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News › Triton Cycles - Trek Bike Camp Report |
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Matt and I set off from Barkingside late on Sunday night in the Triton van. It’s a long old drive from where we’re based to Afan and Glyncorrwg in Wales but the riding is well worth it.
Fast forward nearly 4 hours and we’re at Glyncorrwg Ponds Campsite and Mountain Bike Centre. After a long night of feeling like my toes were about to drop off from frostbite(Camping is definitely a summer time pursuit) we woke up to beautiful sunshine!
Having decided breakfast was a good idea, we started up the van and drove to next town along from Glyncorrwg. Trying to find somewhere serving hot food at 7:00am in the middle of the Welsh countryside proved a little difficult but luckily we found a brilliant little Cafe called ‘Grandmas’. After a huge, very greasy fry-up (a Mountain-Biker’s favourite!) we got on our way back to Glyncorrwg.
Back at the MTB Centre there was a presentation at the DropOff cafe on all the bikes we were about to ride.
Once that had finished we were raring to go and headed back to the van to get our kit ready for an afternoon of riding the some of the best trails in the UK. When we were ready for action we headed over to the Trek Paddock to find that most of the MTB's had been taken out and we were offered two Trek Madone 5.2's to try.
Both Matt and I are keen MTB’ers and don’t do much road riding, so this was a great chance to see what we were missing out on. Even if matt and i weren't going to be converted to road riding at least it would give the guys and gals at our local MTB Club something to chuckle about.
The Madone range has gone through a massive overhaul this year with Trek starting from scratch to design the best road bike platform possible. The new technology Trek have applied to this bike is exciting – even for an MTB’er as some of the new design features will start filtering through to top-end mountain bikes over the next few seasons.
We headed out of Glyncorrwg Ponds and took the main road out the village. As soon as w hit the tarmac we felt like we were competing for the Yellow Jersey in Le Tour De France. The speed that these bikes are capable of was deadly impressive and we had soon covered a lot of ground.
On the climb back uphill to Glyncorrwg, the stiffness of the bottom bracket area of the new Madone frame became apparent. This is a result of an innovative new design where there is no bottom bracket cup and the bearings are pressed directly into a carbon shelf in the frame. The frames can therefore be 90mm wide at the bottom bracket producing a much stiffer and stronger ride. At the same time Trek have retained the compliant characteristics that make a good road bike.
Having completed our first test ride of the day, we headed back to the Trek Paddock where we grabbed our next demo bikes. Matt felt like a challenge so picked the Trek 69er Single Speed while I went for a more relaxing ride with the Trek Fuel EX 8. Heading for the mountain we ascended a trail called ‘Whyte’s level’ which led to the ‘Skyline’ descent.
Matt led the way on the 69er Single Speed. Trek’s 69er concept is to give the rider the best of both worlds, offering a 29” front wheel coupled with a 26” rear. This gives the bike a better angle ofattack, a slight increase in speed and still maintains the rapid acceleration of a 26” wheel.
By comparison, the Fuel EX 8 was a completely different ride. Not so quick to climb the ascent, it was a far more comfortable ride up the trail thanks to Trek’s new ‘Full Floater’ suspension system. The bike is equipped with 5” of rear wheel travel but thanks to the new suspension design it feels like much more as the shock is not mounted to a fixed point on the front end of the frame. This means the bike maintains a good pedal efficiency and the suspension still feels fully active.
On the descent, the Fuel EX 8 pedalled brilliantly and inspired confidence for every rock drop-off.
Halfway down, me and Matt decided to swap bikes and it was my chance to give the 69er a blast on the best bit of the trail. I was impressed with the speed benefit that the 29” front wheel offers. The larger wheel size glided over small bumps and made some of the larger drops feel easy.
Back at the bottom of the trail, we grabbed another 2 bikes while everyone else headed to lunch so we had the pick of the bunch!
With Matt still impressed by the 69er concept, he went for the top Fuel 69er, and I opted for another Fuel EX in a smaller frame size.
Again, Matt stormed ahead on the Fuel 69er. When I finally caught up with him, he was grinning from ear-to-ear and shouting “this is the best climbing bike I’ve ridden!”
Having tried to Fuel EX 8 in a 21” frame on the previous ride, I had opted for a 19.5” frame for this jaunt. Although I fit on both bikes quite comfortably, the smaller bike felt far more chuckable and stable when riding the technical climb section of the route.
Again, both bikes performed superbly on the descent and we managed one last ride after a late lunch to finish the day.
The 4 hour drive home was a quiet one, although we were both buzzing about the riding experience we had just had, camping on the edge of the Brecon Beacons in the middle of November takes its toll on your energy levels!
Next day back at Triton – I was confirming my order with Trek for my new Fuel EX 9!
Can’t wait……
Posted by gabber on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 (16:35:37) (1881 reads)
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