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I am seriously not digging Trek right now...
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As most of my faithful stalkers are aware, I refuse to pass final judgement on a bicycle until I've seen one in person.
And as a select few of you unfortunate souls may remember, I didn't like the Equinox line from the begining. From the TT frame re-painted and passed off as a "tri-bike" to the round seattubed, giant headtubed, ugly colored frames of last year. Well, this year I was pleasently suprised with the new frame design and choice of colors.
Well, final judgement. I finally was wandering around the Trek lbs today, and I bumped into the Trek Equinox 7.
Can't say as I liked it in the least. The welds were sloppy and choppy. The paint is sub-par, and the components looked like they were picked and mixed together in an old fashioned blender. The frame looks like an actual Frankenbike with part welded and glued eveyr which way but up.
I respect Trek as a company. I have nothing bad to say about 90% of their products. Their OCLV line is incredible to say the least, but this tri-line insults me as a triathlete. It's as if saying, thanks to all the triathletes for your business in the past, but you don't really deserve a second look.
It doesn't look like a market researched project. It more resembles a consolation prize for a jr. high spelling bee.
Why am I writing this? Well, it would have come out eventually. Someone would have talked about how their lbs says this is such a great bike and they wanted input. And I would have been happy to re-inform them. My question is, what's the deal here? Am I overlooking something important? Should I cut them some slack? Good gracious.
Last edited by: Ze Gopha: Feb 23, 05 20:22
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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Trek may have done well to avoid a substantial investment in the triathlon category at a time when it has become very crowded, there are already key player well established and they are heavily invested elsewhere such as in the family IBD market and their fine OCLV road bike line.

Trek is smart. They know which battles to pick, which to leave alone. I think they went for some represenatation in the tri market so their dealers would have at least some kind of product to floor, but they didn't break the bank trying to bust the category wide open.

When you look at the total number of SKU's in Trek's line, triathlon is a bug on the windshield to them.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Tom Demerly] [ In reply to ]
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I don't understand Toms argument or Treks strategy.

It's not expensive to build a good tribike. Trek could have used a standard trigeometrie aluminium frame and put decent components on it. Design could have been taken from the roadbikes.

But even with theyr roadbikes I dont understand trek anymore. I ride 2 treks among my five bikes (a fuel 90 and a 1400 roadbike which is a speced down 1500 for the european market).

Both are no-nonsense bikes, bought for best value. They are working great and big sellers. Nobody around here would even consider a roadbike with this strange pseudoaero seattube. People still buy the 5500 for its classic look and unquestionable performance, but the Madone stays in the exhibitions.

Same with the tribikes, if I want an ugly bike, there is softride among others. Why not just build a roundtube classic-looking trigeometrie bike for a resonable price with dependable components?
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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Why should Trek bother with tri-bikes when they see every fat man with 5k in his pocket wants a P3? Those that want to be like Lance will by the Trek regardless of looks fit and everything else.
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not a serious triathlete, but I was looking to build up a fairly serious TT bike on the cheap. I was looking at a P2k as the platform, but then I saw the new Equinox 9 on the Trek website. My LBS got me a price on it $1,000 less than the P2k.

I took delivery last week.

I wish I'd spent the extra $1,000. The bike is exactly as Ze Gopha says. I'm supposed to be the proud owner. I just hope I can make it go fast. Then I won't care what it looks like anymore.

Bob C.
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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I've seen trek introduce a weak line before (the urban asualt trend). That was a few years ago and now the bike in that catagory have imroved substantially. They seem to toss a bone to the masses demanding a product while they work on something better. I would expect to see a full on aero carbon Tri bike from them in the next two years... of course this may be delayed depending on how long Lance keeps racing on a Trek. They have their R&D hands full with him right now.
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ze Gopha] [ In reply to ]
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What are you basing your evaluation on? On sight? What are your credentials? Have you ridden the bike? Do you have any relevant data to back up what you say? You cant give a review without any relevant data. And how could you say a bike is so bad (Trek TT = Equinox 11) if it was used to win 5 TDF's?


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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ed in IL] [ In reply to ]
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He's not talking about the Equinox 11, he's talking about the aluminum models in the line. And the 11 has TT gemotery, not triathlon geomtery...it's not necessarily a great choice for those of us who have to run after the bike.
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Uncle Phil] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
He's not talking about the Equinox 11, he's talking about the aluminum models in the line. And the 11 has TT gemotery, not triathlon geomtery...it's not necessarily a great choice for those of us who have to run after the bike.
You dont get the point! Hes making an evaluation without really evaluating the products. And the 9 is basically the 11 in Aluminum. Not sure about the 11 geometry but thought it was steeper than most road bikes, which would be good for those of us who are best suited for a slacker geometry. I was at 76 degrees, then I was fitted and moved back to 74 degrees and am now faster in bike and run.


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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [adal] [ In reply to ]
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It's a question of ROI:

Return on Investment. Should Trek put resources into development of a highly competitive, niche market that is relatively low margin, or devote the same resources to other product categories that are less competitive and more profitable such as child helmets, trailers, MTB's, etc. Trek already leverages significant brand equity on those categories, but posts and threads like this validate that their brand equity in the niche triathlon market is dubious at best.

Why go through the thickest part of the hedge?

Trek can put the resources in easier places to make more money. If it takes 60% of your resouces to capture 80% of your intended market, it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend the remaining 40% of your resources to capture the remaining 20% of the market- your ROI suffers. Basic battlefield strategy: Pick your battles, live to fight another day.

Trek is smart.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: I am seriously not digging Trek right now... [Ed in IL] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not making a snap judgement with out all the facts. I don't have all of them, but in my opinion I have more than enough to form a logical conclusion.

First off, the Equinox 9 and 11 are not exactly the same. The frameset for Equinox 7 and 9 are the same. Cheap aluminum. In medium tri-geometry. It is punk ass ugly. The welds stick out every which way. I will admit, I could have jsut witnessed a few bad examples, but quality control should have snatched these at the door.

My beef with the eleven. One, it is not steeper than most road bikes. Check the numbers, it's pretty much identical. Two. It's the TT frame. Trek just bumbed down the component spec, put some new decals on it, and called it a tri-bike. It's not. It was designed to be a Lance Armstrong TT bike, and that is what it will always be. I'm not dissing the frame quality. Like I said before, Trek OCLV is very nice stuff.
What I'm insulted by is the aluminum joke and the low-end components.
I've always been impressed by Trek's road bikes (even the aluminum ones.) Their attention to detail, build, and quality was great. I almost bought a 1200 a couple years ago. I am disappointed that this quality didn't carry over into their tri line.
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