill bike will have 238 preforms, with each being between two and 12 plies of carbon material (either uni-directional, cloth, or Hex-MC). That’s a complex cutting list. Carbon is a wonderful material, but it takes good engineering to do right. Without the right expertise you end up with structures that are either heavy or not structurally sound.
“You can definitely tell the difference between the types of material and what’s not right, and whether there’s enough resin or too much. The engineers always tell us the lay-ups to use, the ingredients for each test, but after evaluation, we can make extra pieces for here and there and then test them.” Kelly and Sue know the process inside out; the cooling times, the ideal temperatures, how far you can push the material. They can give experienced feedback to Jim and his engineers as to what will and won’t work during the lay-up. A lot of this isn’t just science—experience is everything at Trek. They have produced and tested so many frames that they have a huge head start in frame development, all that data.
To add to this complexity, preforms generally grow in size as the frame size increases, and they may need additional material to allow for the loads that larger riders apply to the bikes. But even the most beefed-up parts of a frame are still only in the region of 1.5mm wall thickness.
Trek has always recognized that engineers need to get their hands dirty too. No matter what the computer says, the handson judgment is the true test, and Jim’s happy to get his gloves on and show us how it’s done. He might be slower than Kelly and Sue, but Mr. Plaid, as they affectionately call him, can turn his hand to most things.
The true artisans of the Trek carbon prototyping facility are Kelly Stone and Sue Moe, who have 46 years experience between them in molding carbon fiber. The material is rather like a sheet of toffee, in that it’s sticky to touch and bendable, and gets softer when warmed.
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N O M AT T E R W H AT T H E C O M P U T E R S AY S , THE HANDS-ON JUDGMENT IS THE TRUE TEST
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MR. Plaid
W H Y D O W E S T I L L H AV E T H I S FA C TO R Y ? B E C A U S E T H E O N LY WAY T O U N D E R S TA N D H O W F R A M E S A N D C A R B O N S T R U C T U R E S R E A L LY W O R K I S T O B U I L D T H E M Y O U R S E L F.
Mr. Plaid spreads mold release around a mold and places a preform into the cavity. He talks us through the next steps. Depending on the shape, bladders are added and the whole lot is closed up and placed into the presses. These literally squash the fibers and set the material into shape, at the same time removing excess resin.
weight or difference in ride quality caused by the joint. The whole lot is then loaded into a jig to be baked hard in an oven. Once set, the frame can be checked for tracking alignment and sent off to the next stage: adding the finish and the paint—and concealing all that handiwork and technology, in a market that demands more for less as Jim explains.
The new Session downhill mountain bike race frame has 40 individual preforms in one rocker arm alone. In the same way that a dressmaker might use the bias of a fabric to create just the right fit or texture, carbon is laid up into the mold to create the strongest (and lightest) results. Just laying up a mold for a single piece like a swing-arm takes around 10 minutes, so the idea that mold-produced carbon is faster and easier to produce than a CNC-machined aluminum part isn’t even close. Once all the bits are cleaned up and placed to cool, the next stage of the process can begin.
“I often get asked: why does Trek continue to build frames here when the entire industry has moved offshore, including, to be honest, a good percentage of Trek frames? Why do we still have this factory? And my answer is always the same. You can’t build different products, better products when you don’t completely understand the science. And the only way to understand the way frames and carbon structures really work is to build them yourself. Having our engineers cutting molds, laying in carbon, seeing their structures come to life is crucial to pushing designs forward. It is really expensive to build things here in this factory, but the products are better because of it. All of our products are better, because we know how things should be built, can be built. And that’s because we do it ourselves. We can’t wait for someone else to move the meter and show us how to do it. We are going to lead. That’s been the Trek way since I started here in 1990, and it’s the reason I come to work.”
In the case of a Madone, assembling the molded components into a road frame is remarkably quick. Epoxy glue is used to bond the individual stays, bottom bracket, and front triangle pieces with a proprietary Step Joint design that creates joints of the same thickness as the contiguous tube, so there’s no added
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P R O J E C t O N E É M O N d a i N C ya N W h y W E l O v E i t : Lightest production road line ever. There’s not
much Émonda to love—which is exactly why we love it. trekbikes.com
Shut up legs!
yup... it happens!
th E alP haB E t aCCO R d i N g tO tR E K The Trek line of bikes is extensive, with over 350 different models worldwide. It’s a line inspired by the experiences and needs of riders across the globe who all speak the common language of cycling. Not all models are shown here, but we’ve put together an A to Z sampling. It’s the alphabet according to us.
alPhaBiKES
a allaNt
A is for Allant, which is a loose French translation for getting in motion. Need to get to work? Go Allant. Need to fly to the store? Go Allant. Need to send some kisses? Go Allant. Stock with fenders, Allant is rack ready, life ready off the shelf.
allaNt 7 Dark Metallic Green fRaME FX Alpha Silver Aluminum fORK High-tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney CRaNK Forged alloy WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, alloy rims
allaNt WSd Cosmic Black fRaME FX Alpha Silver Aluminum fORK High-tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, double-wall alloy rims
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B
BOONE 9 Matte Trek Black fRaME 600 Series OCLV Carbon,
IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed Cross full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race Lite TLR
BOONE 5 Onyx Carbon/True Blue/Trek White fRaME 600 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed Cross full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK FSA Energy Cross WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
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BOONE
Boone’s legendary namesake wrestled grizzlies and tamed the wild frontier, smoothing the way for those who would follow —a fitting backstory for the bike of choice for Cyclocross superstar Sven Nys. This World Cup-winning carbon Cross bike with IsoSpeed will smooth whatever your course may be.
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Cali
From the state that invented endless summers comes the women’s cross country fun machine, Cali. Available in carbon or alloy because variety truly is the spice of life. Cali is ready for the trail party with the smartest choice of wheel size: the one that fits you best. Cali CaRBON Sl Satin Red Smoke/Catalyst Orange fRaME OCLV Mountain
Cali SlX Satin Trek Black/Viper Red fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fRONt
Carbon fRONt SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float, 100mm REaR
SuSPENSiON RockShox Reba RL, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore
dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK FSA F2000 WhEElS
XT CRaNK Race Face Ride WhEElS Bontrager sealed hubs, Bontrager Mustang
Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR
Elite TLR rims
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C R O C K E t t When we propped a Crockett frameset on the bar at the Boone and Crockett tavern in nearby Milwaukee, the keep didn’t bat an eye. Crockett is the perfect complement to the tavern’s dedication to craft, culture, and adventure—and the perfect race-ready aluminum Cross bike for those whose souls are shaken and passions stirred.
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CROCKEtt 9 diSC Black Titanite/Fastback Orange fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK Trek IsoSpeed Cross carbon disc
CROCKEtt 5 diSC Crystal White fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK Trek IsoSpeed Cross carbon disc REaR
REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra Di2 CRaNK FSA Energy Cross WhEElS HED Ardennes+
dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK FSA Energy Cross WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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C 3
C h E l S E a Chelsea is a district in New York. It’s also a district in London. Best of all, it’s a women’s District in our city bike lineup. Wherever you find it, Chelsea represents freedom, independence, and high style.
ChElSEa 9 Canary Yellow fRaME Trek Custom Steel fORK Hightensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Forged alloy 3 piece WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, double-wall alloy rims
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CROSSRiP
CrossRip has a dual persona—Jekyl and Hyde on two wheels. This purpose-built, do-more road bike can transition from conquering the daily grind to putting the hurt on the course with just a change of kit.
CROSSRiP ltd Ball Burnished fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK
CROSSRiP ElitE Matte Trek Black fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK
Bontrager Satellite Plus, carbon disc REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK
Bontrager Satellite Plus, carbon disc REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Sora CRaNK
Bontrager Satellite Plus, carbon disc REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Claris CRaNK
Shimano Tiagra WhEElS Bontrager alloy sealed hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
FSA Vero WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
FSA Vero WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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CROSSRiP COMP Sparkling Silver fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK
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dOMaNE
What you are about to read is not marketing hyperbole: Domane with IsoSpeed has forever changed bike design. It’s won Roubaix and Flanders. It’s been ridden in yellow at the Tour. It smoothes the roughest course while putting all your power to the road. Simply put, it’s the absolute best all-around endurance race platform ever created.
Fabian Cancellara on the Eikenberg, Ronde van Vlaanderen, April 6, 2014
dOMaNE 5.9 Viper Red/Trek White fRaME 500 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Domane
IsoSpeed full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra Di2 CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race Lite TLR
f RO M aR E N B E Rg, With lOvE The Domane design team was faced with a unique challenge: how do you design a bike to conquer terrain thousands of miles from home? Their answer: mold an especially brutal sector of the fabled Arenberg Forest cobbles, then bring it back to Wisconsin and cast exact concrete replicas that could be strung together and ridden over and over.
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dOMaNE 6.9 Nocturne Blue/Cyan/Yellow fRaME 600 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Race X Lite TLR
dOMaNE 6.2 Trek White/Viper Red fRaME 600 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed
dOMaNE 5.2 Matte Trek Black/Gloss Trek Black fRaME 500 Series OCLV Carbon,
dOMaNE 4.5 diSC Matte Trek Black/Dnister Black/Viper Red
fORK Trek IsoSpeed full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK
IsoSpeed fORK Domane IsoSpeed full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra
fRaME 400 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed carbon disc
Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race Lite TLR
CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano RS500 WhEElS Bontrager Afinity Comp Disc TLR
dOMaNE 4.1 Viper Red/Trek Black fRaME 400 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed
dOMaNE 2.3 Matte Crystal White/True Blue fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum,
dOMaNE 2.0 Matte Trek Black/Trek White fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum,
fORK Trek IsoSpeed carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tiagra CRaNK Shimano
IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK
IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tiagra CRaNK
Tiagra WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
Shimano RS500 WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
Shimano Tiagra WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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d 2
dual S PORt
Why choose between road and trail? The dual sport DS Series is part refined city bike, part adventurous trail ride. Pavement? Yes. Gravel? Check. Rail Trail, towpath, bike lane, pulling a trailer, chasing daylight? Check, check, check, check, check.
8.6 dS Ball Burnished Aluminum fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NRX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano SLX Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano T551 WhEElS Shimano RM66 hubs, Bontager TLR rims
8.5 dS Blue Ink fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NRX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano SLX
8.4 dS Matte Trek Black/Trek White fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NEX, 63mm REaR
CRaNK FSA Dyna Drive WhEElS Shimano RM35 hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
dERaillEuR Shimano Alivio CRaNK FSA Dyna Drive WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
8.3 dS Trek Black/Cyan fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NEX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR
8.2 dS Ti/Viper Red fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NEX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano
Shimano Acera CRaNK FSA Dyna Drive WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
Altus CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
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d 3
d i S t R i C t Everything a bike should be. Elegantly simple, with all the necessities to get from A to B in S-T-Y-L-E.
diStRiCt 8 Copper Metallic fRaME Trek Custom Steel fORK High-tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Forged alloy 3 piece WhEElS Formula
alloy hubs, double-wall alloy rims
StEEl diStRiCt Blue Grey Metallic fRaME Trek Custom Steel fORK High-tensile
steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Forged alloy 3 piece WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, double-wall alloy rims
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Bob Jungels, training ride in Mallorca, May 8, 2014
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É É M O N da
Émonda is the lightest production road bike line ever created. At a feather-bending 10.25 lbs/4.65 kg, the Émonda SLR 10 climbs like a rocket, sprints like a cheetah, descends like the falcon to the mouse. Don’t be the mouse.
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10 . 2 5 P O u N d S O f P u R E P E R f O R M a N C E
ÉMONda SlR 10 Carbon Vapor Coat/Viper Red fRaME Ultralight 700 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR dERaillEuR SRAM RED 22 CRaNK SRAM RED WhEElS Tune hubs, Tune Skyline carbon tubular rims
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ÉMONda SlR 9 Matte Dnister Black/Viper Red fRaME Ultralight 700 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Aeolus 3 D3
ÉMONda Sl 8 Trek Black/Trek White/Viper Red fRaME Ultralight 500 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR
ÉMONda Sl 6 Matte Trek Black/Gloss Trek Black fRaME Ultralight 500 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR
dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
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ÉMONda Sl 5 Trek White/Trek Black/Viper Red fRaME Ultralight 500 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK Shimano 105 WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
ÉMONda S 6 Trek Black/Viper Red fRaME Ultralight 300 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda carbon REaR dERaillEuR
ÉMONda S 5 Crystal White/Trek Black fRaME Ultralight 300 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda carbon REaR dERaillEuR
Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
Shimano 105 CRaNK Shimano 105 WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
ÉMONda S 4 Trek Black/Trek White fRaME Ultralight 300 Series OCLV Carbon
ÉMONda SlR 9 WSd Red Smoke/Chi Red fRaME Ultralight 700 Series OCLV
fORK Émonda carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tiagra CRaNK Shimano
Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace Di2
500 Series OCLV Carbon fORK Émonda full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano
Tiagra WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Aeolus 3 D3
105 CRaNK Shimano 105 WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
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ÉMONda Sl 5 WSd Appleseed Blue/Trek Charcoal/Volt Green fRaME Ultralight
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f u E l E X The whole world loves the best-selling Fuel EX, and no wonder: it does everything incredibly well. Available with 27.5 or 29” wheels, Fuel EX now features RE:aktiv shock technology, a Trek-exclusive damping system born on the world’s fastest auto racing circuits. You’re welcome.
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fuEl EX 9.8 Matte Volt Green/Gloss Trek Black fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon w/alloy
chainstay, 120mm fRONt SuSPENSiON Fox Performance Series 32 Float, 120mm; Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano Deore XT WhEElS Bontrager Rhythm Comp TLR, Available in both 27.5” and 29”
fuEl EX 9 Trek Black/Rhymes with Orange fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, G2 Geometry, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox
fuEl EX 8 Starry Night Black/Trek White fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float,
Performance Series 32 Float, 120mm; Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2 CRaNK
120mm; Fox Evolution Series Float DRCV REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK SRAM S1010 WhEElS
SRAM X1 1400 X-Sync WhEElS Bontrager Rhythm Comp TLR, Available in both 27.5” and 29”
Bontrager Duster Elite TLR, Available in both 27.5” and 29”
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fuEl EX 8 Powder Blue/Viper Red fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, G2 Geometry, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series
fuEl EX 7 Black Titanite/Trek Cyan fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, G2 Geometry, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series
32 Float, 120mm; Fox Evolution Series Float DRCV REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK SRAM S1010
32 Float, 120mm; Fox Evolution Series Float DRCV REaR dERaillEuR Shimano SLX Shadow Plus CRaNK SRAM S1010 WhEElS
WhEElS Bontrager Duster Elite TLR, Available in both 27.5” and 29”
Bontrager Duster Elite TLR, Available in both 27.5” and 29”
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alPhaBiKES
f a R l E y Dean Wormer had a point. Fat, dumb, and stupid is no way to go through life. Fat, fast, and fun, however, is a great way to get through snow, sand, or damn near anything. Farley is more fun than people should be allowed to have below freezing.
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Ice road to Madeline Island, Wisconsin, Winter 2014
faRlEy 8 Matte Radioactive Green/Gloss Trek Black fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox Bluto
faRlEy 6 Black Titanite/Trek Cyan fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fORK Alpha Platinum Aluminum REaR dERaillEuR
RL, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2 CRaNK SRAM X1 1000 X-Sync WhEElS Bontrager Jackalope TLR
Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK Race Face Ride WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Sun Ringle Mule Fut rims
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f 520 Deep Evergreen fRaME Trek butted chromoly fORK Chromoly Touring REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore CRaNK Shimano Trekking M590 WhEElS Shimano
Deore hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
f ivE t WE Nt y (52 0)
Which model has been in the Trek product line the longest? Hint: this is it. But don’t confuse this model with your dad’s 520. We’ve completely redesigned our classic tourer to make it an even better companion for that long-haul adventure called life.
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f X Make the world your gym with FX. But don’t stop there—FX has a lot more to offer than fitness. It’s great for commuting, for running errands, for remembering how much you love to ride your bike. New for this year: our most popular global model is lighter, sleeker, and Bluetooth ready.
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7.7 fX Onyx Carbon fRaME 400 Series OCLV Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek IsoSpeed carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tiagra CRaNK Shimano Tiagra WhEElS Alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
7.5 fX Trek White fRaME FX Alpha Gold Aluminum fORK Bontrager Nebula,
7.4 fX diSC Paramount Grey/Volt Green fRaME FX Alpha Gold Aluminum fORK
7.3 fX Lime Green fRaME FX Alpha Gold Aluminum fORK FX Alloy REaR
carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano RD-R350 CRaNK Shimano FC-R460
FX Alloy Disc REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore CRaNK Shimano Acera M391
dERaillEuR Shimano Alivio CRaNK Shimano Acera M371 WhEElS Formula alloy
WhEElS Alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
front hub, Shimano RM30 alloy rear hub, Bontrager TLR rims
7.3 fX WSd Seeglass Mermaid fRaME WSD Alpha Silver
7.2 fX Starry Night Black/Volt Green fRaME FX
7.1 fX Trek Charcoal fRaME FX Alpha Silver Aluminum
7.0 fX Platinum fRaME FX Alpha Silver Aluminum fORK
Aluminum fORK FX Alloy REaR dERaillEuR Shimano
Alpha Silver Aluminum fORK High-tensile steel REaR
fORK High-tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano
High-tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney
Alivio CRaNK Shimano Acera M371 WhEElS Formula alloy
dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Shimano M131
Acera CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs,
CRaNK Forged alloy WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager
front hub, Shimano RM30 alloy rear hub, Bontrager TLR rims
WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
Bontrager AT-750 rims
AT-550 rims
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h h E l M E t S It’s all about being prepared. Make sure your most valuable asset is protected, vented, and looking good. How to decide which helmet is right? Choose the one that fits, weighs little, allows for airflow, and comes with a crash replacement policy.
g ga Ry ’ S M u S taC h E Hipsters, take note. There is a lot to learn from Gary Fisher’s face. The mustache should not be used as a fleeting fashion statement. It is a commitment.
vElOCiS: Matte Black / Charcoal / Titanium
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v E l O C i S : White / Crystal White / Titanium
v E l O C i S : Trek Factory Racing
v E l O C i S : Titanium / Visibility Yellow / Black
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v E l O C i S : White / Viper Red / Bright Silver
a E O l u S t t : Trek Factory Racing Scheme
C i R C u i t : Black / Vis Yellow
C i R C u i t : White / Maui Blu e
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C i R C u i t : Black / Blue / White
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J E N S vO igt
Did you know that before Jens Voigt, there was no letter J? Apparently Jens stared at the letter I for so long that the pitiable vowel attempted to curl itself up in fear. Thus the letter J was created. Be sure to read the full Jens story in @trekbikes issue #1, free via the iTunes Store.
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i M B a Did you know that for every Trek full suspension mountain bike sold in the US, Trek and select Trek retailers have donated $10 each to the International Mountain Biking Association’s trail care fund? Since 2007, we’ve donated $1.3 millon dollars, which has become 125 new mountain bike trails.
S t a R v O S : White
S t a R v O S : Visibility Yellow
S t a R v O S : Black
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SuPERfly 24 Black Titanite/True Blue fRaME 24" Dialed
frame size, Alpha Silver Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour XCT, 50mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney CRaNK Suntour XCT JR WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, double-wall alloy rims
KRX Trek Black/Viper Red fRaME Alpha Silver Aluminum fORK Dialed road alloy REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Sora CRaNK Alloy WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, aluminum rims
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KidS’ BiKES
A lot of us at Trek are parents—and selfishly, we want our passion for riding to start early and last a lifetime. An addiction to fast bikes is not bad legacy. Life is short, get them on good bikes from the start.
Mt 220 Trek Black fRaME 24" Dialed frame size, aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON Dialed suspension, 45mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney CRaNK Dialed adjustable
length WhEElS Alloy hubs and rims
Mt 200 Seeglass Trek White/Sour Apple fRaME 24" Dialed
frame size, high tensile steel fORK Dialed 24", high tensile steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney CRaNK Dialed adjustable length WhEElS Steel hubs, alloy rims
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Some day all bikes will be this awesome. In the meantime, there’s Lync: a smarter urban utility bike designed to get you through the day and the night. Lync features a fully integrated 500 lumen headlight and built in dual taillights, all powered by a USB rechargeable battery pack right on the down tube.
lyNC 5 Matte Trek Black fRaME FX Alpha Gold Aluminum fORK Lync, Alloy REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore CRaNK Shimano Acera M391 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
lyNC 3 Matte Nocturne fRaME FX Alpha Gold Aluminum fORK Lync, Steel REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Bontrager Nebula WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
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lEXa SlX Seeglass Liquid Red fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum, IsoSpeed fORK Trek carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK Shimano RS500 WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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lEX a Fifteen years of pioneering women-specific bicycle designs have led to Lexa, the world’s most popular women’s road bike line. Why? Lexa just gets it right. Fast, light, and built to fit women better from the start. Right saddle, right reach, right bar height, right bike.
lEXa S Seeglass Black Pearl fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK Trek carbon
road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Sora CRaNK FSA Vero WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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Trek Gravity Girl Steffi Marth out on the town in China, 2013
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Seriously, we were thinking about the lush forests of British Columbia when we named this bike. For the woman would rather wear dirt than pink, we present Lush 27.5. Built around Trek’s Women’s Specific Design philosophy of fit, ride, and style, Lush is a confidence-inspiring full suspension bike thanks to an easy standover and versatile 27.5” wheels.
luSh CaRBON 27.5 Gloss Trek Black/Matte Trek Black fRaME WSD OCLV
luSh Sl 27.5 Matte Trek Charcoal/Trek White fRaME WSD Alpha Platinum
luSh 27.5 Sangria/Chi Red fRaME WSD Alpha Platinum Aluminum, 120mm
Mountain Carbon, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float, 120mm;
Aluminum, 120mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float, 120mm; Fox
SuSPENSiON RockShox XC30, 120mm; RockShox Monarch RL REaR dERaillEuR
Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2
Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT
Shimano Deore Shadow CRaNK Race Face Ride WhEElS Bontrager front hub,
CRaNK SRAM X1 1400 X-Sync WhEElS Bontrager Rhythm Comp TLR
Shadow Plus CRaNK SRAM S1010 WhEElS Bontrager Duster Elite TLR
Formula rear hub, Bontrager AT-650 rims
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Jens Voigt, Tour Down Under, Willunga Hill, January 25, 2014
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MadONE
Meet Madone, Jens Voigt’s bike of choice. Jens has made a career of attacks. Sometimes futile, sometimes foolish, always full gas. Our Madone aero road platform is the perfect weapon for those audacious enough to be off the front confronting the wind, all day, every day.
MadONE 7.9 Matte Trek Black/Dnister Black fRaME 700 Series OCLV Carbon, KVF tube shape fORK Madone KVF full
carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Aeolus 3 D3
MadONE 7.9 WSd Matte Trek Black/Lunar Orange/Trek Charcoal fRaME 700 Series OCLV Carbon, KVF tube shape fORK Madone KVF full carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 CRaNK Shimano Dura-Ace WhEElS
Bontrager Aeolus 3 D3
MadONE 2.1 Crystal White fRaME 200 Series Alpha Aluminum, KVF tube shape fORK Madone KVF carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK Shimano RS500 WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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M a R l i N A marlin is a huge, crazy-fast saltwater fish with a spear-like snout. Why wouldn’t you want a bike like that? Our Marlin is an all-purpose, do-everything hardtail with a near-custom approach to fit that tunes both wheel and frame size to perfectly fit each rider. By frame size, we put riders on the biggest wheel size that fits, because bigger wheels are faster wheels. That’s Smart Wheel Size.
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MaRliN 7 Dnister Black/Trek White/Antiqua Blue fRaME Alpha
Silver Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour XCT, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Alivio CRaNK Shimano M371 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-650 rims
MaRliN 6 Trek Black/Lime Green fRaME Alpha Silver Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour XCT, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Altus CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-550 rims
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MaRliN 5 Matte Dnister Black/Rhymes with Orange/Red fRaME
Alpha Silver Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour M-3030, 75mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tourney CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-550 rims
N N E K O The versatile sister of Dual Sport, Neko is a women’s-specific get-around-onany-terrain machine with a little sparkle for all the right reasons. Our graphic artist Stacey made sure the entire Neko line was equipped with Seeglass, a paint with crushed glass that reflects light for a more eye-catching look in darker conditions.
NEKO SlX Seeglass Rage Red fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NRX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano SLX CRaNK FSA Dyna Drive WhEElS Shimano RM35 hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
NEKO S Seeglass Crystal White fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NEX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK FSA Dyna Drive WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
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NEKO Seeglass Misty Jade fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour NEX, 63mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Altus CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-750 rims
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1.5 Crystal White/Lime Green fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK Trek
carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Tiagra CRaNK FSA Vero WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
1.2 Trek Black/Fastback Orange fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK
Trek carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Sora CRaNK FSA Vero WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
1.1 Liquid Red fRaME 100 Series Alpha Aluminum fORK Trek carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Claris CRaNK Vuelta Corsa WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs,
Bontrager AT-750 alloy rims
Engineer Jay Maas, Tuesday Night Training Criterium, Madison WI. June, 2014
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ONE SERiES
1 Series takes the performance and design cues from our highestend bikes, ridden by the giants of cycling, and applies them to light, fast aluminum models for the rest of us. Our road engineers put their reputation on the line with 1 Series every Tuesday night in the local twilight crit series.
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PROJECt ONE
Choose your bike model, choose your paint, choose your parts. One bike, just for you. Built one at a time by a Trek mechanic in Waterloo or Hartmannsdorf, Germany, to the exact specs and colors you request. See the whole story and meet your painters on page 144.
Antiqua Blue
Red Smoke
Flake Yellow
Fastback Orange Argent Silver Seafoam
Catalyst Orange
Crystal White Crystal Pink
Radioactive Orange
Liquid Red
Blue Smoke Leopard Blue
Hot Grape Purple Smoke Sky Blue Blue Ink Rhymes With Orange
Purple Lotus Placid Blue
Eggnog
Dusty Blue
Lucky Green
Winter Mint Carbon Smoke Radio Active Yellow
Viper Red Ghost Grey
Rainforest Powder Blue
Vintage Blue
Berry Carrera Blue Dnister Black
Candy Orange
Pearl Carbon
Starry Night Black
Metallic Chocolate
q Trek Gold
Nysa Blue
Radioactive Pink White
Crystal Lymon
Chi Red
Yellow
Lime Green
Cyan
People Eater
Platinum
quEStiONS? Which Trek bike is right for you? Was Trek really born in a barn? Does FX come in a stepthrough frame? trekbikes.com has answers to these burning questions and more, along with gorgeous photos and detailed information for every bike we make. Still have questions? trekbikes.com also has a dealer locator and Trek contact info, so you can ask your friendly Trek retailer (take a test ride while you’re there!) or drop us a line. And since you asked: it’s a quail.
JHK getting the goods in Chilcotins, British Columbia, 2013
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REMEdy 9.8 29 Carbon Smoke/Viper Red fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon w/alloy chainstay, G2 Geometry, 140mm
REMEdy 9 29 Nysa Blue/Rhymes with Orange fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, G2 Geometry, 140mm SuSPENSiON
SuSPENSiON RockShox Pike RC, 140mm; Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2
RockShox Pike RC, 140mm; Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2 CRaNK SRAM X1
CRaNK SRAM X1 1400 X-Sync WhEElS SRAM Roam 30
1400 X-Sync WhEElS SRAM Roam 30
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R R E M E d y Remedy is the mountain biker’s mountain bike. Choose 27.5” or 29er wheels to conquer the trail your way, on a bike that scores tens for capability and versatility. Want to push harder? Want more travel? Ready to graduate up? Remedy is your full suspension express ride to the next level.
27.5"
REMEdy 9.8 27.5 Carbon Smoke/Viper Red fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon w/alloy chainstay, 140mm SuSPENSiON Fox
REMEdy 8 27.5 Starry Night Black/Trek Cyan fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, 140mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series
Performance Series 34 Float, 140mm; Fox Performance Series Float DRCV, RE:aktiv REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT
34 Float, 140mm; Fox Evolution Series Float DRCV REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK SRAM S1010
Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano Deore XT WhEElS Bontrager Rhythm Comp TLR
WhEElS Bontrager Duster Elite TLR
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X X X l E R O a d Visibility Yellow
X X X R O a d Black
X X X R O a d White
R X l R O a d Black
R X l R O a d White
C l a S S i q u E Black
X X X R O a d Red
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ShOES
When you’re naming something that goes on people’s feet, you could do worse than the SEOfriendly XXX. Triple X is the shoe of choice for Trek Factory Racing, and the pinnacle of a shoe line that gives your feet exactly what they desire with Bontrager’s great-fitting inForm last. Available in a range of models and colors, from classic to highly visible. The only place your feet are more comfortable are in someone else’s hands.
X X X M t B Red
X X X M t B Black
X X X M t B White/Volt
R X l M t B R a C E S h O P l i M i t E d Electric Salmon
R X l M t B Black
R l M t B Red
R h y t h M M t B Black/Volt
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SilquE
True story: we shipped an unlabeled prototype Silque to a high-end Trek retailer to assemble for a test session. He took it for a ride and promptly declared it the best Trek road bike ever. High praise for someone outside the target audience. Silque was designed as a silky smooth, super-fast road platform perfectly suited to the average female rider. The result is a lighter, quicker platform for lighter riders, regardless of gender. Great legs aren’t included, but they are a natural outcome.
SilquE SSl Crystal White/Volt Green/Aloe Green Fade fRaME 600 Series OCLV
Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek full carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra Di2 CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race X Lite TLR
SilquE SlX Seeglass Blue Ink/Crystal White/Trek Cyan fRaME 600 Series OCLV
Carbon, IsoSpeed fORK Trek full carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
SilquE Sl Matte Trek Black/Flamingo Pink fRaME 400 Series OCLV Carbon,
IsoSpeed fORK Trek carbon road REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Ultegra CRaNK Shimano Ultegra WhEElS Bontrager Race TLR
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SPEEd CONCEPt Hi. I’m Ben, the guy who manages Trek road and triathlon products, including Speed Concept. I may be biased, but I believe without a doubt that Speed Concept is the fastest triathlon bike on the planet. If you’re not convinced, or have a question about the bike, drop me a line at b.coates@trekbikes.com.
SPEEd CONCEPt 9.9 Matte Trek Black/Gloss Trek Black fRaME
600 Series OCLV Carbon, KVF tube shape fORK SC full foil carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 CRaNK Shimano
Dura-Ace WhEElS Bontrager Aeolus 5 D3
SPEEd CONCEPt 7.0 Trek White/Trek Black fRaME 500 Series
OCLV Carbon, KVF tube shape fORK SC full foil carbon REaR dERaillEuR Shimano 105 CRaNK Shimano RS500 WhEElS Bontrager alloy hubs, Bontrager TLR rims
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S l a S h Remedy’s rowdy, enduro-ready cousin is built to tackle big trails. As Pinkbike’s Mike Levy put it, "finding yourself under-biked and on a burly trail can be a scary proposition, and there certainly aren’t many trails around where that would happen if you were on the Slash.” To confirm the point, Decline Magazine named it Bike of the Year.
SlaSh 9.8 27.5 Phantom Carbon/Volt Green fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon w/
SlaSh 8 27.5 Matte Dnister Black/Bright Silver fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum,
alloy chainstay, 160mm SuSPENSiON RockShox Pike RC, 130/160mm; RockShox
160mm SuSPENSiON RockShox Pike RC, 130/160mm; RockShox Monarch Plus R
Monarch Plus RC3 DebonAir REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X1, Type 2 CRaNK SRAM
DebonAir REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK Race Face
X1 1400 X-Sync WhEElS Bontrager Maverick Pro TLR
Ride WhEElS Bontrager Duster Elite TLR
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Modern theoretical physics holds that the speed of gravity is a constant 9.8 m/s2. Apparently, theoretical physicists don’t get rad. If they did, they would know that Session, with more Downhill World Cup podiums than any other bike in the world, might be accelerating a little faster. Now available in both DH and Park versions—because some go down, and others light it up.
SESSiON 8 PaRK 26 Volt Green/Trek Black/Catalyst Orange fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum, 190mm SuSPENSiON
SESSiON 9.9 dh 27.5 Viper Red fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon, 210mm SuSPENSiON Fox Factory Series 40 FIT RC2,
RockShox Boxxer Race, 200mm; RockShox Kage RC REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X9, Type 2 CRaNK Truvativ Descendant DH
203mm; Fox VAN RC4 REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Saint Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano Saint WhEElS DT Swiss FR1950
WhEElS DT Swiss FR2150
Gravity Classic
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S u P E R f ly We have a lot of Superfly models, which means fast comes in a lot of options. With Trek’s Smart Wheel Size, we equip each frame size with the largest wheels that fit, as bigger wheels roll faster and maintain momentum better. Superfly is a no-excuses race machine in carbon, aluminum, hardtail or full suspension, and the only bike allowed under the Trek Factory Racing team tent.
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Sergio Mantec贸n Guti茅rrez, 2014 UCI World Cup, Cairns, Australia
SuPERfly fS 9.8 Sl Carbon Smoke/Rhymes with Orange fRaME OCLV Mountain
SuPERfly fS 9.7 Sl Matte Dnister Black/Crystal White fRaME OCLV Mountain
SuPERfly fS 8 Black Titanite/Trek Cyan fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum,
Carbon w/alloy chainstay, G2 Geometry, 100mm SuSPENSiON Fox Performance
Carbon w/alloy stays, G2 Geometry, 100mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32
G2 Geometry, 100mm SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float, 100mm; Fox
Series 32 Float, 100mm; Fox Performance Series Float REaR dERaillEuR SRAM
Float, 100mm; Fox Evolution Series Float REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT
Evolution Series Float REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK
X01 Carbon, Type 2 CRaNK SRAM X1 1400 X-Sync WhEElS DT Swiss X1700
Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano SLX WhEElS Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR
Shimano SLX WhEElS Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR
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SuPERfly 9.9 Sl XtR Powder Blue/Viper Red fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon, G2 Geometry SuSPENSiON Fox Factory Series 32 Float, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano XTR Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano XTR WhEElS Bontrager Race X Lite TLR
SuPERfly 9.8 Xt Matte Trek Cyan/Volt Green fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon SuSPENSiON RockShox SID RL, 100mm REaR
SuPERfly 9.6 Carbon Smoke/Volt Green fRaME OCLV Mountain Carbon fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox Reba RL, 100mm
dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano Deore XT WhEElS Bontrager Mustang Pro TLR
REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK FSA F2000 WhEElS Bontrager sealed hubs, Bontrager Mustang
Elite TLR rims
SuPERfly 8 Black Titanite/Trek Cyan fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fRONt
SuPERfly 7 Matte Rhymes with Orange/Gloss Black fRaME Alpha Platinum
SuPERfly 5 Black Titanite fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fRONt
SuSPENSiON Fox Evolution Series 32 Float, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano
Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox Reba RL, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR
SuSPENSiON RockShox XC32, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT
Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK Shimano SLX WhEElS Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR
Shimano Deore XT Shadow Plus CRaNK FSA F2000 WhEElS Bontrager Mustang
CRaNK Race Face Ride WhEElS Bontrager sealed hubs, Bontrager Mustang Elite
Elite TLR
TLR rims
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SKyE
Above all else, choose a bike model that fits. That is the one indisputable piece of advice we have for you. Which is also a good plug for Skye, which features Smart Wheel Size, pairing the wheel size to the appropriate corresponding frame size a rider requires. This is the best way to make sure a bike fits correctly. So it is with Skye, our fit-right, trail-ready bike designed to fit women best.
SKyE SlX Matte Black Pearl/Flaming Rose fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox XC32, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR SRAM X7 CRaNK SRAM S800 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR rims
SKyE Sl Crystal White/Volt Green fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour XCM, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Altus CRaNK Shimano M371 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-650 rims
SKyE S Matte Trek Cyan fRaME WSD Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON SR Suntour M-3030, 75mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Altus CRaNK Shimano M131 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-550 rims
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t i C K E t Ticket was designed for riders who get up to get down— riders with names like Semenuk, McCaul, Rheeder, R-Dog, and the new kid nicknamed “Van-STEEZ-bergen.” Ticket has been flipped, whipped, and tricked in everything from Crankworx to the X-Games. Available in C3 rider-exclusive editions through Trek’s Race Shop Limited.
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tiCKEt dJ Gloss Trek Black/Matte Trek Black fRaME Alpha Platinum Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox Argyle RCT, 100mm CRaNK Race Face Chester WhEElS Alloy sealed hubs, Sun Ringle Inferno31 rims
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u 5 va P O R C O a t
U and V all in one. See what we did there? If you think we’re making something of nothing, you’re almost right. While most paint jobs add hundreds of grams to your bike, our U5 Vapor Coat adds next to nothing—a mere 5 grams of barelythere color. Available exclusively through our Project One custom program.
W WOMEN’S SPECifiC d E S i g N The goal of WSD is to design bikes that on average fit women better than men—straight out of the box. Those averages for women compared to averages for men mean lighter rider weight, wider hips, narrower shoulders, and a pelvis that is less comfortable at more aggressive rider angles. So we make WSD bikes with women’s saddles, narrower bars, a slightly higher handlebar position, suspension tuned to lighter weights, and a frame that’s easier to get a leg over. It fits most women really well, right from the start. Some guys, too, and we’re totally OK with that.
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X - C a l i B E R Behold, X-Caliber: a hardtail ready to rip on the right size wheels for your frame. X-Cal features our Smart Wheel Size, which puts you on the fastest wheel that fits (27.5 or 29), and tricks you out with just the right component spec to match. Whatever wheels you end up with, be sure to wield X-Caliber with bad intentions.
X
X-CaliBER 9 Nysa Blue/Rhymes with Orange fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox XC32, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Deore XT Shadow CRaNK Race Face Ride WhEElS Bontrager sealed hubs, Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR rims
X-CaliBER 8 Volt Green fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox XC32, 100mm REaR dERaillEuR
X-CaliBER 7 Starry Night Black/Lime Green fRaME Alpha Gold Aluminum fRONt SuSPENSiON RockShox XC30, 100mm
SRAM X7 CRaNK SRAM S800 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager Mustang Elite TLR rims
REaR dERaillEuR Shimano Acera CRaNK Shimano Acera M391 WhEElS Formula alloy hubs, Bontrager AT-650 rims
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y t h E y g u i t a R We introduced the Y-Bike the same year that Sublime, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, and Oasis topped the Billboard charts. Apparently it was a great year for bikes and music. One of the guys in the Prototype Lab combined two passions into one sweet axe.
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Michael Lavery has inished so many Ironman races it’s not even a big deal anymore. As Trek’s lead Speed Concept engineer and all-world age grouper, the quiet 28 year-old is unique in that he competes (and wins) aboard that which he creates. But 2013 would be different. 2013 would be his irst attempt at inishing what is arguably the world’s toughest race with a titanium rod screwed into his hip and knee. But on the day of the race, that wasn’t his biggest challenge. At the 2013 Ironman World Championships, he would have done better had he not run out of salt. Lavery’s a veteran triathlete, and a Notre Dame-educated engineer. He knows the science and performance value of the precious mineral. He’d packed extra and carried it in a container in his jersey pocket. When it came time to replenish the electrolytes the Hawaiian air was rapidly stealing, the cap unexpectedly broke off. “Everything dumped into my hand, and it took me by surprise. I pretty much dropped it all,” he says. 112 miles (180 km) worth of salt was reduced to the few grains stuck to his sweaty hands. 12 8
Salt and the wound
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There was more salt in the bag he’d pre-packed for the 60mile (97 km) point of the 112 mile (180 km) bike leg—the spot where you call out your number and a volunteer hands you your labeled bag—but when he got there, the bag was missing. His chances at a solid finish were beginning to resemble the salt that had already run through his fingers. If Lavery ever cursed the faceless volunteer who had given away the essential element to his race, he doesn’t show it. “It’s a bummer it wasn’t there. It’s kind of chaotic, and I can see them getting mixed up.” He’d packed salt in the bag with his running shoes, too, but by the time he got to T2, it was too late. “Running a marathon in 85 degrees (29°C) with crazy humidity is not ideal when you’re behind on salt. My body wasn’t responding. It took an hour or two before the salt even kicked in and my cramps started to go away,” he says. “It got me through the finish, but it just wasn’t ideal.” Lavery recalls the experience through dark shaded Oakleys at a rented beach house on the Big Island’s Kona Bay Drive, where tall glass windows overlook tide pools at the edge of the expansive Pacific under a crystal blue sky. It’s the same blue hue the Montana office of Tourism has branded to lure visitors to the ski resorts of Big Sky Country. And it is on those very slopes, 3,100 miles (4,989 km) to the east, where something happened that makes the fact that he even raced at all, incredible.
All I kept thinking was, “Well, I’m not going to
earlier left Lavery with two broken bones in his left arm, he collided with his partner, sending him careening into the pines. One well-rooted tree refused to yield to Lavery’s left femur, snapping it in half. “Yeah, I’m never skiing that trail again.” Leaning against the snow-covered pine waiting for ski patrol, the largest bone in his left leg in two pieces, Lavery’s thoughts drifted from Big Sky to Big Island. “All I kept thinking was, ‘Well, I’m not going to Hawaii this year.’” At the hospital that day, doctors operated. They pushed a titanium rod down through the length of his femur, then screwed it into his hip and knee. He had a ticket to fly to Spain the next day to deliver a prototype Speed Concept to Fabian Cancellara for testing. The bike would have to make the trip alone. Lavery spent two and a half weeks working on his laptop from the couch. “Not my sport of choice,” he recalls. At night, against doctors’ orders, he used crutches to climb the stairs to his bedroom. “Worst. Patient. In. The. World.” proclaims Carly. Three weeks into his recovery, he couldn’t stand sitting around anymore. He stopped taking his pain meds so he could drive himself around, and drove himself to the physical therapy office recommended by his doctor. “It looked like a nail salon. There was no exercise equipment; it was just a room with tables and chairs,” he remembers. “I thought, I may be walking fine in a couple months if I stay here, but I want to be running, and back up to full speed.” He left before completing a single session.
Hawaii this year.”
He’d already qualified for Kona on the bluebird January day he and his girlfriend, Carly, decided to get in a few runs at Big Sky Ski Resort. Taking an ungroomed run through the pines just to the right of Yellow Mule, the same trail where a crash a decade
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I pedaled with my right leg. My left leg was just along for the ride at that point.
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He found a place with a full gym and a physical therapist who was, herself, a triathlete.
He calls his second Kona race, the 2011 Ironman, “the race of my life.” He finished in 9:06, 20 minutes faster than 2009, and was fourth in his age group.
“She wasn’t afraid to push me to recover as fast as I could,” he says. “I was swimming a lot, biking a lot. I pedaled with my right leg. My left leg was just along for the ride at that point. But at that point I started to think maybe, just maybe, I’d make it to Kona.”
This year, he finished in 9:45 and was 43rd in his age group. “It’s almost two years of work to get there—and then the injury, and then the salt... it’s disappointing when all that work doesn’t pay off the way you want it to. But you just have to put it behind you. Nothing I can do about it now.”
In April, just three months after the accident, he started running again. Just ten minutes at a time, and slowly. “Every step was a struggle,” he says, “but by now I was committed to Kona. No turning back.”
He had nearly four hours on the run to come to terms with his finish. Toward the end, he was running with another guy who was also struggling a bit. They passed the time by talking about bikes. The other guy was also riding a Trek bike—the secondgeneration Speed Concept that had been Lavery’s first project as a Trek engineer.
By June, unbelievably, he ran—and won—a half-Ironman in his hometown of Bozeman. “Well, the Bozeman triathlon scene isn’t super competitive,” he says modestly. Nine months after the accident, Lavery was back in Hawaii, titanium reinforced and ready to race his third Kona Ironman.
“I asked him if he liked it. He said he loved it, and then I told him that I helped design it. It definitely took my mind off how many miles there were. We kept each other moving.”
His first time at the big race was 2009, and he wasn’t prepared for how hot it was. Although he had what he considered a bad run, he still finished fifth in his age group.
Thinking back on his race, he wonders aloud about designing a salt container that’s securely attached to the bike, so he doesn’t have to reach awkwardly around the back of his jersey for it as he did this time. “Maybe I’ll come up with something.” 13 5
Brook Macdonald, Trek World Racing, @Brook_Macdonald
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James Oram, Bissell Development Team, @OramNewZ
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Sven Nys, Crelan AA Drink Cycling, @sven_nys
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Rebecca Henderson, Trek Factory Racing, @bec_henderson
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N + PROJECT ONE P H OT O G R A P H S B Y TA Z DA R L I N G
How many bikes does a person really need? The old joke makes the answer a moving target: N + 1, with N being the number of bikes already stuffed into your garage. But would that equation be different if you built one bike, from the ground up, with the exact spec, color, gearing, and it you want, without compromise? If you got to build your one bike?
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THE ARTISTS AND THE ROBOT G E T A L O N G R E A L LY W E L L
That’s the idea behind Project One: build one bike at a time, for one rider at a time. A bike unlike all others. Every wish and whim considered. Trek’s custom bike program was launched to the cycling world over ten years ago. It was a daring departure for a large bike manufacturer, allowing customers to specify their individual bike’s parts and color. Upsetting our busy paint and production line was risky, and creating a custom shop alongside it was definitely a bold move—one that has since gained fans across the world. Fast forward a decade, and ever-increasing demand has warranted a new $2 million paint line at Trek that must be seen to be believed (which you are cordially invited to do—just call ahead for factory tour times). Paint Manufacturing Engineer Bob Seibel has been researching paint plants for several years now, including custom paint lines at similar businesses like the Harley-Davdison Motor Company in nearby Milwaukee. Bob rides a Harley, and is always happy to visit the mother ship— but this time, the objective was to solidify plans for the best painting line in the industry. One of the first requirements he identified was the need for a specific and separate location for his crew of painters.
“Before the new paint line, P1 painters never had their own space: it had always been shared with the mainline work, with custom stuff done on a second shift. Now we have a dedicated Project One paint facility; their own booths where they don’t have to close up, put away all their equipment at the end of the night only to have to take it all back out to start up the next day. Now they can just paint. They’re at home.” But space was only the start. The real bottom line goal for the new paint booth was that we wanted to free up the artisan painters from the more technical and uncreative aspects of coatings. Changing colors, cleaning lines, painting undercoats. These things require more precision than artistry, so the new paint line is an amazing mix of technology and art, anchored by a high-tech, incredibly precise paint robot. The artists and the robot get along really well. We robotically cover the mundane tasks and keep our painters focused on the art, the beauty—the things that make Project One more than a paint job. The frames that receive this artistry are molded from raw carbon just down the hall and up the stairs from the new paint line. There the raw carbon frames are bonded, cured, and checked for perfect alignment. 14 6
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Only then can the finishing process begin. Frames are first sandblasted, then joints and bond lines are hand-sanded with care. Not a single speck of that sanding dust, Bob Seibel takes care to point out, will ever make its way into the paint booth. Before painters enter the glass-walled booth, they don paper coveralls and pass through air showers and other contaminant removal methods to remove dust and impurities—the number one cause of paint imperfections—from all operators and frames that enter. Nothing gets in the way of the perfect finish. “With Project One, the finishes are unbelievably meticulous. Take the U5 Vapor Coat. U5 stands for under five grams. Literally less than five grams of finished paint is applied to the frame before it’s done. A typical paint weight of a frame is easily 100 grams, if not more, because your sole focus is a smooth, flawless finish. But here we’re talking five grams or less for a paint finish, that’s astounding—it’s nothing! There is absolutely no margin for error—the coating can’t
hide anything. Part of it is sandblasted, to have a matte feel and look, and the other parts are contrasted. It’s a really special look." Which is the whole point of Project One. We like to do special things here. Often it’s for one of the great athletes who ride Trek. Project One graphic designer Brian Lindstrom recently completed a special bike for Jens Voigt. "Jens is very cool to work with. He had a lot of great ideas about what he wanted. We sat down in a café in Berlin and he started sketching ideas that he had, all the different milestones that he wanted to include on the bike that we could work on. The result was a design that reflected points in his career, so it was cool that, as fans, we can thank him for it. I love doing athlete bikes—or it could be an entire identity for a new team, like for Trek Factory Racing: design the logo, get it all out there, color them up."
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IT WAS INTENSE, 40 HOURS OF PAINT LABOR ALONE. HE WAS BLOWN AWAY.
them happen, which techniques to use, how to make the vinyls for masking the frame for painting. In the case of complicated projects like the skeleton, this often means some clever sideways thinking.
Rarer than the athlete bikes are the fully custom civilian jobs, only endeavored when the custom queue is uncharacteristically short and the budget necessarily long. Take the skeletal bike the Project One team created for an orthopedic surgeon in New York. The doctor was a triathlete, and wanted the full custom treatment for his Speed Concept. Project One Guru (yes, that’s his title) Eric Maves recalls:
“I had to go find an actual skull, and live-trace right off the skull— that was just crazy. We went to the University of Wisconsin and came up with all the drawings for the vertebrae, and I had to handtrace them, label them, and match where they lined up. For the hips, the human ones weren’t working, so we had to use an X-ray from a dog’s hip!”
“We played off the fact that he was an orthopedic surgeon. He wanted a skeletal-type paint scheme on the bike. His main job is doing artificial joints, so he somehow wanted to integrate those into the skeletal system. I had this idea: what if we made it like an X-ray? We used the X-rays of the son of one of our painters as our benchmark. Artificial joints show up on an X-ray completely different from bone, so we went for that effect on the piece. It was intense, like 40 hours of paint labor alone. He was blown away.”
Dave is lost in folders and files on his desktop. The last ten years of special paint finishes and graphics flashes on the screen. The attention to detail, the complex engineering that turns a concept into a paint scheme, is extraordinary. And once the art and masks are complete, it’s up to the painter to bring the design to life on its carbon canvas.
Dave Schleicher is the Project One engineering technician. Dave takes Brian’s and Eric’s ideas and works out how to make
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WE BUILD IT AND SIGN IT, FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER— IT’S TOUGH TO GET MORE PERSONAL THAN THAT
belongs to one artist, from start to finish, who signs his work at the end. Bob explains:
“It’s sort of a layering technique. It’s a very artistic interpretation, the masks aren’t meant to be a schematic. Every time we develop a new design, we save the files, just because we might use some of it on another project. We’ve done a snake head, we have skulls... John Burke, Trek’s President gave his wife a panda design bike, so we’ve got that. There we go, pandas!”
"We take it personally, because we know that one person has ordered this one frameset, this one bike. The frame already has an owner, written right on the tag. That owner is a person, someone who’s created this expression in the form of a bike. We build it and sign it, from one person to another—it’s tough to get more personal than that.”
The same meticulous airbrushing used for the rare one-offs also applies to the Project One Signature Series schemes. Applying the Real Fire scheme to tubes and fork ends is around nine hours of work, all done by a single painter. Each Signature Series frame
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Crystal White Solid, painted by Phil in Waterloo for Joao in Ecuador
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Shut Up Legs, painted by Jason in Waterloo for Christine in Luxembourg
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Real Fire, painted by Brian in Waterloo for Marcus in Sweden
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Custom Flames, painted by Jason in Waterloo for Hayato in Japan
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Podium, painted by Ken in Waterloo for Sara in California, USA
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Driven, painted by Rebecca in Waterloo for Shuichi in Japan
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BONtR agE R Rl ROad
Higher luminosity when pounding out more wattage. W h y W E l O v E i t : Because we love to be seen on the road. By cars. By other
cyclists. And with these particular shoes, by satellites orbiting the earth. bontrager.com
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Anyone can call it. But the universal consensus is to head out into the wind. Whichever way the flag in front of the building waves, head in the opposite direction. Nobody wants to be caught a long way out, low on daylight, food, and horsepower, with a headwind between you and home. And of course, a tailwind lets you finish fast. Good practice, because real races never finish slow. So starts the Trek lunch ride: meet at the side door, check the flag, roll out at 12:10. Stragglers be damned.
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P CE M E t E Ry R id E There are over 90 cemeteries in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, so we should specify where we’re headed. This ride points dead south to the Kroghville Cemetery near the Oasis Bar, which has a good juke box, buffalo jerky, and free horseshoes out back. Then the route heads back north on County O. It’s lat and fast until the two hump-and-bumps back into town, where just a bit of elevation gain leads to valiant yet never successful attacks on the group sprint into the ‘Loo.
t hE g - S P Ot Despite widespread rumors, it really is not hard
Mu l l E R ’ S WO Od S The Wisconsin Homestead Act of 1862 allowed for a free quarter section, or 160 acres, to anyone who would commit to working the land for a minimum of 5 years. Add four quarter sections together and you’ll get 640 acres, or one mile square, which pretty much deines the way roads are laid out north of Waterloo. One crossroad every mile, hills and rivers excepted— which can make for pretty boring and windy rides, at least until the corn comes in. And that’s why, on occasion, we end up on Muller’s Road, one of the rare wooded and curvy routes found to the north.
to ind this route. Head south of town, take a right on Island Road (neither on an island nor connected to an island), and you’ll run into County Road G. That’s the spot that named the ride. It goes past one of the area’s oldest churches, named for St. Wenceslas, who, after being murdered by his brother Boleslav the Cruel, gained sainthood and was posthumously declared king. Which is the worst time to be declared king.
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Wi dOW M aK E R It might get ridden more often just because people like to say “Let’s do Widow Maker today.” The Wisconsin Glacial Episode—the last major advance of continental glaciers in North America—pretty much leveled most of the topography around our hometown. But when there is a hill, road engineers here do not avoid the issue. They attack it head on and straight up. And so it goes with the hill we call the Widow Maker. It’s short. It’s steep. And it is right at the point where it’s time to head back with the wind and stop being nice to each other.
SETZ
h El EN’S Ri dE Helen has never been on the lunch ride. But folks with Helen’s surname have been riding around here for generations—on horses, tractors, and trucks. Most of the roads around Waterloo were named after the families that irst settled and farmed the tracts near here. Most of those families are still here, half a dozen generations on, and many of them work at Trek. So when we ride north to Setz Road up near the Danville Mill, the whole ride thinks of Helen, who has been steadfastly working at Trek for over 20 years.
Wi l d Ki Ng d O M With a top speed of 70 km/hr, the ostrich boasts a faster land speed than any other bird. Not a bad lead out. We put the feathered residents of the ostrich farm northwest of Hubbleton to the sprint whenever we ride this route, which passes more avian species than any other. Signs advertise ostrich jerky for sale. Emus (top speed only 50 km/h) jog along the fence line, while the llamas are completely indifferent to our passing. Peacock crossing signs tell the colorful where to cross, just before the split that always happens on the false lats on the way past the gravel pit.
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RE E S E vi l l E Funny thing about the Reeseville ride: it doesn’t go to Reeseville. It does go past a sign that points to Reeseville, a town famous (or not) for the widely ignored 2003 Mark Hamill murder mystery movie, Reeseville. The ride itself crosses the Crawish River twice. On the way back, it passes by Whitey’s Sport Shop, which is actually a red barn with a gun painted on it—which only makes us ride faster.
BB dai Ry R O u BaiX There are no cobbles in these parts. But there is one fair stretch of gravel, a shortcut through the Deansville swamp that refuses to be be paved. Gravel road is a bit of a novelty here—something to do with the collective voice of dairy farmers lobbying for good roads to ensure timely milk delivery. So when the gravel of Berlin Road is not underwater, as it tends to be every spring, the lunch group exits the smooth pavement into the dust and sketch at mach 5, just like a section of cobbles in the pro peloton. Sometimes we re-group. Most often not. When done counter clockwise, it’s around 5k to the inish—which means there is no need to wait for anyone here. They all know the way home.
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S O CCER fi El dS In spring,
Pa B lO’S This ride takes us
we welcome a true south wind bringing warmth our way—along with the smell of whatever is heavy in the air. As we head into the wind from Waterloo, it’s a fertile perfume of tilled soil and rich manure. Further south, a few miles before the soccer ields that mark the midpoint, the massive chicken processor turns the ride into a test of how long we can hold our breath while putting out a couple hundred watts as we hurry past the funk. There are only two worse smells on a bike: mink farm and rendering plant. The Waterloo vicinity has both—but those are other routes, other rides. Once we turn home past the soccer ields, this ride is nothing but much-needed tailwind on a southerly day.
through Marshall, a town just four miles (six kilometers) up the road and former home of the muchloved Pablo’s Tacos. Pablo’s has relocated to nearby Portland, but the ride still retains the name, and still offers a refueling stop as long as we ride on Friday, when Marshall holds its weekly brat fry across from the mill. Brats, sauerkraut, maybe a beer—all consumed guilt free, which is the point of doing the ride in the irst place.
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BEhiNd thE liNES R E d B u l l R a M Pag E WO R D S BY J O E PA R K I N P H OTO G R A P H S BY S T E R L I N G LO R E N C E
Perhaps you have driven through the American southwest and let your eyes wander just a bit from the road ahead. If you looked away long enough, you may have noticed the towering mesas exposed over eons of geological evolution. To you, and certainly to me, those natural monuments are probably awesome examples of humankind’s very small place in the grand scheme of things. And unless you are a student or a scientist, you’re likely to take their wondrousness at face value and continue on down the road.
they answer to, they are all drawn to an area in southwestern Utah. Uniformly, they’ll refer to it as "that zone," as if it has some magical pull or religious significance. The firsthand experience in this zone is so powerful for them that most speak longingly of returning. Yet few spend all that much time there. It’s a punishing place. In 2001, a select few pioneers of mountain biking’s freeride movement assembled in this fabled zone and competed in the first Rampage. Not only did they want to come together in one place to celebrate big-mountain riding, they wanted to crown a king. Fittingly, it was Wade Simmons, widely referred to as the godfather of freeride, who walked away with the win. Perhaps a testament to the sport’s rapid progression is the fact that Simmons would only crack the Rampage top ten one more time.
But for a few dozen of the most talented and creative mountain bikers in the world, this rugged vertical landscape represents a canvas on which to paint the most astonishing mountain bike rides anyone could imagine. The riders represent different subsets within mountain biking’s gravity culture—freeride, dirt jumping, slopestyle, World Cup downhill—but whatever label
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Since that inaugural event, Rampage has skipped a few years— perhaps because organizing it is a colossal undertaking or maybe even because it is so dangerous. But for the past two years in a row, the biggest names in the sport have come to Utah searching for the most important title in freeriding, and they’ll be heading back to the zone to compete again this fall.
enormous scope and potential within the landscape, you don’t just show up and start to scratch away at the dirt. Most riders scope out the event site well in advance, hoping to find a yetunseen line within the ridges and spines of the zone. Armed with shovels, picks, and McLeod rakes, each rider and a helper or two will spend the bulk of the week before the Rampage sculpting lines into the often uncooperative ground, hoping to shape the perfect final run. To do it right, crews wake before dawn and head to the venue—and they only call it quits when the sun dips well beneath the horizon and the light is gone. Anything less, and they risk running out of time and having to compete on a course that is not shaped right or prepared correctly.
They’ll descend upon the tiny town of Virgin, whose population more than doubles over the course of the contest. Virgin, which, apart from the Red Bull Rampage, is probably best known for its mandatory household gun-ownership law, is located about 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, and sits just west of Zion National Park. Understand this about Rampage: there is no set course. Except for a start line and finish line, everything is fair game. Given the 17 3
CA M MCCAul r A MpAge lege nd BY dAY, dAd BY night
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“Whip left, whip right.” rYAn “ r- dog” hoWArd
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With some competitors enlisting small armies of helpers to swing tools and knock the earth into submission, Rampage organizers put a limit on how much help each rider is allowed. You can look, but without the proper credentials, you aren’t allowed to move any rocks.
betrays the riding style and creativity of the athlete will likely fail in its mission. There are other pitfalls, too, to building on this terrain. For the uninitiated, precious time spent digging can easily be wasted through poor planning. Though it may seem counterintuitive, a line that looks scary before any tools have touched it can become even more terrifying after it has been groomed.
Creating that perfect run is a delicate balancing act, too. In order to pull off a high-scoring ride, competitors not only need to complete the 1,000-foot (305-meter) descent without crashing, they need to show the judges an impressive amount of style and creativity. Like all judged sports, the Rampage jury rewards difficult lines and tricks handsomely.
But then the word terrifying itself defies meaning at Rampage. There are a few feet of flat trail at the finish, but riding almost any other inch of “trail” in this place would seem absolutely unfathomable for most reasonably skilled mountain bikers. The rookies who come here often believe they’ll be able to slowly and carefully work themselves into it, finding an easy line for their first go at Rampage. They never find that easy line here, because
Building for this event is an art form, however, and like all things creative, it’s often what is left out that makes something truly beautiful. A run designed specifically to wow the judges that 17 7
“After a long day in the desert, you can’t wait to get home and pass out. The journey home is a twenty minute hike down the mesa and a thirty minute drive down a dusty road. Arriving inches from my bedroom door, I have lost all motivation to move. I take a moment to reflect. What kind of monster did I just create? What have I committed to putting wheels on? What are the chances of someone being in the shower already?” — Br Andon SeMe n uk
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there are none to be had. Even the veterans of this place, guys like McCaul and Semenuk, guys who make their living on dirt jumps and slopestyle courses and filming on gnarly terrain at remote locations around the world—even those guys have to find their legs when they get to Rampage. Perhaps lulled into a false sense of security by the accolades, or perhaps normalized to big tricks, massive jumps, and steep mountains, they come back and are forced to remember the magnitude of this event. After six days of sunup-to-sundown digging, experimenting and a little bit of practice thrown in for good measure, it all boils
down to go time. It’s a schedule not unlike a film or photo shoot, but at Rampage there are just two runs to nail it: no waiting for the wind to die down a little or the light to be just right. Barring a crash, that’s just two to three minutes of controlled chaos on a course they spent a week preparing. The air at the top is electric with nervous anticipation, but once released from the start house there is nothing else to do but stick to the plan. Rampage is not a speed event, but this is also not a place that tolerates a tentative approach to anything. Here, the competitor who rides not to crash probably will.
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A few seconds in and the nerves have given way to a focus on the task at hand. By halfway through the run, the long days of backbreaking work, the sore muscles and scrapes and blisters have been forgotten. It starts to get fun. Nailing a gnarly line or landing a big trick is instantly rewarded with a wall of noise from the thousands of faithful fans who have assembled throughout the venue, knowing they’re going to see something special.
Rampage is a competition, and every rider who enters wants to claim the top spot on the podium. Here, though, the podium photos and big check are eclipsed by the astonishing nature of the show itself. It’s an event without equal in the freeride world and it is proof of what has become possible on a mountain bike.
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a CO NvE R SatiO N With M Ou Ntai N B iKi Ng’ S f l a M B Oya N t f R O N t M a N
Gary Fisher’s signature diamond-shaped spectacles, fedora, and swank getups may seem to speak more to his life in San Francisco’s late-60s rock-n-roll circles than they do his life in the cycling industry—but the suits, the shades, and the swagger are perfectly appropriate for the lead singer, the frontman of the mountain bike. Fisher has been defying convention since he was just a kid racing road bikes in Northern California in the 1960s. Five decades later, Gary is busy inspiring R&D at Trek, and he shows no sign of slowing down.
Most people associate you irst and foremost with mountain bikes. But you were irst an aspiring road racer, weren’t you?
Why did you leave the rock 'n' roll lifestyle and come back to bicycling?
[wry smile] I got thrown out of bike racing for having long hair. The USCF District Rep for Northern California said to me, “Gary, we really like you, we’re really happy that you’re a good racer, but I’m not going to let you race unless you cut your hair.” So I stopped road racing. I had met the Grateful Dead at this bike race called The Tour del Mar, down in Pescadero, California. They weren’t big yet. They played three nights in a row at the IDES Hall. We became friends. And I said, “Ah, okay, message from God: I’m not supposed to race, I’m gonna hang out with the Dead.” So I started hanging out with the Dead, and I was friends with Jack Leary, Timothy’s son. And with this little organization called Grand Ultimate Steward Service, or GUSS for short. We took care of the Grateful Dead house, which was at 710 Ashbury, and we lived across the street—that was sort of the annex. I totally decorated the Jefferson Airplane mansion.
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After the Altamont Festival, everybody left town. It was, like, the end, the end of the scene. On top of that, it was unhealthy— the whole scene. I went on a 10-mile (16-kilometer) ride one day, and then I had to sleep for the rest of the day. I said, “The hell with this, I’m getting back into bikes.” So I started racing again. My first year back was 1973, and I got second in Tour of Nevada City. I was living with Charlie Kelly...Charlie was living in this place called ‘The Church’ in San Anselmo, which was a former church that had been turned into a sound studio. The Sons played there all the time, and guys like Huey Lewis and the News—that’s where they recorded their first album. We had a blast. I was working at Wheels Unlimited, a bike shop over in San Rafael as well as for Bicycling magazine, getting a hundred dollars a month for road tests—but the big deal was I would get free equipment all the time. I’d been doing the total klunker scene, I was way into it, but my firstand-foremost thing was that I wanted to be a road racer. I’d been out at the Olympic Training Center that year. I was out there for three months, and I was on the long team for the Olympic Team and then we decided not to go. At that moment I said, “I’m going to start the bike company.” That’s when I got really serious about it.
gaRy fi S hE R
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“ G A R Y, W E L I K E YO U , YO U ’ R E A G O O D R A C E R , B U T I ’M N OT GOIN G TO L E T YO U R ACE U N L E SS YO U CU T YO U R HAIR .”
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What were the inal pieces of the puzzle that made it possible for you to start the business, the original Mountain Bikes?
Other than the fact that people were sort of starting to catch of-road fever, what was the formula for your success with Mountain Bikes?
The key thing was the old Schwinn S2 rim. Those suckers weighed 55 ounces each. They were double walled, but they were so soft. You’d rim-pinch really hard with those old Uniroyal tires, and the rim would totally deform to the point where the tube would start sticking out, and you’d quickly grab a rock and pound it back in shape. It was crazy. Finally, Araya and Ukai came out with some alloy rims, and I said, “Alright, now’s the time. Now I can make a complete bike.” I recognized that Tom [Ritchey] was already using oversize tubing, already using a larger diameter top tube and stuff on his road bikes—already. So I said, “This is the guy!”
Basically, it’s like this: You’ve got to have a great design, you’ve got to hype the living hell out if it, and then you’ve got to supply. Joe Breeze would take a year to make 10 bikes. Erik Koski: Hell, it would take six months to get a bike out of him. And it was similar with all of these guys. At our place, you could walk in and walk out the same day and have a bike. We were shipping bikes. We had a mail-order thing going on. We had a wholesale thing going on. We were shipping bikes overseas. And we were publicizing the thing like crazy. We got in The New Yorker, we got in the New York Times, we got in, you name it, man, Vanity Fair—all the big magazines, and on TV and stuff. You’d tell people, “We’re going to go ride our bikes on these dirt roads.” And they’d say, “You can’t do that. People don’t do that.” And we’d say, “Yeah, and we race down ‘em, too.” And it would blow their minds.
Tom whipped out three frames in two weeks. One I had for myself, one I sold, and I was about to sell the other one when Tom said, “No, I want to keep this one.” So that was the first go-around, and then Tom calls me up and goes, “Hey, I made a bunch more frames.” I said, “Holy crap, you did?” He made eight more frames. So I ran down there to get them and put them together.
And we had the first professional off-road team. That first team had nine riders. Eric Heiden was on the team. Tom Ritchey was on the team. Joe Murray was on the team. And then I used to get ringers a lot of the time, like Dale Stetina rode for me for a while. We won. We beat everybody. I wasn’t going to screw around; I’d get first category road racers that were really strong, that I knew could handle their bike off road.
I said, “Man, this is the stuff. This guy’s got the right attitude.” There was a tremendous demand already. This was about eight months before Charlie Kelly and I started the business we coined Mountain Bikes. The first year we made 160 bikes and sold every one of them. The second year we made more like about 500 bikes, and the third year we made, like, 1,000. We were the first big producers of this off-road bike. 187
“ i said, ah, okay, message from god: i’m not supposed to race, i’m gonna hang out with the dead.
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What do you think was the tipping point when the bicycle industry really irst started to notice or understand that mountain biking was something special?
Well, when we took the show to New York City, we killed ‘em. We had photos of Repack, photos of the Sierra Nevadas, photos of Crested Butte. If you’ve been to Crested Butte, you know that it is exquisite. And these guys, their jaws dropped. We became something very special: the source of information. And they all wanted to get into it.
I had, fortunately, gotten this job with Bicycling magazine as a road tester—I think it was ‘77—and I met everybody in the industry. The breakthrough moment was when Charlie and I, at the request of Bicycling magazine, made a presentation about the mountain bike at the New York bike show. And I’ll tell you, man, everybody and their brother were there; Valentino Campagnolo, Antonio Colombo, the Shimano brothers, Junzo Kawai from Suntour, Mrs. Yoshikura from Nitto handlebars— they were all there. And this presentation, well, we’d been practicing it quite a bit.
We had the littlest, tiniest shop. I mean, the place started out as a garage. We’d asked anyone who wanted to come work there, “Have you ever had any experience on a submarine? Because this place is sort of similar to that.” It was just jam-packed. What was it that made the mountain bike take of the way it did? The time was right. You’d tell someone what you were doing and half of them would say, “What do you mean? That’s impossible.” And the other half would say, “I want one of these things.” You’d take them on a ride and that was it. I mean it was just cemented. And we were away from, well, the classic line is ‘the cops, the cars and the concrete.’ We were out there in the woods and we had the golden key to those woods. And there was no way by hiking that you could see as much—it would take you much longer. And besides, we had this whole natural roller coaster.
We had great material. Wende Cragg and Larry Cragg, they came on all the rides. Larry is the guitar tech for Neil Young. We grew up in the whole rock-n-roll scene in Marin County—Charlie was a roadie for the Sons of Champlin, one of the seminal ‘60s bands. Anyway, Wende and Larry Craig had been taking photos for years. And there was another guy: Howie Hammerman. Howie worked with Charlie as a roadie. Well, Howie left that job and went to work for George Lucas. Howie was George Lucas’ third employee. Howie had the run of George Lucas’ screening room, at his home—so we had the run of George Lucas’ screening room. We would go there and do our slideshows! 19 0
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you’re neither an engineer nor a frame builder, but you’ve inluenced mountain-bike geometry and the construction of bikes quite profoundly. What’s the story behind that?
Where I got into it was in high school. This was, like, 1967. I had some friends, these crazy hippie boys called the Larkspur Canyon Gang. They loaned me an old beater—the bikes at that time were anything you could find at the Goodwill or the dump, preferably for five to ten dollars—and I went out and rode with them. I said, “This is fun. This is a blast.” We had the golden key to the mountain. We could get around so fast that it seemed so incredibly stupid to want to hike it, when you could go have a blast and rip around. And to me it was just obvious: This thing needs some real brakes and it needs some gears. I put together my first bike in September of 1974.
People will point the finger at me and say, “He never built a frame in his life.” You’re damn straight I never did, because I wanted to build a company, and I wanted to create a movement—I didn’t want to get lost in metal therapy, which other guys were. We made alterations when we had that race team: shorter chainstays and steeper seat angles. And then along came John Tomac and his whole thing of the super-steep head angles that was really popular but nobody could ride. We settled on a geometry that Mountain Bike Action called “the ultimate NORBA race geometry,” which was our Pro Caliber of 1987. Everybody and their brother copied that one. I mean they were within millimeters, fractions of a degree. It was crazy.
did you ever dream that the popularity of mountain bikes would grow to where it has today? I thought they’d be immensely popular—I really did—even in the beginning. People just got stoked, and it changed their lives. They took it up, and they wouldn’t stop. It could be somebody who was a total athlete, or totally crazy, or it could just be the guy down the street. They all liked it.
And there was the whole thing we did using forks with a rear Campy horizontal dropout to play around with offset. It let us experiment and get it right.
What has blown me away about riders today is the evolution of the skill set. People are fulfilling their fantasy cartoon-dream, like, “If I just pull this way, and do this, and do that, I could totally rock some maneuver over something that you won’t believe.” I never anticipated that—how good these guys have gotten, and how many have mastered it.
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Then I was on this Tour de la Marin hundred-mile off-road ride: I’d put together a new bike with a really low stem. The ride was singletrack with a lot of big-ass water bars—and I went over the bars. And then I went over the bars again. I cracked my left wrist and it was hurting like crazy. I ride out about 10 miles (16 kilometers) and I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got to reinvestigate this whole geometry thing.” So then we built a whole bunch of different weird-ass geometry bikes, and from those came the Genesis geometry. It had shorter chainstays. The head angle was the same, the seat angle was the same, but the top tube was a lot longer, and the stem was correspondingly shorter. Traditional road geometry had 55 percent of the weight on the rear, 45 percent on the front. And big guys would have longer and longer stems, because you wanted to be able to get close to somebody in front of you. The mountain bike doesn’t suffer that at all. So with this geometry—if you’re on flat, level ground and sitting in the saddle—you had, like, 65 percent on the rear wheel and 35 on the front. And it worked. The first one I had made for me, the one I rode a lot, man...I won so many different races on that bike. I won the Transalp on that bike. You could ride out of the saddle and have traction—and up a steep hill. It was amazing the traction it had. In addition, the shorter rear end made it corner a lot easier. That was a
revolution. Other companies used to naysay my stuff when I’d first come out with it, but they didn’t naysay that one. Thirty-one point six as a seatpost size? That sticks to this day. Genesis was a revolutionary thing. What was really great about it was that it wasn’t rocket science, man. This was easy; it was just a geometry change, yet it was a radical change in the way the bike handled. It didn’t cost us anything extra. I love those types of innovations. It’s a lot like using good colors and graphics—it doesn’t cost you anything, and yet it sells a lot more bikes. and speaking of suspension, you were an early adopter of suspension forks, weren’t you? With RockShox, back in, like, ‘91, we were the first company to use a suspension fork on a stock, production bike. I told [RockShox founder] Paul Turner, “I’m always using these test forks with the adjustable offset, and I’ve got to figure out what the offset is.” So he made up a bunch of fork crowns for me. If you remember the old Mag 21, man, you could just unbolt the fork crown and put a new one on. Well, I go out in the woods doing just that, you know, and settled upon 38.1 millimeters. And that became the Holy Grail for shock forks. 19 4
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the 29er thing: Other guys were doing it but you decided to put a considerable amount of muscle behind it. and this was at a time when your 26-inch genesis bikes were pretty dialed.
Over the next six months I used a Polar heart-rate monitor, and would just go back and forth, you know, 26, 29, 26, 29. One bike, the other bike—same course. And then different places. And then I’d upload the information to the computer, print out the results, and compare them. The 29er was 3 to 5 percent faster. Always. And I said, “Cool, let’s go with this.”
Mark Slate, an old friend, and I had been talking about wheel size forever—I mean ever since Crested Butte in the late ‘70s. We were up on top of Pearl Pass looking at all these huge rocks and going, “God, do you think a bigger wheel than 26, like a 12-foot wheel, would be really cool right now?”
Standing now in the present and looking toward the future, what do you think about fatbikes?
At Eurobike in ‘98 I said to Mark, “We’ve been talking about this forever. Let’s make something bigger.” And he said, “Cool, I’ll do it.” A couple months later I get a call from him, saying, “Hey, I made this tire.” We put it on the rim to see how big it was, and it was 28-and-5/8 inches. I said, “Mark, we’re Americans, we’re going to call this thing 29—29er."
Man, I think that’s going to be a good 30-percent of the market in five or ten years. It’s the basic attraction to mountain biking: you can ride that sucker just about anywhere. Just about anybody can ride it anywhere. The guys on the fatbikes are saying, “It’s not just a weirdo thing; I’m having a lot of fun.” We’ve been experimenting with a 29-inch version of that—and that’s even a whole other level, even more fun. It cannot be stopped. I’m hearing these stories of people saying, “Well, I got one of these because I thought it would be my sort of weirdo extra bike, but I don’t ride my other bikes anymore.” It’s ‘cause they’re fun.
I designed my first 29er bikes to be as identical in every way to my regular 26-inch bike as I possibly could. Manitou made a Mars fork for me, ‘cause they could piece it together. I think that fork had 70 millimeters of travel, and the tire would touch the bottom side of the crown when you’d go through a really big compression bumps. I was able to have the front end be just as low as my 26.
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T E C H N O L O G Y I S N O T T H E O N LY S T O R Y I N T H E B I K E W O R L D —T H E R E ’ S R E A L , G E N U I N E C U LT U R E T H AT C O M E S I N T H O U S A N D S O F F L AV O R S
do you like all of the new technology or do you sometimes pine for the days of old?
I love this sort of format where the contest changes at the pace of the riders’ abilities. It is sort of the opposite of the old traditional Olympic style where they try to keep everything comparable from Olympiad to Olympiad.
The hardware that we make is so much more advanced than ever before, and that’s just a reflection of the fact that a lot of great people got into the bike world. The bike world, when I started out, was pretty regulated: road bikes and track bikes and English three-speeds.
What else has you particularly stoked about the future of bicycling? The millennials, man, they’re the ones that love bikes like crazy, and 60 percent of those are women.
And then during the ‘80s and ‘90s a ton of really creative people got into the bike industry. They came out of the motorcycle industry, all the cold war industries that were doing the high-tech materials. That high-tech stuff is part of the culture, but what’s equally amazing are the people who appreciated the old masters, the history—and they resurrected that side, too. So technology is not the only story in the bike world—there’s real, genuine culture that comes in thousands of flavors around the world.
Ten years ago, their parents told them, “Go to the university, study really hard, and you’ll be the king of the world." And they went to the university, they studied hard, they graduated. Well, they did not get the job. They wound up back at mom and dad’s house. They’ve got a $100,000-dollar debt. And, you know, they’re pissed. And they pull the bike out of the garage, or out of the basement, and they say, “You’ve never lied to me.”
I love the sort of stuff that’s happening. We’re on to a new era in a way. Just a few years ago, the riders who did all of the gravity stuff weren’t nearly as good as they are now. The bikes weren’t nearly as good, and the courses are so much better and the competitions are so much better. It’s a great show to watch.
A bike’s a real deal. It’s real. And that’s the beautiful thing that we’re selling. A visionary in every sense of the word, Gary Fisher has been a pivotal member of Trek’s development team since 1993. 19 6
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HUMANS RACE
The Waterloo Driving Park Association was formed on the southwest edge of town in 1897, two years before Henry Ford introduced his first automobile. “Driving” held a different meaning in those days— namely, racing horses and racing bicycles. Human nature dictates that when two people are headed in the same general direction, regardless of how they’re traveling, one will instinctively edge in front of the other. The other usually will not suffer this for long. The race is on, be it on foot, horse, or bicycle. Humans race for fun, for excitement, for the challenge, for reasons that are programmed deep inside. 84 years after the first intrepid cyclists battled their way around the Waterloo Driving Park, the owners of the land across the street sold their land to Trek, a small bicycle builder that had outgrown the confines of their original red barn. The track is no longer there, but human nature remains. Racing is what we do.
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“This is what I want people to understand about Trek: It’s like a family. The business is owned by the family, and people are treated like they’re part of the family. We take care of people because that’s the kind of company we are.”
JOhN BuRKE P R E S I D E N T, T R E K B I C YC L E
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