We recently accepted an invitation to try out some carbon porn with Trigon,
and thus on a warm and sunny Friday morning members of the squad made up of
John Mullineaux (LCS Director Sportif, well, I think I am?), Rebecca (Zabel) Charlton
and Andrea (Van Impe) Hofling cycled to meet up with Trigon’s Damian at Hillingdon
Cycle Circuit.

I have a sort of theory regarding carbon and this is it. Carbon is soulless
and if you want soul you go with exotic metal from an Italian fattoria and if
you want carbon you want hi-tech. Specialized have worked their magic by getting
so many people to buy into their rocket ship design, because it shouts ‘cutting
edge’. The tarmac might seem ugly to some, well, apart from the Roubaix, but
it looks the part. Thus for me a carbon bike has to have a futurist philosophy
and the Trigon range gives all the impression to have been poured from a magic
liquid, which is still wet and warm to the touch.

TT SL	EX1 Zero Campagnolo	Trigon Cross

Damian had assembled three bikes for us, a time trial (TT SL), a Trigon Cross
and probably the lightest bike in the World, the EX1 Zero kitted out in 2007
Campagnolo Record with full Trigon bars etc. and weighing 13.0 lbs! It certainly
was light and went like a rocket on the smooth Hillingdon Circuit. It would
be fun to try it on a big climb in the Alps.

Andrea with the EX1

EX1
Trigon has been making carbon bikes and other goodies for twenty years and supply
a number of well known brands with bars, posts and cranks etc. In the past year
Taiwanese manufacturers have been raising the level of quality of carbon frames
and Trigon are very much part of this trend.

The EXI main triangle is C7 Carbon with custom weave monocoque sloping main
triangle with a diamond profiled tube sections. The rear triangle is again C7
carbon wishbone construction, with flared stays and features a ‘Monobox’ design
bottom bracket.

Andrea’s view of the road bike was it was fast and made her wish ‘I was a committed
road racing cyclist and have one" (she is a past Beastway MTB champ) ,
we suggested that it would get her to the tea stops faster. This seemed to satisfy
her.

Rebecca, the sprinter rang the EX1 neck over 50m

Earring light (it’s a new technical term)
Rebecca (Das Sprinter), summed up our session nicely. “When you go home
wanting to sell your bike your know you’ve ridden something a bit special
and that’s how I felt last Friday after riding a full carbon Trigon.

After joking that the Trigon Road bike was, in its entirety, lighter than one
of my earring’s I shortly realised that I wasn’t too far from the
truth.

After gliding round the circuit at Hillingdon I was quite reluctant to let
go of the super light and super responsive carbon machine. However, it was eventually
prised from me, leaving me seriously thinking about getting my hands on one
in the future.”

A bit of rough
Trigon support the West Midlands Cross League and so it was no surprise that
Damian had a carbon cross bike for us to try.

We soon had it out on the less than techical Hillingdon rough stuff where it
flew over the bumps. It was light, but didn’t offer a sketchy ride as do so
many light off road bikes. I just wanted to head out to the trails around London,
but then I would have had to fight not only Damian, but also Andrea and Rebecca
for the privilege.

Contact
Ingenuit – [email protected]

More to come
We will be featuring all three bikes in the future.

Damian on the TT	EX1 fork	Head tube of the TT
Carbon fork on the cross	Mono Box B/B	Andrea on the EX1
	Cross riding