Trek Madone 6.9

Trek Madone 6.9

Components: Shimano Dura-Ace

Wheels: Bontrager Aeolus 5.0

Sizes (cm): 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62

Look up ‘The Lance Effect’ in a dictionary and what you should find is a photo of the Trek Madone road bike. There likely has never been a bicycle as linked to a professional rider as the Madone line is with seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

Having ridden Treks for so long, Armstrong has become synonymous with the Madison, Wisconsin brand. But rather than just sit back and soak up the benefits of this partnership, Trek has long used its relationship with Armstrong and his ProTour teams to push the technology envelope in its bikes.

Each variation of the Trek bikes Armstrong rode to victory in the Tour ended up trickling down to the average consumer not long after. When Armstrong lined up for the 2009 Tour start in Monaco, he and his teammates did so on completely redesigned Madones, which are now available to the public.

Trek claims the 2010 Madone 6 Series is the most technologically advanced bike ever made. It’s a big claim, but hard to argue with. Named after one of Armstrong’s favourite training hills in Spain – Col de la Madone – the new frame went through 70 variations before the design team was happy with what it had.

The USA-produced Madone frame is built using Trek’s new OCLV2 carbon, an update of the carbon process Trek has perfected since the late 1990s. Integration plays a big role, with the bearing cups at the head tube and bottom bracket being molded directly into the carbon. For the bottom bracket, this allows the Madone to have a 90mm width, rather than the standard 68mm, making for a significantly stiffer design in a key area on the bike.

There’s fully internal cable routing for either standard drive trains or Shimano’s Di2 system, and what Trek calls the DuoTrap sensor, a computer receiver built into the left chainstay. It works with ANT+ wireless computers and measures speed, distance and cadence.

The head tube accepts the matching Bontrager Race XXX Lite fork, which has also undergone an overhaul. It still has a tapered design going from 1 1/8^” to 1 ½”, but it features an ovular shape that is narrower front to back and wider side to side, which stiffens the front end of the bike, despite being lighter than the 2009 model by about 30g. The frame itself also lost about 150g from the previous generation.

All of the 6 series Madones are available through Trek’s Project One program, where you can customize everything from frame colours to drive train options to frame sizes and designs. The lower-spec’d 6.5 with an Ultegra build costs around $ 5,200 and our 6.9 test model, built up with the 2010 Shimano Dura-Ace build, came in at around $ 9,699. That’s not a bad price for a sub-15-pound bike with the race pedigree of the Madone.

There’s no question Trek has produced a more race-ready Madone for 2010. This is clearly a bike designed to be pushed to its limits. The frame comes in three fit platforms: Pro for a more race-oriented feel; Performance, which has a slightly taller head tube for a more comfortable ride; and WSD, a women-specific design similar to the Pro, but with a shorter top tube and wheelbase and a taller head tube.

We rode a Pro Fit model, and as with previous generations, handling is precise and confident no matter how fast you might try to take a corner. The improved stiffness is noticeable, which some people might take as a less smooth ride, but it’s worth it when you stomp the pedals coming out of a corner and feel like the bike can always handle more power. This also creates a bike that climbs better than previous generations, even with the rebadged HED wheels our 6.9 came with.

Lance Armstrong clearly has put Trek on the map over the past decade, but the Wisconsin company has kept up its end of the bargain – continually producing some of the top bikes in the world. The 2010 Madone is no exception.

::GEARBOX
Madone 6.9 – $9,699
Trek
12003