All new All mountain action from Trek.

The Lake Garda mountain bike festival centres around a 100km+ mountain bike “Marathon” organised by the German Uber mag BIKE, but the associated event ‘show’ has become a key launch arena for many manufacturers.

Even global superpowers like Trek were there to show off their 2003 Trek, Klein and Fisher products for the first time. Even just looking at Trek as a single brand, it’s a seriously impressive line-up that fills existing holes in their range as well as taking established designs to whole new levels.

Trek’s Fuel loses weight on the carbon diet plan.

Considering their expertise in the high tech woven world of carbon fibre it wasn’t really a surprise to see a mock up of an OCLV (Optimum Compaction Low Void – or as much air and resin squashed out as possible) version of their World Championship winning Fuel XC suspension bike. The frame uses the same 120gm (per sq metre) carbon sheet and plugged lug construction as the standard OCLV roadbikes and the STP softail, with an aluminium bottom corner to carry the main pivot and bottom bracket.

There’s none of the big flat ultra stiff (HC) honeycomb carbon of the 9.9 / 9.8 hardtail frames as Trek have gone for low weight rather than stiffness as the main priority. However the big downtube is ovalised vertically at the headtube and horizontally at the bottom bracket in the now popular “Bi-Axial” style. Its also gets a pointed triangular section on the underside to increase vertical strength and stop rocks and other sharp impacts caving the thin carbon tube walls in.

Although Trek hinted at more bits being made in their new mouldable OCLV MC material (think carbon papier maché) production volume problems (they had far more demand than expected) mean it’s still only used for the rocker link. The prototype frames they have built up so far shave around 0.4 – 0.6 lbs off the current ZR 9000 mainframe as well as other ride quality benefits. With weight reduction on the new XTR, Bontrager’s X-Lite Race wheelset, Rock Shox new SID WC forks and race tyres and tubes they’re hoping to drop the weight of the complete 2003, race replica Fuel 100 to significantly below 23lbs.

As we said earlier though, they only had a heavy resin mock up of the bike available. We’ll have to wait to the NORBA race in their own Wisconsin backyard before we see the carbon bike for real.

At the baggy shorted end of things Trek have another tweak of an existing World Cup design as well as a completely new ‘All-Mountain’ bike.

Basically a downhill bike with an uphill winch.

The Diesel Freeride is essentially a double chainset version of the Diesel downhill bike, conceived after spending time with the maniacs of British Columbia. It uses exactly the same high pivot swingarm and semi-monocoque frame design, but swaps the high roller chain guide for a front mech. mounting.

The finished bike will use a Truvativ Husserfeller Freeride crank with 22 / 32 rings and an outer rock ring, so you can winch yourself back up the hill. With serious pedal feedback and low gearing you’ll be relying on gravity to accelerate you back down again though. Braking isolation will be provided by a “Brake Therapy” floating arm, which will also be available as a retrofit to current Diesel DH frames. The big news is that as they’ve made far more Diesels than they expected, so the complete bike (XT, Boxxers, Hayes 8″, DT / SUN, Michelin) will come through for a few hundred quid more than this years frame – bargain.

More travel from your Fuel expenditure.

“All Mountain” seems to be becoming the widely accepted industry phrase for (Freeride Lite / Extreme XC) and Trek have built a longer legged version of their Fuel as their new contender.

Although the conventional open frame and sculpted rocker are definitely Fuel style, there’s a lot of new / borrowed stuff on there. For a start the flexible seat stays are made of a new filament wound kevlar and fibreglass composite to cope with the 40mm of flex (normal Fuels only flex 4mm) required by the 5″ of rear travel. The rest of the linkage use cartridge bearings and the main pivot shares the same position of the Fuel but uses the 25mm thru axle design of the Diesel downhill bike. Even the upper shock mount gets needle bearings for maximum smoothness.

New Trek rocker, new Fox shocker.

All this is controlled by a brand new Fox VTS air shock. Like the SID U-Turn (more on that later) the shock can be extended with a flick of a switch to increase the travel of the bike without mucking about with different mounts. However unlike the SID the Fox increases the air chamber size too, to keep air pressure constant at either 4 or 5 inches of travel.

Five inches of travel might not be a huge amount by current standards, but the bike is super confident through technical sections or log drops without requiring any real change in technique or riding expectations from a short travel bike. The bearing pivots make an obvious difference on drop ins and flat landings though, with very plush absorption of ugly obstacles or ropey line choices alike. With enough mud clearance for 2.5″ Michelin DH tyres there should be no winter worries either.
Like the XC Fuel the Liquid is remarkable steady and motionless on smooth surfaces but swings into action to increase traction as soon as you hit the rough. It’s particularly impressive rolling up successive high step up blocks or loose rock sections where swingarm bikes often spit traction. All in all, very impressive all rounder performance for those keen on big days out in big hills.

Complete bikes will be disc specific and start around the Fuel 90 level (£1500), with 100 / 125mm adjustable travel forks to match the rear end, IRC Trailbear tyres and the top level bike will come in at around 28lb all up.

That’s all we’ve got time for now folks. Next more new stuff from Garda, including a full test of the prototype of Klein’s new full suspension pony.