Project One

I am not in the market for a new bike. No really. I'm not just saying that because my wife reads what I write; I say this because I have a Madone 6.9 that is an awesome bike and I don't want anything else. Well, I wouldn't mind "additional" bikes, right? I mean I'm just saying that if I won the lottery or my Nigerian money-laundering deal finally pays off (who knew it would take so long and cost so much?), then, sure, I could find some other bikes to buy, but for now, I am set.

That didn't stop me from just going to Project One and spec'ing out this totally awesome radical gnarly bike:

From Misc Bike Pics

Sweet, huh?

I was in a conversation with someone about bikes the other day and the Trek Project One website came to mind: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/projectone/ If you like bikes and you haven't been to this site, you really owe it to yourself. Basically this is like the giant Sears Catalog that came a couple of weeks before Christmas except instead of pictures of EZ Bake Ovens and slot car tracks, you can decide what bike to "build", paint it in any variety of ways, put your name on it, customize the drivetrain, wheels, cable colors, seat, handlebar tape and I don't remember what all else to come up with your creation. Don't like my all-black plan? How about a WWII inspired fighter plane look?

From Misc Bike Pics

Like the white tires and Shimano DI2? No, don't like this one either? Prefer candy apple red or traffic safety green? No problem, they got your bike covered.

Is this a good use of time? No, maybe not, but then again, is reading this a good use of your time? Well, let's say yes for the sake of argument, but the point is that the Project One website is totally cool for building up a bike. A couple of other online retailer also let you spec out a bike, choosing components and letting you see pricing and weights, but no one else tricks out the picture of your dream bike the way this site does. So, do I need a new Madone? No, but it is fun to dream. No harm in that, right honey?
Rider Three

2010 Trek Madone 6.5/6.9 Review: Part One, The Build

Readers of this blog know that last summer my bike was destroyed in an unfortunate crash during our state championship road race. The fact that I had nothing to do with said crash didn’t make me, or my checkbook, feel better. The good news? I walked away totally unscathed and it gave me the impetus to write what was supposed to be a sarcastic eulogy, but one that others took quite seriously. It also gave me an excuse to plunk down on a new bike.

After obsessing way too much over what should replace my old steed, I decided to go with Trek’s 2010 Madone 6.5 / 6.9. The other two bikes on the short list were a Pinarello Prince and a Look 595, in case you’re interested. In the end I ordered the 6.5 since I already had a set of deep section Aeolus 6.5s, although the rear one needs to be rebuilt. The only difference between the 6.5 and 6.9 are the wheels.

I actually started writing this entry last fall, and at the time I hadn't found a single Madone review. Still haven't found anything in depth, and I’ve had a ton of questions about the new bike, so thought this might be interesting for others.

For what it’s worth, I have more than a little experience riding many different bikes. I’m not going to list every bike I’ve owned or have been given, but trust me when I say it’s a long list that includes bikes made from steel, aluminum, carbon and titanium. I write this only because when it comes to reviews perspective is important. I’ve had bikes so whippy and flexible they were a bit frightening (a steel Gitane from the late-80s), bikes stiff in all the wrong places (a Cannondale from way back when), custom bikes (a very cool but garish “jungle green” Landshark) and more.

Anyway, Two Wheel Transit, my local bike shop, knows me well and saved unpacking and building the bike for me. The Madone arrived in a less-than-standard and impressively stout clamshell style box. The bike was strapped in with nylon webbing, and a series of foam tubes that covered just about every part of the frame.

For some early pictures, click here.

First impressions:
My wife can back me up when I say I was indecisive about what color the bike would be. Trek’s online Project One program is fun to play with, but there are too many options to pick from. Ultimately I chose the “team” paint with white, a clearcoat over the black carbon and pink. I know, I know, it’s pink, but I like it and it’s my bike, OK? I dig the colors and Trek’s painters did an outstanding job. The style I picked requires a ton of masking and the quality control is excellent. Masks are crisp and I can’t find anywhere there’s overspray. There’s a pretty deep looking clearcoat which looks very, very cool.

As an aside, as soon as I got home with the bike my wife exclaimed, “it’s Pinky Tuscadero.” Like it or not, the bike has a new nickname. Plus, I figure if the bike is Pinky Tuscadero I can consider myself The Fonz. Just kidding. I’m not in the biz of giving myself nicknames.

Other first impressions? It’s light. As soon as we had the wheels and stem on the bike Tomas at the shop threw the bike up on the scale. 14.1 pounds without pedals. For a bone-stock bike that’s pretty amazing in my book. My last bike was more like 17 – 18 pounds with race wheels.

So what’s next? The build.
Most normal people would have the shop finish off the assembly job that Trek started. Me? I evidently don’t have enough going on in my life with raising a 4 year old daughter, running a business, a fantastically dusty house remodel, etc.

Seriously though, I cut my chops in the pro bike racing world as a race mechanic. Thankfully I moved into team management pretty quickly, but I spent a lot of years working in shops and on bikes. I was interested in seeing how the bike went together and learning the ins and outs of Trek’s new design. So, I pulled out all of the cables and took most of the parts off the bike to start almost from scratch.

Here are some highlights about what I found:

• The new Madone has internal everything. All the cables run through the frame. This creates a very clean look, but I’ll be brutally honest in saying that I was expecting the worst. Remember when I said I was a race mechanic? I HATED internal cables. I still get night sweats thinking about building a series of Hooker Elites for the Shaklee team the night before Redlands. Total nightmare…But threading the cables through the Trek was almost perfect. The brake and rear derailleur are a snap. The rear brake requires fishing the cable out of a small hole in the top tube(insert pic), but is easily accomplished with an old spoke or even a thin screwdriver. No problems there. And the rear mech cable pops right out of its guide. In fact I’m really impressed with how smooth the line is into the final loop of housing for the rear derailleur. Very slick. (insert pic)

• Now let’s talk about the front derailleur cable. If you’ve ever bought furniture from Ikea you’ve probably learned the hard way that it’s better to read the instructions first. Well, I didn’t read Trek’s manual before stripping the parts and paid the price. That’s what you get for too much hubris about being a good mechanic. A special tool is required to guide the front derailleur cable out of the frame. I didn’t have this tool, and after two frustrating hours of trying to fish the cable (and reminiscing about building the Hookers) I called it a night and decided to drop the bike off at Two Wheel the next morning. Bummer. Thankfully Dave at the shop had better luck than I did and fixed my little f-up. Note: Trek makes a special guide that can be used, but it's not included with the bike.

• This is interesting…Another thing I noticed was how the derailleur cables are run. The front derailleur inserts into the downtube on the right side of the frame. This is opposite from what’s usual. My guess is that this creates a cleaner line from the housing coming off of the bars. In fact we used to set up small riders’ bikes (typically women) this way. The smaller bikes created tighter bends for the cable/housing and weird friction/poor shifting would result. Anyway, think about the smoothest line between the housing coming off of your bars, and heading to the relevant derailleur. So far I haven't noticed that it creates extra friction or wears out the cables, and given that I haven't changed cables in months I think a problem would have shown up already...

• When I replace the cables in the future I think I’ll run a piece of housing over the old cable before pulling the old cable out. This acts as a chase to run a new cable through, after which I can just pull off the “guide” housing.

• Overall though, the internal cable system is very slick, and should be helpful for ensuring smooth shifts and braking, especially because the lines are so clean.

• The rest of the build was straightforward. The only other hiccup came when Dave noticed the derailleur hanger was out just a bit and aligned it for me. This is yet another reason to work with a good shop. I’ve rarely seen a frame come from a factory—ANY factory—absolutely perfect. You need an experienced mechanic to check things. Do yourself a favor. When you’re ordering a multi-thousand dollar bike, make sure you have someone that knows what they’re doing check the alignment and facing.

• The headtube and bottom brackets on the bike are massive. Lots has already been written about the Madone’s design, but at 90mm wide I’ve never seen such a robust bottom bracket. I was contrasting it with Rider 2’s Cervelo R3-SL and it’s pretty amazing to see the difference. Impressive.

The headtube is equally stout. 1.5” lower with 1.25” up top. Building things up I was excited to find out how this translated on the road.

• New wheels: Bontrager redesigned its wheels for 2010. I love the Aeolus 6.5s I’ve been racing on for the past year. They’re stiff in the right places, relatively light and give the best ride quality of any deep section wheel I’ve been on. They also have a wide rim that I’ve found helps improves the handling of the tires. I’ve glued on enough tubulars in my life to know that I’m done with that fun, and prefer to ride clinchers now.

Back to the new wheels there are some pretty big design changes. First of all, Bontrager finally got rid of its paired spoke design. Paired spokes, originally licensed from Rolf and also used (sort of) on some Campy wheels, are a great idea in principle. It creates a very stiff wheel, allows for extremely high spoke tension and requires fewer spokes, making the wheel lighter. The downside? When a paired spoke wheel fails, in has a tendency to fail catastrophically. Bang. Your ride is done and hopefully your teeth are intact.

The new wheels use a more traditional lacing pattern: Radial up front and a combo of 2x and radial in the rear. The hubs still look great. My Aeolus wheels have hubs made by DT (I think). Not sure if this is still the case but the quality appears good and they seem like a smart design. Hubs are one of the things on some wheels I have issue with. Rider 2 is rolling on some Hed Bastogne wheels this year with mixed feelings. They’re a light wheel with tiny hub flanges. The problem? At 6’ 1” and 165 he’s a powerful rider, but every time we go up on a steep climb I can hear his rims flexing and hitting his brakes. My guess is the hub has a lot to do with this and it isn’t a good thing.

How fly are the spokes? White looks very, very cool. I’m not sure how easy they’ll be to keep clean (they won’t), but in the mean time it’s a pretty slick look, especially with the rest of the bike.

Bontrager looks to have updated the rim this year as well, specing a scandium rim instead of straight aluminium. And thank you, thank you Bontrager for using external nipples. It will be nice to be able to true the wheel with a standard spoke wrench and without stripping the tire and rim tape. Total claimed weight for the pair under 1,500 grams. Impressive.

• DuoTrap. This is pretty slick. Trek build wireless integration into the non-drive chainstay. This acts as an internal pick-up for a speedometer and cadence, so you can toss your ugly and paint-scratching pick-ups in the garbage can. It works with any Ant+ wireless computer, which is pretty much everyone except Polar. What a surprise! Polar doesn’t play nicely with others! (did you notice the sarcasm?) I've been using mine with a Garmin Edge 500, and it couldn't be a simpler setup.

• Trek now has a replaceable dropout. It looks stout and being able to replace this easily is a good idea. Why? Well, here’s a picture of one of the things that happened to my last frame.

OK, up next is riding the new bike. After 6 months I have some pretty defined views on the frame, as well as on SRAM Red.

New Bike - Madone 6.9

I have a new bike, sort of. I have been meaning to write a review of my old bike, which isn't that old, because it is a great bike. I don't know why I haven't, because it isn't as if Bike Polo is more compelling.

Two years ago, just as they were introduced, I got a very early Madone 6.9 frameset. I had recruited a new rider to the sport and promised to sell my frame at a reasonable price in order to lure them in. He was able to get an inexpensive grouppo and I had a handy excuse to get a new frame. Due to some luck, circumstances and a long-standing relationship with my local bike shop, Two Wheel Transit, who is a Trek dealer, I was able to get a Madone 6.9 when they were really cool. Here is my one sentence review - I loved it.

Trek did some new and some proprietary things on this bike. They changed the bottom bracket, they changed the head tube, and they added a no-cut seat mast. There are probably more things, but you will have to go elsewhere for the rest of the sales pitch. I will recount one conversation when I was considering this bike. I was talking to Rider 1 about the relative merits of the Trek vs. Cervelos and their engineering. Rider 1's comment was that Cervelo may have a really high percentage of engineers to sales people at their company, but the number of engineers at Trek is probably greater than the whole work force at Cervelo. In other words, don't sell short the ability of a big company to produce the goods. And in this case, they did.

This bike had the most solid bottom bracket I had ever ridden (my last bike was an aluminum Klein, which is maligned at times for being too harsh from stiffness) and it felt solid and comfortable. The bike was described as a great all-arounder, although some reviewers seem to say this as if it was a bad thing. Lacking the services of a full-time mechanic and a fleet of bikes and wheels, I have the crazy notion that it is a GOOD thing when your nice bike is a great all-arounder.

I read once that riders sense the flex in their wheels as a matter of confidence in descending. In other words, a rider may not "know" that they have a flexy wheel, but they will descend slower instinctively because that is what feels comfortable. I think the same thing is true with the whole bike set-up.

I was able to ride my 6.9 downhill faster than any bike I ever owned. I am not a daredevil descender, but I found that I was keeping up with even fast groups with confidence. I was not keeping up with the killer-racers-who-have-no-fear, but it felt great. I was also able to ride hands free as well on this bike as any I have owned. To me, this meant it was stable and had the right mix of characteristics to make a bike that handles well.

As for the stiffness and bottom bracket, up until this bike, I had measured how stiff a bike was by "how much flex" it had. I have had bikes with very little flex and one with a fair amount of flex. Keep in mind that I am a LARGE rider. I think Clydesdales are a bunch of underfed lightweights. I also, hopefully not to overstate things, produce a fair amount of power. I think I have to to move this carcass around, but in any case, I can put the wood to most frames. With the Madone, there was no flex, at all. It felt like the bottom bracket was attached to something solid. Frankly, I don't understand quite how they do this, but I was impressed.

The other side of stiff is usually uncomfortable. A bike that is just stiff is also considered harsh or uncomfortable. I am not the kind of rider who has really had bikes that are "comfortable" or "uncomfortable". I tend to get on with riding them and figure that getting tired or uncomfortable is just one of those things that happens when you frequently ride a bike 3-4 hours. Maybe I have been on the wrong bikes, but after having steel, aluminum and carbon, I haven't been able to detect a big difference between those that "soak up the road" versus those that are harsh. I thinks it relates to the same "sense" that I have previously described between Mr. Millimeter (Rider 1) and me. Rider 1 knows to the millimeter what is "right" on his bike. I ride mine in whatever condition until I detect a large problem. I have been trying out new seats and that process is obvious, but which will be described in a later post. My sense of these things is akin to getting the attention of a labrador retriever; as a dog trainer once said to my brother, "it'll take a 2x4 to get through to that dog". Anyway, I find the bike comfortable, but don't look to me to describe in exquisite detail the vertical compliance.

So anyway, my Madone 6.9 was a great bike, hands down. Until about a month ago, when an attentive mechanic at Two Wheel noticed I had a crack in the frame. Long story, short: Trek says there was too much resin in the paint mix so the cracks were cosmetic, but they would warranty the frame. Okay by me, except the same week this happened, they introduced a NEW 6.9, which meant that my new 6.9 would be the newly obsolete 6.9. It is hard to complain about getting a brand new bike, but I have to admit it take a bit of the high out of the experience.

So, that means two things: one, I have a new 2009 Madone 6.9 and it is a great, great bike, and two, most people won't really care to read about it because we are all bike whores and only want to salivate over the latest and greatest. So, if you are looking at one of the 6.9's that are left across the country in Trek shops and in particular if your dealer is discounting them, I would strongly urge you to jump in. You will not be unhappy with this bike unless you don't think a solid performer that does everything well is the right bike for you. As Rider 1 says, this bike won't be holding you back. It is a pro-tour team bike and my guess is that any reader here won't have greater needs than those guys.

Getting geeky with bike fit and geometry

My order for a new bike has been officially placed. You might have guessed this from earlier posts, but I ended up going with a new Trek Madone 6.5. Fancy stuff for sure and I'm really excited about it. In fact it's the first bike I'll have paid for since I was a junior in high school (and this year marked my 20 year high school reunion), so it was fun to put together exactly what I wanted. Well, within reason anyway.

Trek's new Project One site is fun to play with. It's possible to put together some absolutely garish designs, but there are also some nicely understated options. I couldn't help going with custom paint. It'll take an extra couple of weeks for the bike to come in, but luckily my friend John--nice guy that he is--offered to let me use his rain bike during the interim.

Ordering a new bike meant rethinking what size bike to order. For the past decade I've ridden a series of 58cm Treks. This means a bike with a 57.3mm top tube, which is a better estimate of the size of the bike.

Warning: The rest of this post has some pretty nerdy frame geometry/bike fit content. If this kind of discussion makes your eyes glaze over you can stop reading now. OK?

There are a bunch of factors that go into which size bike to get, so for you bike fit geeks out there, this post is for you!

Rider 3 is forever giving me a hard time about bike fit. It's all in fun though. He knows how important it is too. And I'll be this first to admit that I'm hyper-sensitive about my position. The reality is that I've had way too many injuries (four knee surgeries and counting, plus a dodgy neck), so I now have trouble riding a super-aggressive position. I also know first-hand about how much more I enjoy riding when I can finish a long ride and actually sleep through the night, without my achy neck waking me up at 3 a.m.

So anyway, I've been riding the same size bike for a long time, but my position has changed. For the better. I used to ride with a 15 cm drop from the top of my seat to the top of my bars. I now ride with a 7 cm drop. This is a huge difference, but in fact my back is flatter, I'm more comfortable and can actually breathe--something I've heard that comes in handy while riding. The 15 cm thing might have worked when I was 24, but it doesn't anymore. Plus, with my position now I can still get very low by, get this, bending my elbows.

Trek's bikes tend to put riders into a pretty aggressive position. For example, look at a 56cm Trek Madone compared with another relatively aggressive bike, the Cervelo. The top tubes are within 5mm of each other at 56 cm and 56.5 cm respectively. But the Trek "Pro Fit" has a 140mm head tube, vs, 160 on the Cervelo. That's a big difference, and is part of why, for example, I've been running a +12 degree stem (with no spacers) for the past couple of years.

For reference, a 56 cm Pinarello Prince has a 165mm headtube, while a Ridley Helium has a 175mm headtube. And a Trek "Performace Fit" has a 170mm headtube.

From Team Two Wheel

Fit isn't always about riding in a "slammed" position. Note the spacer stack.

Anyway, back to me. I've been on a 58, but spending some time on Trek's site, and with the boys at Two Wheel Transit, I started to rethink my options. I don't have a terribly high seat height (relative to my height) at 744mm. Here's a chart from Trek that shows some ballpark recommendations about frame size. (Ignore the green line and reference to John Burke. He is not me!)

Click here for a legible version.

So you see I could go either way (between the 58 and 56).

Now let's look at reach and stack height. Reach is helpful to study between frames. It's essentially a measure of the length of the front half of the bike--if you draw vertical lines through the bottom bracket and the headtube, then measure between them you have the frame's reach. This is more accurate than looking only at the top tube because the reach is independent of the frame's seat tube angle, which effects top tube length (as well as how far in front of or behind the bottom bracket you can adjust your seat), but not your reach to the bars.

Stack height, on the other hand, helps describe how tall the frame is from the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube. This time you'll need horizontal lines through the bottom bracket and along the top edge of the headtube. So when you're trying to compare your position on the bike from one frame to another, it's a more accurate than looking at head tube length indepedently because it removes the bike's bottom bracket height as a factor.

This picture should help clarify the last couple of paragraphs:

Trek offers two fit options for its frames, which is wildly helpful. The "Pro Fit" has a shorter headtube, while the "Performance Fit" is 3cm taller. I've been riding a 58cm bike in large part because the 56 had too short of a head tube, and it doesn't make sense to run a bike with 4 cm (or whatever) of spacers under the stem. I also used to need the longer top tube, but have shortened the size stem I use a bit over the years.

Other riders may need to look at stack height in a different way. These riders--typically tall guys with ultra-long arms--need to ensure they can get long and low enough. Rider 2 is someone who has to think about this. For a more extreme example take a look at Robert Gesink's bike. Notice the drop between the seat and the top of the bars? Contrast this with the bike of, say, Lance Armstrong.

OK, let's look at my comparison between the 58cm "Pro Fit" and the 56cm "Performance Fit," the two sizes I considered.

The 56cm Performance Fit gives me a stack of 576mm and reach of 387.

The 58cm Pro Fit gives me a stack of stack of 567 and reach of 400.

So the 58 Pro Fit would be 9 mm lower. But remember I'm currently using a +12 degree stem. So having a bit more stack is actually helpful. (Each degree of rise in a stem equals roughly 2mm in height.)

The 58cm Pro fit is also longer by 13mm. But I'm currently running a 110mm stem, so moving to a 120mm version is no problem and running it in the -7 degree position gives even more effective length. To show how it all comes together I plugged the numbers into this helpful stem calculator.

From Team Two Wheel

If you want to play around with this tool, click here.

So in the end I ordered a 56cm Performance Fit Madone 6.5. I'll run a 120mm stem in the -7 degree position with 20mm of spacers below it (maybe a bit more or less depending on the height of the headset cap) and will end up with a nearly identical position to the one I have now. And in fact I've wanted to be a hair more stretched out and a tad lower than I have been, so on paper anyway, the bike should be perfect.

Wish me luck. The bike should be here in about 30 days.