The climber’s bike gets more aerodynamic

The climber’s bike gets more aerodynamic

The pros who race the Trek Émonda and I are both looking for the same thing, it seems. We all want a climbing bike to be a little more aero. Trek did hear from members of the TrekSegafredo teams, who wanted the lightweight Émonda to be a little more like the aero road Trek Madone. While I’m not after race wins, I’ve long known that an aero bike is the best machine for going fast on my local, mostly flat terrain. But I – and I’m guessing you, too – don’t buy a bike purely based on speed. We also think about how we see ourselves as riders.

I love to climb. The Dolomites, the Alps – those are the places where I’m more in my element. But I don’t ride those locations that often, which is why an aero road bike would be more logical for my local topography. But sometimes logic can go get dropped from the group ride. It’s a climbing bike that speaks to my riderly soul. When I find any incline in my area, part of my mind is transported to a Grand Tour’s queen stage in which I’m tearing up a mountain. I’m sure all us recreational riders all have some version of this fantasy, images of the riders we identify with in our heads somewhere. I say you should let this image influence the bike you get. You’ll enjoy it more.

But back to practical matters because part of me would like to balance that side, too. Trek’s engineers needed to make the model-year 2021 Émonda more aero while keeping the frame just below the 700 g mark. Its designers started playing around with tube shapes to see how much drag they

“It’s a climbing bike that speaks to my riderly soul.”

could reduce for any given increase in weight. They found that increasing the size of the head tube brought aero gains. The shaping on the down tube changes subtly along its length. At the top of the down tube, it addresses airflow off the wheel rim and tire. Low down, it smooths the air around the bottle. Trek says this bike saves a pro and a rider like me roughly 182 g of drag, or about 1.8 N.

The company could have achieved more aero gains, for example, had it gone with dropped chainstays. That change would have added more weight to the frame. Designers decided that wasn’t a change they wanted to make, however. It didn’t quite fit with the Émonda. In the end, the frame stays at about 700 g. Trek says its top-end slr frame in size 56 comes in at 698 g. The new carbon-fibre formula, oclv 800, helps to keep the bike light. It’s 30 per cent stronger than Trek’s 700 series and saves designers 60 g. A complete slr 7 weighs 7.19 kg.

Other features that keep the new Émonda slipperier in the wind are the new Aeolus rsl bar/stem and new Aeolus Pro 37 wheels. The hoops are light, about 1,505 g for the pair. Trek says that even though they only have a rim depth of 37 mm, their performance in the wind is comparable to the company’s older Aeolus xxx 4 with 47-m depth.

The Émonda does have a certain snap. You almost feel you get more out of a pedal stroke than you expect, whether that’s on a climb or hammering out of the saddle. I remember that from the first-generation bike I tested in 2014. It seems Trek’s designers were able to keep the bike’s ride feel, even as they changed it to ride better in the wind. It’s hard to appreciate the aero gains, even though I know they are there. But the ride is simply great. I can just feel it.