TREK’S MADONE SLR9 DISC
£10,000 › Editor-in-chief Rob Spedding rides Trek’s brand-new Madone...
Editor-in-chief Rob has an exclusive first look at Trek’s new Madone SLR9 Disc.
When Trek introduced its fifth iteration of its Madone flagship model in 2015 it, arguably, set a new benchmark for fast, aero and comfortable race bikes. Job done – the Madone of two years ago worked, and worked well.
As soon as the wraps had come off the last Madone, Trek’s designers in Madison, Wisconsin were already analysing what they could have done better, creating mood boards, sketching sexy new shapes on deepfried cheese curd (Google it) stained napkins and typing numbers into big computers to find more speed, extra comfort and to discover how to add disc brakes without messing up a winning formula.
Three years later and Trek reckons it’s made one of the best bikes currently on the market even better. The headline for Madone number six is, on the surface, that this is the first time it’s available in rim and disc brake versions.
The Madone is an aero bike and one common assumption is that discs aren’t as aero as the best fully integrated, hidden rim brake setups, which the non-disc Madone has. Trek says that the disc Madone is more slippery than its non-disc brethren, with around 5g less drag. In the grand scheme of Madonechoosing that’s not a lot, so choice will come down to personal stopping preferences. As you’d expect with discs there is a slight weight penalty – up to 400g depending on your chosen paint scheme.
Trek only popped the Madone into San Diego’s Low Speed Wind Tunnel towards the end of the design process. Until then all aero development work was done using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). By using CFD the engineers could try thousands of iterations and if something didn’t work it could be changed without the need for costly and time-consuming physical modelling and wind tunnel testing. Trek says its CFD testing was accurate to within three per cent of the wind tunnel, achieving its goal for the new Madone of at least matching the ‘aeroness’ of the last slippery model.
The last model’s comfort was provided by the addition
of an IsoSpeed decoupler – a mechanical pivot at the seat-tube/ top-tube intersection. Trek has stepped this technology up for 2018. There’s still an IsoSpeed decoupler but it’s now tunable.
Integrated with the seat-mast and the top-tube, undoing a bolt allows you to move a slider back and forth. This slider adjusts the amount of ‘vacant space’ between the lower section of seat-mast, which extends below the top-tube. Move it forward and you get more space between the seat-mast section and the top-tube, greater deflection and increased comfort (17 per cent more than before), slide towards the seat-mast and it becomes stiffer – up to 21 per cent.
The Madone also has a damper between the seat-mast and seattube. Hit a big bump on most bikes and the rebound forces reverberating up through the saddle and your backside can bounce you upwards, temporarily separating cheek from seat. The new damper is designed to reduce this separation anxiety.
Trek has another weapon at its HQ – a treadmill onto which sensorpacked bikes, and brave riders, are strapped and put through their paces using surfaces modelled on realworld roads, including Belgian pavé to test comfort!
Trek has moved away from its H1 and H2 frame geometries for the SLR bikes and settled on H1.5, SL models will use H2. This is aided by another welcome change from the previous Madone’s one-piece bar and stem. These are great for aerodynamics and integration, but less so for comfort, adjustability and ease of maintenance. The new combination hides cables, has a pleasing rearward sweep to provide different barholding options, apparently offers 40 different fit combinations across the size range, and allows integration with GPS units and Bontrager lights.
The top-end Madone SLR9, pictured here, is available with a choice of high-end equipment – Shimano Di2 or SRAM eTap electronic shifting for instance – and comes with Bontrager’s Aeolus XXX 6 disc or rim wheels.
If the standard SLR9 isn’t exclusive enough for you, check out the new Project One Icon paint finishes – if you liked the pearlescent, colourchanging paint of TVRs past you’ll love these. The Madone SLR9 isn’t cheap. A stock SLR9 will cost £10,000 and you can add another £500 for a personalised Project One. The ‘entrylevel’ SL6 with more modest kit, rim brakes and lesser grade OCLV carbon will be £3600. Disc brakes come in on the SLR6 at £5400. There is also a range of Women Specific Madone SLR6 models in the line-up.