Lance Armstrong will race the brand new Trek Madone 6 at the Tour |
Introduced a couple of years ago, the Trek Madone was a radical overhaul of the original bicycle that was ridden to numerous Tour de France victories, and the replacement hasn’t done too badly either, winning each of the Grand Tours between the legs of the Astana team riders.
As the riders gathered in Monaco ahead of this Saturday’s Prologue, Trek pulled the covers of the Madone 6, a lighter and stiffer model that will sit above the current Madone in the Trek range. Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador and the entire Astana team will debut the Madone 6 in its first ever race on Sunday 5 July, following the Prologue.
Key changes are weight and stiffness. The new Madone is said to be 150g lighter than the previous Madone, but teh designers have also increased stiffness in the front-end of the frames by 17%. But that’s not to say comfort has been sacrificed, for a new asymmetric fork steerer and seatmast design is said to ‘enhance comfort’. The changes mean a frame weight in the region of 890g.
All cables are now routed internally and to future proof it the frame is Shimano Di2 is compatible, with a specially designed battery mount and specific cable routing and stops. An interesting feature is a ‘DuoTrap’ sensor that mounts inside the chainstay and can relay cadence and speed data to a ANT+ device, such as Garmin’s Edge 705 – sounds like an elegant solution to having sensors zip tied to your expensive frame.
The new Bontrager Race XXX Lite fork gets an oval shaped steerer tube to soften vibration from the road by 15% while stiffness when cornering has been ramped up. And it’s 30g lighter. The seatmast has been reshaped as well, it’s 30g lighter and offers better road damping qualities than before.
A key development of the new frame is OCLV2, with ‘Resin Right’ moulding the latest development in handling carbon fibre. To fine tune the carbon lay-up even more than before, this process reduces overlap and excess carbon when bonding two carbon tubes together, with a more consistent wall thickness throughout.
Trek is changing the way customers will purchase Madone 6 bicycles too, favouring a process that allows total customisation. There’ll be four base models but from there you can choose your own paintjob through Project One, switch groupsets, finishing components, wheels, stem length, and just about everything else. There’ll also be a Livestrong special edition version too.
As with the current Madone, the new Madone 6 will be available in Pro Fit (shorter head tubes), Performance fit (taller head tube) and for women the WSD fit.
The current Madone will become the Madone 5 series, and will be joined by a cheaper Madone 4 series which will be built in the Far East and use more conventional methods and design features to make it a whole heap more affordable.
