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Trek embraces time-honoured bike designs accentuated by innovative tech with new Madone, Top Fuel and Procaliber models

Trek Bicycles has announced three bike lines touted as representing the future of cycling with a taste of the past: the Madone, Top Fuel, and the Procaliber SL.

Image: Trek
Image: Trek

Trek Bicycles has announced three bike lines touted as representing the future of cycling with a taste of the past: the Madone, Top Fuel, and the Procaliber SL. Running the gamut from mountain to cross-country to road, they’re forays into the old and new of cycling, with cutting-edge updates in both cases

The Madone line represents a high-tech fusion of power, aerodynamics, ride quality and integration; Top Fuel, on the other hand is a look back at what made the original Trek mountain bike such an aggressively high-quality machine, updated and refined with modern, sophisticated approaches. Procaliber SL, finally, celebrates what made Procaliber the original envy of other cross-country brands, with updated speed capabilities and intelligent designs to match its robust backbone.

Here’s a look at the details of each.

Madone

Image: Trek
Image: Trek

The first thing you might notice about the Madone series of bikes is its new, advanced aerodynamics. In both the wind tunnel and on the pavement, the Madone tested out with minimal drag. It’s a feature accentuated by another selling point, namely its ride-tuned performance. No matter what a rider’s size or weight, the Madone is designed to deliver a balance of speed, power and handling.

With fully integrated brakes, its wide BB90 bottom bracket, an aerodynamically-designed bar/stem combo, and even a compact integration of water bottle placement with frame, the Madone appears designed to slice through headwinds like a hot knife through butter. It incorporates a good deal of design elements borrowed from endurance bikes, and the simplicity of that design hides some key features — literally. With its cables and housing integrated into the frame construction, Trek says, 40 grams of drag in all are saved.

Top Fuel

Image: Trek
Image: Trek

Reintroduced and attuned to racing, Top Fuel’s advanced frame geometry is designed to make optimum use of the design’s physics — whether that design uses 27.5″ wheels, as it does on 15.5″ frames, or 29er wheels on every size from 17.5″ and up.

Wider hub spacing, internal derailleur mounting, a tapered E2 head tube, and its alpha platinum aluminum construction, intended for maximum strength with minimum weight, make the Top Fuel line of bikes as lighweight and sturdy as they are fast.

Procaliber SL

Image: Trek
Image: Trek

Finally, there’s Procaliber. Like the Top Fuel line, Procaliber bikes also make use of wider 148 mm rear and 110 mm front hub spacing, permitting wider tires to be used with shorter chainstays, more chainring options, and importantly for the cross-country trek, stronger, less flexible wheels. With an advanced frame like the Top Fuel, coupled with a custom offset fork, high-speed stability is available even at low speeds.

Incorporating OCLV Mountain Carbon into its design, the Procaliber line is also compatible with Di2 electronic drivetrains, with carbon armor and a fully integrated head tube.