Trek Lush SL29

Trek Lush SL29

The Trek website boasts that the brand sells more women-specific bikes each year than any other bike manufacturer. Fair enough. Trek is one of the world’s biggest bike manufacturers and has savvy and powerful marketing machine behind it.

But it’s refreshing to see that the Lush 29 SL, Trek’s singletrack/trail offering in their Women’s Specific Design (WSD) line, is more than an exercise in market segmentation. Trek have incorporated all their best design and technological features into a frame and suspension set that delivers what their female consumers are looking for: fun, confidence, and comfort.

Trek have also put thought into the smaller touches, like paint and finish, to deliver a bike that looks feminine without resorting to typical girly details. The real success of Trek’s marketing, it seems to me, is their artfully simple communication of design features drawing their prospective riders’ attention away from, ahem, circular debates about wheel size and gearing choices, and back to what’s really important – frame and suspension technology.

It takes more than big wheels and travel to inspire confidence, particularly, I think, for women like me who might have less strength and body weight to throw around, and can struggle to manoeuvre 29-inch trailbikes. I first rode the Lush down an unseen, tight technical trail of roots, rocks, stairs, logs – you name it – following behind a bunch of boys who weren’t particularly interested in waiting around. I managed to ride with them and even clean some stuff they walked and I felt great.

I’ve ridden other 29-inch trailbikes before and not been so successful, but the Lush’s very responsive low- speed handling and excellent suspension technology set it apart. This handling comes down to Trek’s custom G2 frame geometry and offset fork – designed so you can have your 29-inch cake and eat it too.

Although custom offset forks are nothing new, a big offset of 51mm means Trek can offer a bike with a longer wheelbase and a slacker head angle of 69 degrees (for stability), that can also make it through the tight stuff, as the offset fork makes the steering more responsive. This can also be coupled with a very short stem, which can also speed steering up. The QR15 front thru axle also contributed to the solid feel of the front-end, and should of course be standard on this sort of bike at this price point.

Where suspension is concerned Fox’s 120mm CTD (Climb, Trail, Descend) forks are always dependable and I think the three settings cover all bases, although I can’t say I know anyone who uses them for climbing, trail riding or descending, as such. On this ride (and most others with CTD forks) I used the full lockout only when climbing out of the saddle on bitumen, the trail setting for fire road and long climbs, and full throttle the rest of the time.

The Lush is fitted with a Fox DRCV (Dual Rate Control Valve) shock with a smaller air chamber to handle small bumps, but which opens up to a second chamber for more volume at 50 percent compression. This means you get great performance over small, medium, and big bumps.

Certainly I felt that the shock performed very well, with great comfort over small bumps, where lighter female riders often get a bit short- changed by larger-volume shocks that are designed to soak up the sorts of obstacles that can scare you, but virtually motionless over the sort of terrain that gives you blisters.

What’s more, the rear suspension was reasonably efficient when pedaling, both in and out of the saddle.

Suspension performance is also smoothed out by Trek’s Active Braking Pivot – designed to keep the bike’s suspension active under braking, so that theoretically you can brake later and less because your bike is absorbing more and you have greater control. I found this most noticeable at highish speed, particularly coming into corners over medium size bumps or rocks.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that, although a little on the heavy side, the Lush climbed well, largely thanks to a vast expanse of available gears – in fact, the triple chainrings (42/32/24) were more than enough – I barely used little ring at all.

Women’s bike manufacturers seem rather preoccupied with clearance – the room you have between your pelvis and the frame when you’re standing over it, and seem determined to give women as much clearance as possible.

This never really makes sense to me, as women tend to have longer legs and shorter torsos than men, anyway – and seems to hark back to the old-fashioned ladies’ step-through frames designed to be ridden in skirts.

The Lush SL’s hydro-formed alloy frame has a sharply curved top tube, very unlike its unisex cousin, the Fuel EX 9. Apart from making it easier for you to mount and dismount in a skirt, this lowers the bike’s centre of gravity and gives it tremendously good balance on both descents and climbs.

Getting the seat post out of the way is probably more important than frame clearance when it comes to confidence and manoeuvrability downhill, and the RockShox Reverb dropper post with stealth routing provides 125mm height adjustment, hydraulically operated via a neat handlebar remote.

Trek’s components manufacturer Bontrager make some excellent quality parts and I found the XR3 Expert tyres had the right amount of grip, the Evoke 2 WSD saddle was comfy (and not overpadded), and the 15mm riser ’bars were the right width to provide leverage, without making me feel like a five-year-old trying to drive a tractor.

The Bontrager Duster Rims stood up to the unrelenting abuse that a 55kg female XC rider can dish out, and are tubeless ready – I’d highly recommend running a tubeless set-up if you can.

It’s harder and harder, I think, to make bikes look different and interesting, and this is compounded in women’s bikes, where manufacturers are typically tempted by the siren’s call of pink, white, purple, and flower decals.

The Lush SL is a bold, bright, and quite distinctive shade of green with white details. The colour of the frame really grew on me, but unfortunately I returned the testbike to Trek with a brown saddle and grips.

For ladies looking for an all-round trailbike, I think the Trek Lush SL 29 is hard to beat.With a superb fit and by incorporating some really smart design features, it inspires the confidence and delivers the fun it promises – and more.

Bike Specs