Curtains lift on new Trek mountain bikes

There has been a long running media campaign by Trek, involving the Trek Factory Racing Team, both off road and on, with the curious #bearwitness hashtag attached. Spy photos have been leaked, and quite often we had great photos available of the bikes. But no details. No confirmed weights, size options, ride details, or even specifics on what might be available to mere mortals like ourselves.

Earlier in the year, tech geek Wil Barrett took a pretty good stab at what he thought might be going on with the new full-suspension bike Dan McConnell used at the Oceania Champs and National Championships. He surmised, correctly, that what we were looking at might be the new Top Fuel – a marquee retired by Trek when the Superfly FS came out.

But we also saw some new hardtails in use too. This wasn’t always noticeable, but there would be a few photos here and there that showed what looked to be an IsoSpeed decoupler in front of the seat tube – like the Domane road bikes and Boone ‘cross bikes use to reduce the forces transferred from the rear wheel to the rider. Last week I took a good stab at what I thought might be going on with the whole #bearwitness campaign.

The Top Fuel and Procaliber are reborn

It turns out both Wil and I were fairly close to guessing what was going on. Trek have released a new full-suspension XC bike, called the Top Fuel, and the hardtail does have an IsoSpeed decoupler, and is called the Procaliber, a model name that should ring some bells with Gary Fisher fans, especially from the 90s. Both bikes run the new wider hubbed Boost standard, and the smallest 15.5″ frame sizes come in 27.5″ wheels, while 17.5″ and up are 29″.

Studying the Top Fuel

The Top Fuel is still a 100mm travel cross-country oriented mountain bike. Trek have employed their Smart Wheel Size program, which just means the wheel size matches bike size. So bikes 17.5″ up are 29″, and the 15.5″ frame has 27.5″ wheels. The hub spacing adopts the Boost standard of 110mm front hub spacing and 148mm rear. It allows extra stiffness, and more manipulation of the chainstay length to get them nice and short, thanks to the Boost chainline moving 3mm outboard with specific cranks yoo.

The Top Fuel now replaces the Superfly FS as well, and comes in both alloy and carbon fibre models. It uses an EVO link to mount to a Full Floater chainstay, like on the Fuel EX range. This is different to the Superfly setup, which has a swing link and fixed shock mount. The Top Fuel shock is mounted onto two moving points. In this way, the Trek suspension engineers can fine tune the spring rate much better to cope with a greater variety of terrain. In short, they can do more with less. The use of the Active Braking Pivot design also helps isolate braking forces from the suspension, so the bike stays active even under hard braking.

Geometry is still G2, with a custom offset fork. The bikes are fairly long and low, but that’s in keeping with G2. Chainstays are nice and short at 432mm on the 29ers (433 in the low BB setting, see below).

Borrowing from other models, the Top Fuel also uses the Mino-Link at the seatstay/EVO link junction. So you can change the head angle by half a degree, and drop the bottom bracket height by 8mm. This is perfect for tuning the bike to your terrain, or race venue. Smooth and fast? Go low for stability. Rocky as all get out? Get some height and pedal clearance, and sharper steering.

The frame uses the neatly coined term “Control Freak” cable routing, allowing for internal cables and hoses, and a very neat Di2 setup if that’s how you roll. There are also ports for stealth dropper posts.

There’s a Women’s specific WSD model available, plus discerning buyers can choose a Project One custom paint scheme and parts spec on the carbon model. There’s also a frame option available.

Prices: 

Climb the podium with the Procaliber SL

More recently we’ve seen the new Trek hardtail under riders in XCO races. While it showed the really neat Control Freak cable system, and has the same Smart Wheel Size program as the Top Fuel, and Boost spacing for the wheels – it also uses the IsoSpeed decoupler, similar to that used on the Domane road bikes that the Trek Factory Racing team favours for the cobbled classics.

The Procaliber SL uses a decoupler that has been specifically designed for off-road use, as it uses a regular 31.6mm seat post, not a ride-tuned seat mast like on the road bikes and Boone ‘cross bike. The Procaliber isn’t a soft tail. It’s still a hardtail, and doesn’t have a shock system which would move it towards a soft tail. The IsoSpeed setup does allow for a lot of shock dissipation  and compliance through the seat tube, via controlled flex. But the seat stays and chain stays stay far more rigid, so the efficiency isn’t changed for pedalling.

The system doesn’t have ‘travel’, but it does have compliance. Trek claim up to 11mm of compliance depending on the rider, rider’s weight, size of the hit and other factors. This is about 30% more then the Superfly SL, or 70% more complaint than the standard Superfly bike. As an all-out XC race bike, that should be a noticeable difference. The frame weightis about 100g more than a Superfly SL, at 1012g in a 17.5″. But team riders say it’s worth it.

The geometry is G2, you can get the frame only, or go for a full Project One scheme.

Pricing

Do you still need more details? Then find your local Trek dealer and they can give you some precise information on when you can get one.