2016 Trek Madone 9

First I saw it on the UCI list of approved frames for June, then I saw a teaser video posted to the Trek website, and then this uncredited photo was posted to the Weight Weenies forum:

My that looks fast. Maybe it's the color, but it reminds me of the Canyon Aerooad. The Canyon has done rather well in the tunnel, not in the class of the Cervélo S5, but fairly good. See for example Tour magazine data here. So I expect the Trek will be at least this good.

But then there's weight. The Madone 7 was quite light with the vapor coat -- under 800 grams. But then the Emonda came out, pushing that lower, but there's only so far you can go below that. So the Madone was a bike of compromise. Now they want you to buy two bikes: the lightweight Emonda and the "aero" Madone. So the pressure's off on weight. But I wonder how they did. Nothing on this one looks particularly heavy.

From what I see I really like it. The days of bad-riding aero frames are over: bike design has gotten good enough that even the aero mass start frames have what are considered excellent ride feel. I certainly enjoyed my test ride of the Parlee ESX last year.

Anyway, I won't be buying one as I'm happy with the bikes I have, but if I were looking for a bike to road race on, this looks like a winner. In contrast I've never been a fan of the Emonda because it looks so terribly unaerodynamic. That simply makes no sense to me for racing.

Also on that UCI approved frame list is the Scott F02. I look forward to seeing that. The F02 is presumably the successor to the F01 which was the pre-release name of the Foil. It was a clever number-letter conversion play, there, so I wonder what they'll call this one when it's released.

Also on that list is the Specialized Venge "RIM". I'd initially overlooked this, thinking it was a wheel, but the wheels are listed on a separate list, so this is in fact a new version of the Specialized Venge aero-road bike, the rim-brake version as opposed to the disc-brake version. The Specialized Venge design wasn't as aero as many of the current aero road bikes, or any of the Cervélo aero road designs, and so it's due for an upgrade. I'm not particularly happy about the move to disc brakes, however. But that's another matter.

Comments

tim bulger said…
Bauke Mollema is riding this frame at the Dauphine this week
June 9, 2015 at 8:26 AM
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