Trek EX Longtermer
I’m still in mourning for my Giant VT but the pain has been eased slightly by the arrival of my long term test bike.
For pretty much the rest of this year and a long way into next all of us in the office are getting a long term test bike that we will be reporting on and reviewing at regular intervals, either here on the blog, the main site and in the mag. The idea is that between us we will have a pretty good spread of bike options and we treat each bike as if it were our own, maybe changing the odd component to suit us or maybe even upgrading parts - you know, like what we all do eventually when we buy a new bike. We personalise it.
So, it looks like mine is the first to arrive and this will be my main bike for most rides I do through 2007. It’s a 17.5in frame (I’m 5′7″), with a whisker short of 5 inches of travel at front and rear. The frame is carbon with carbon bars and seatpost plus a veritable concoction of shifting a drive train components from Shimano XT through to both SRAM X9 and X0.
I took it out for the first time yesterday and without going into detail (how much detail can you review after one quick ride?) I’d sum it up as fast! It’s a less ’sit up and beg’ ride position than my Giant (It’s still mine even though some criminal is probably riding around on it!) and I think maybe that’s increased my impression of speed slightly. Whatever, I liked the feeling
I have to confess that when it arrived I instantly started imagining the changes I’d make - Bars with more rise, shorter stem, swap that saddle (I’ve never got on with Bonty saddles), change the X9 shifters for new 2007 XT, to name a few. But after my first ride I realised that was probably just because I had those bits on my Giant and just missed them. Now I’ve ridden it I think I’ll keep most of the bits as they are, at least for a while. That saddle has to go though. In fact it just has. There’s a good chance I could fall in love with this bike.
Oh, it’s £2500 RRP as is btw. Have a look at www.trekbike.co.uk for more details.