As some of you may remember, last April I had the serendipitous good fortune of sitting next to Steve Malchow, a director of engineering at Trek, on a flight from Denver to Burbank. We talked shop, I gave him feedback on all the Trek, LeMond and Bontrager products I’ve ridden over the years, and I mentioned (maybe 3 or 4 times) how stoked I was about the new LeMond triomphe framesets ... and that I ride a 51cm.
We exchanged a few e-mails over the summer and then in late August, voila - a gorgeous red & white Buenos Aires frameset appeared. The SKU sticker on the bike revealed it had been built two days prior -- now that’s service! Anyway, I built it up and started riding it in time to race it at the Gateway Cup and on some longer rides here in L.A this past fall.
In short, these bikes rock. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nobody knows how to build carbon bikes as well as the folks in Waterloo, Wisconsin.
The Trek 5500 OCLV bike I rode in ‘03 was the best bike I’d ridden up until that point, and after I did a fitting and went to a smaller bike, I was really bummed the geometry didn’t work for me anymore. I rode some great bikes in the meantime, but nothing could quite match that ride. Then came the Triomphe.
It wasn’t completely love at first ride, but close. Three things were very noticeable:
1) The power transfer on the bike is amazing. When I stomped on the pedals at the Gateway Cup races I was accelerating so much faster.
2) Ohh myy lightness. I typically ride bikes around the 18lb weight range, because frankly, I prefer durability and I don’t really notice 1 or 2 lbs on the Midwest terrain. If I want to shave weight and feel faster, I’ll race a set of carbon wheels. But on this bike, the light weight combined with the great power transfer has a serious “WOW” factor. I'm pretty sure I had a big cheesy grin on my face the first few rides I did in the mountains around L.A.
3) Comfort. 4 or 5 hours later nothing hurts anymore than it should. It’s really tough to pull off a comfortable ride if you achieve numbers 1 & 2, but they did it.
There was one pretty significant issue for me though, the fit. I like to ride with my bars at least 10 or 11cm lower than my seat, and the head tubes on the Triomphe’s are pretty tall. I struggled to dial in that perfect fit and thus, after my initial 6-week run with the 51cm, I ended up swapping it out for a 49cm frameset. (You can check out fellow ABD’er Matt Wenc aboard the 51cm machine). Since the switch, I don’t even think about the bike, which is as I should it be - you just ride it. However, there are three significant customizations I’ve done that have helped attributed to a great ride:
Serfas Furano Saddle: Another product I know I’ve raved about before, but this really is a fantastic saddle. Right out of the box it feels perfect, and the long profile provides a lot of adjustability.
Bontrager FIT VR bars: I’m not ashamed to admit that I ride bars designed for Women. They make it really easy to shift and reach the brakes when you’re in the drops, and since I’m only so flexible, I like having a less drastic change from my tops to my hoods to my bars.
Bontrager X-Lite Fork (see pics above): I went with the lighter version of the Bontrager Fork that they spec on the Madones. It has the carbon crown and tracks really well at high speeds and railing through turns.
So, although due to my geometry issues I can't ride the same great looking Madone SL bikes as my teammates, at least now it feels the same!
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