| Trek World; a day out to all things Trek | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 21 2013, 03:11 PM (204 Views) | |
| Ming the Merciless | Jul 21 2013, 03:11 PM Post #1 |
Overlord of all Known Sheds!
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Courtesy of Kevin at Evo Cycles I got a chance to go to Trek World at Silverstone last Saturday (20th July). It was a chance to see all the trek line up for 2014 including clothing, accessories, Dark Side stuff and of course MTB's. Walking through the door this caught my eye immediately:   Must resist n+1. Wandering around the hall it became obvious that Trek have decided the writing is on the wall for 26 inch mtb's as only a few lower end model hard tails seemed to be evident. Everything else seemed to be 650b (or as the Trek guys were saying 27.1) or 29. 29ers being pitched at Race/XC/All Mountain- FAST and 650b being pitched at All Mountain - FUN (as Trek call it)/Enduro/DH. Interestingly the Session 88 DH on display was still 26 but apparently the DH teams are testing/riding 650b. Remedy 29's, loving the polished ally finish:  The cross over to between the wheels sizes is in the Remedy class with either a 29 model or 650b model depending on which suits you/you want. Interestingly the Remedy 29 only comes in alloy, the Remedy 650b top end model is carbon framed with alloy frames appearing lower down the model order. The Trek staff I spoke to said that the 650b had been in development longer and this was the reason why no carbon framed 29 version was available yet (however you can get the 29er now and the 650b is not due to October???). Next shouting "HERE I AM!" was the 170mm travel Slash;  Sporting a mix of XX1 and X01, check out machining on the rear cassette and weighing about as much as my old Attack Trail yet as much travel as my 44lb Quake!   Also featured was the ladies new Lush in 29er format:  There was also a cutaway helmet on display allowing you to see what goes on inside that lump of polystyrene that protects your head, the yellow string is actually aramid cord to help hold it all together:   No Darkside photo's but there were some seriously light bikes available at wallet busting prices! We sat in on a bike sizing lecture which was very interesting and was presented by the Trek team that work with their top riders. The Trek staff had a very bling adjustable test rig that you sat on and had all the bike contact points, it could also measure power output so you could see the effect of position changes on how efficiently you produced forward motion. The first thing they did was take some body measurements (inseam seemed more important than height), chest width for bar width, along with a medical history and flexibility check. From this they could get the test rig into a ball park position, get the rider on it and then fine tune using some laser pointers, correcting rider body position errors along the way and pointing out that tight ham strings are really not good (note to self...do more stretches). There was a discussion regarding mashing and spinning and I did get a bit lost here but I think what they were saying is apparently mashing is faster, spinning lowers overall power and there is very little to gained from ankle down and pulling up. Pedal and cleat position was mentioned and the latest thinking is that the pedal spindle position should be about 8mm behind the bony side of your little toe joint /metatarsal thing (not describing this very well I know...sorry). So after about 60 minutes they had fine tuned the bike size and also corrected a few body position errors the rider had as well as further correctting a cleat/foot angle issue the rider already had. They went on to say that some of the racers they work with are very set in their ways with over slammed front ends producing some hideous back positions and cleats with no float (float is good, but even after knee op's for damaged knees the racers insist on zero float!). So for an MTB'er like me it was all new but some of what was mentioned will definitely apply to my hardtail. If I was tempted to the Darkside I'd use one of these sizing sessions to get the right bike/get me sitting on it properly. A grand day out! |
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