Radioshack-Leopard-Trek’s team bikes remain unchanged for 2013, with the team’s riders armed with the Trek Madone 7.9 and Trek Domane 6.9

Both bikes were launched with much fanfare in 2012. The Domane broke cover ahead of the Tour of Flanders and the latest edition of the Madone in the week before the Tour de France – and the timing of both launches hinted at their intended purpose.

The Madone 7.9 is the latest incarnation of the American firm’s Grand Tour machine. The range is named after the Col de la Madone, near Nice, which a certain former Trek-sponsored rider used to test his form.

The latest Madone is, however, near unrecognisable from earlier editions and the frame received a major overhaul in 2012, becoming one of a number of aero bikes launched during the year.

The Madone 7.9 uses Kammtail Virtual Foil (KVF) aerodynamic tube profiles on the fork blades, down tube, seattube and seatstays, which essentially means wide, boxy tubes, with a truncated aerofoil shape in which the rear appears to have been sliced off. The brakes have also been revamped to help cheat the wind. The front brake is integrated into the fork crown and the rear brake is hidden below the chainstays.

The frame is also super light, with a headline figure of 750g for the top-of-the-range 7.9 model used by Radioshack-Leopard-Trek. Trek have also rolled out the Madone’s new aero design across the 6-Series and 5-Series machines, retaining the profile, but altering the carbon lay-up.

The Domane is Trek’s Classics-specific machine, with its innovative IsoSpeed decoupler – a pivot between the toptube and seattube which isolates the rider from road vibrations. It’s a design which has quickly trickled down Trek’s range, as far as the aluminium framed 2-Series, of which the 2.3 is currently on test at RoadCyclingUK.

The team’s Classics king, Fabian Cancellara, won his first race aboard the Domane, last year’s Strade Bianche, but crashed out of the Tour of Flanders, subsequently missing Paris-Roubaix. The Domane, however, remains Cancellara’s weapon of choice year-round, regardless of the terrain, and Trek armed the Swiss rider with a yellow Domane after he won the opening prologue of the 2012 Tour de France.

With Trek as co-sponsor of the team, the squad are naturally supplied with components from the firm’s in-house brand, Bontrager, including a full range of Bontrager Aeolus D3 wheels, which have a 27mm-wide rim profile, in 35, 50, 70 and 90mm depths, as well as Bontrager’s saddle line: the Team Issue, Paradigm XXX, and RXL InForm. Bontrager also provide the handlebar and stem.

The team’s bikes are equipped with Shimano’s 11-speed Dura-Ace 9070 Di2 groupset, although it will be some time until all riders have the latest edition of the electronic group at their fingertips. Otherwise, the team use Schwalbe Ultremo HT tubular tyres, Speedplay Zero Pedals and SRM power meters.