New Triathlon Bike “the fastest we’ve ever tested” claim Trek

Trek are laying claim that their all-new Speed Concept Triathlon Bike is the “fastest bike we’ve ever tested” in the wind tunnel.  

For the sake of avoiding the same old platitudes that all top brand areo-bikes are described with, let’s just say the latest Trek Speed Concept Triathlon bike is a pure performance machine built for Triathlon racing and pure speed, with a frame shaped to be extremely aerodynamic to maximise your pace when pushing serious watts 

Trek also lay claim that the Speed Concept can save a rider “around six minutes” over the 180km rolling open highway bike leg at the Ironman World Championship in Kona. Trek measure that the Speed Concept saves 16 watts at 26 mph / 41.84 kph – “a Kona winning pace” – versus the outgoing model.  

“This kind of speed is only obtainable thanks to the expertise of the Trek Performance Research team’s multi-year quest of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) optimisation through the power of supercomputers,” `Trek say. 

Two minutes of these savings appear to come from the reduced rolling resistance when using its latest Aeolus RSL wheels with 75mm deep rims made from the “lightest and strongest” OCLV carbon and which, being disc-brake only, weren’t compatible with the old Speed Concept. 

It looks as though Trek were checking out the prototype during the Criterium du Dauphine time trial stage back in June this year. Trek Segafredo riders were spotted aboard an all-new bike, which sees some easily noticeable differences compared to Trek’s existing Speed Concept. 

Trek have redefined the shape and the structure with a focus on improving frame lightness and stiffness and offering disc brakes for electronic group sets. The claimed outcome is that every element of this all-new bike is carefully designed to be the fastest and the lightest yet. 

The new Speed Concept is unquestionably more aerodynamic and one can visually note the dropped seat stays and updated cockpit to differentiate the old from new.  

The seat stays, which are now dropped even further than before, and eject horizontally from the seat tube, before bending diagonally toward the rear axle, and then bending again to meet the chainstay in a more vertical plane.  This will no doubt make it faster when you’re dealing with Kona crosswinds. 

The cockpit has also been updated with an overhauled design, with what looks to be a shorter head tube and an all-around tidier finish, with the stem of the base bar protruding horizontally forwards from a cut-out in the head tube, rather than diagonally up. As a result of this, the top tube is also amended, with a deeper profile acting as a fairing behind the head tube. 

On-bike storage for nutrition, hydration, and tools is covered with neat integrated storage solutions that Trek say come with “absolutely no aerodynamic penalty”. The tool kit is hidden underneath the downtube bottle whilst there is a between-the-arms (BTA) bottle with the Bento box integrated into the top tube for your gels. 

A fundamental challenge for any bike design is how to make a bicycle frame stiff enough to be efficient and handle predictably, yet compliant enough to reduce the jarring and fatiguing effects of a rough road. In this department Trek claim the new Speed Concept is a massive 40% more comfortable than the previous model. How Trek come to that quantum percentage increase is somewhat illusive other than saying the IsoSpeed pivot has been moved forward “in order to match the forward weight bias of triathletes.” 

The new Speed Concept will be exclusively available through Trek’s Project One program, which means you can customize everything from paint to components for the bike, ensuring you get exactly what you want for your new ride. 

With the ten grand psychological barriers well and truly smashed in the last couple of years, areo-bike brands of this calibre are taking off into the financial stratosphere with ultra-high-tech frames and the latest electronic shifting and disc brakes. 

Trek appears to be focussed on the high-end consumer with its latest triathlon offering – the models come with the same top-of-the-line SLR carbon frame, with the differences in models based on the drivetrain and wheel selections. 

Click links for future details on bike spec:

• Speed Concept SLR 9 – £12,100 
• Speed Concept SLR 9 eTap – £12,100 
• Speed Concept SLR 7 eTap – £9,250 
• Speed Concept SLR 7 – £8,850 
• Speed Concept SLR 6 eTap – £8,100