TREK FUEL EX 9.9
With a 10mm travel boost and a super-versatile new design, the Fuel EX 9.9 is a tasty prospect
In the August issue we showed you the Fuel EXE, a mid-powered e-bike that looks (and even sounds) just like a regular pedal-powered bike. This time, Trek has flipped it the other way with the new Fuel EX, an analogue bike that looks like the EXE in almost every way, right down to the suspension travel, components, frame profile, and custard-yellow paint job. Honestly, unless you put them together, you’d never know.
So put them together I did. This is more than just wanting more time to bomb around on two ridiculously expensive bikes. Although there is a bit of that in it. No, Trek has made the two bikes deliberately close in both looks and performance because it wants riders to make a choice between them on how much assistance they want. None or 50Nm. Not on how the bikes look, how much travel they bring or the ride feel they deliver. And I wanted to see how close they’ve got it.
The new Fuel EX here has changed from its award-winning iteration, launched back in 2019. For starters,
Trek has added 10mm more travel, taking it to 140mm rear and 150mm front. Trek’s thinking is that the Fuel EX can be more than just a trail bike if it wants, so there are options to increase the travel further, run MX wheel sizes and even fit a coil shock.
Just like on the old bike, the new Fuel EX comes with the Mino Link, where two little flip-chips on the rocker link let you change the BB height and head angle.
That means the head angle is down to 64.5° in the slack setting, a full degree slacker than when we tested the old version of the bike. The BB height is lower too – on paper it’s just 2mm, but with 10mm more travel to contend with this means the bike will hug the ground more closely at sag. The Mino link changes that BB too of course, raising or lowering it by 8mm.
All told, the new bike’s high position gives it the same geometry figures the old bike commanded in its low position, with the longer fork slotted into both bikes. This makes the Mino Link a lot more usable now, so you won’t just be slinging it into low position and forgetting about it. Trek has also taken a leaf from the Specialized playbook, and gone with adjustable headset cups, so you can tune the head angle +/- 1° independently of the BB height.
The Fuel EX remains a 29in wheel bike in most of the eight sizes on offer (XS-XXL). The exceptions are the diddiest XS which is 27.5in, and the S, which you can get as a 29er or 27.5in. There’s nothing stopping you putting a 27.5in wheel in the back of the Fuel EX though, and Trek actually endorses this,
£11,750 • 29in and 27.5in (XS/S) • trekbikes.com
There are options to increase the travel further