Spotted: the New Trek Speed Concept
images by Nick Salazar
Aug 5, 2013  hits 96,782

The 2014 Trek Speed Concept looks like an excellent revision to Trek's category-defining Superbike.
The 2014 Trek Speed Concept looks like an excellent revision to Trek's category-defining Superbike.
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Trek launched its new Speed Concept bike suddenly, without warning, and without much fanfare. In fact, virtually none of its major pro athletes are currently riding the bike, even though the bike is officially available for purchase already. When we saw this brightly-colored jewel sitting in the transition racks at the 2013 edition of Boulder 70.3, we couldn't resist getting a closer look. After looking up the race bib, it turns out this bike was being ridden by Ben Delaney, editor for Bike Radar. He's almost certainly working on his own review of this particular bike, but I'm still waiting for mine to arrive. So I figured there was no harm in taking a few photos of Bem's sample and let you fine readers know what's going on with Trek's most beautiful piece of triathlon hardware. Enjoy.



Tags » boulder703,  speedconcept,  trek
  • The 2014 Trek Speed Concept looks like an excellent revision to Trek's category-defining Superbike.
  • Perhaps the most obvious changes occurred to the aerobar. The single centered spacer, and the mono extension is a striking new way to make an aerobar, and actually looks quite a bit like the 'PX Prototype' we saw in Kona a couple years ago. The frontal profile here is TINY, and the bar looks simply awesome.
  • Here's the bike cut out from the rest of the image, to show you how TINY that awesome frontal profile is. The original Speed Concept was already as skinny as they come, but the new version has managed to shed even more unneeded material. Interestingly, this is nearly identical to what the 'PX prototype' we saw a couple years in Kona looked like.
  • That aerobar has an absolutely huge airfoil, meaning it's probably as fast as they come in the wind tunnel. Trek has also lost the upturns on the brake grip, which I think is an excellent choice. This bar is VERY intriguing, and I can't wait to get my hands on one.
  • The Monolink extension looks like it has some tangible benefits of reduced frontal area, ease of maintaining symmetrical adjustment, and a more secure mechanical link with the aerobar itself. The drawbacks are that you can only use the extensions Trek makes, and there's no roll adjustment.
  • The new bar/stem interface is as clean as ever, and it looks like there's more room to work with, making it easier to stuff cables and wires into the cavity provided. You can also see that extension tilt is achieved by virtue of the spacer's top profile, rather than the tiny cylindrical mechanism of the previous Speed Concept. This likely makes it easier to lock in the tilt adjustmebt, likely requires less torque, and again keeps your adjustments symmetrical across both extensions. This is GREAT thinking on Trek's part. I'm getting more jazzed up about this bike by the minute. Yeah, I make a competitive product in the Alpha aerobar, but I can still praise the heck out of good design when I see it, even while recognizing my own biases.
  • My biggest question is why there's this weird gap between the fork crown and the down tube. If you're making a tri-specific fork, why not clean up this area?
  • The new Draft Box is bigger than its predecessor, allowing more room for spare stuff. It also has a new mounting system, which looks easier and more secure than the original.
  • The bigger Draft Box comes at the expense of more frontal area, but Trek claims it's actually faster to use the box than to leave it off the bike.
  • The seatpost has been completely revised, moving to a dual-bolt setup from the simple single-bolt side-address of the previous post. Not sure why Trek changed this, since the older version worked so well (it might have to do with shedding weight). I'll reserve judgment until I get my own bike.
  • Of course, one thing that was never going to change was Trek's use of its KVF, or Kammtail Virtual Foil design. Trek has revised the shapes, but the overall philosophy remains the same: truncate the airfoil to save weight, add stiffness, and comply with UCI frame dimension rules, all while making a bike that's insanely fast.
  • This bike was tricked out with Campagnolo Record EPS, the top-end electronic group from Campy, complete with this ridiculously awesome-looking Bora crank.

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