31/7/06 Trek 07 Suspension Launch

Last week I headed up to Shropshire for the day to test ride the 2007 suspension range for Trek and Gary Fisher. Held at the venue for the Bontrager 12/24 event on the following weekend, we got to ride the bikes around the course, and get a really good feel for them.

The day started with the bikes' designers themselves, who had come over from Trek's headquarters in Wisconsin, explaining to us first hand the science and ideas behind the new designs. Then, fully knowledged up, we set out on the hottest day of the year to do laps around the course on each of the new bikes.

The changes to the Trek range are fairly straightforward, with the Fuel and Fuel EX both still present, but having an inch of travel added, so they are now 4" and 5" respectively. The geometry has been designed to make the Fuel more of a fast race bike, and the Fuel EX an all-round trail bike.

The bike I was most excited about though was the new HiFi from Gary Fisher. As with the Fuel EX it's a 5" trail bike, and has a new take on the Genesis geometry that is present on all the Gary Fishers. Called Genesis 2 (obviously!), it incorporates a specially designed fork from Manitou that adjusts the offset of the fork (distance it sticks out from the headtube) to make the feel of the bike much more snappy and easier to steer in singletrack (technical diagrams and formulae available upon request). The outcome of this though, most importantly, was that it rode great!

We're really pleased to see two new 5" travel trail bikes, as this is probably the most versatile platform for the average trail rider, especially in the North Downs, and really liked the ride of both bikes, particularly the HiFi. We'll be getting both bikes in as test bikes later this year, in both the men and women's versions, and look forward to riding them some more.

-Dan