Do any of you have an opinion on the Trek Y-foil?
Only person I know who had one was Andrew Coggan. If he doesn’t weigh in, shoot him an email.
Loved mine for 4 seasons including an ironman, pretty stiff allot stiffer than a softride would feel. But nice flex and fast.
tfun~
I don’t know, perhaps others can chime in here, but I think the Y-foil was a mismarketed bike, and had some potential in the tri market. I actually borrowed one for Ironhorse (2000) and though I wasn’t as steep as I normally ride, it was a smooth riding rig. Take something like that today, with carbon technology advancement (make it thinner like the new Felt’s), steepen the seat angle (or make it widely adjustable), and market it to the longer distance triathlete, and you might have something. Of course, that is a pretty small market 
It wouldn’t catch on with roadies, as they ride what the pros ride, and pros didn’t ride the Y-Foil. So it just never really took off.
It was an odd bike that may have been better than the engineers originally intended. One poster on here who is an excellent local age grouper uses one, I think his username is styrrel99 I think.
Only person I know who had one was Andrew Coggan. If he doesn’t weigh in, shoot him an email.
No need, I’ll weigh in.
Likes: handling/geometry (i.e., not-too-high b.b., just the right amount of trail, relatively long top tube, slack seat tube angle), b.b. stiffness, aerodynamics
Dislikes: only one H2O bottle mount, paint cracks, dorkiness factor
In 2002 I ditched the Y Foil in favor of a Cervelo Soloist, which with the exception of steering quickness has all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of my former bike. That doesn’t stop me from lusting after a Soloist Carbon, though…
First I like that you mention that Trek has engineers in plural. I’m not sure how many other companies besides Cervelo has multiple engineers.
But what did you mean by this?
“…that may have been better than the engineers originally intended.”
I always thought that the design was just …well, pretty stupid looking…it may be a fine bike…I just did not like the thing visually.
Do any of you have an opinion on the Trek Y-foil?
Hello Tom,
Yep that me. I like it, but at least partly because I got it cheap and i like weird stuff. It does seem to have a decent amount of flex (comfort). Mine has been pretty highly modified. I have a different fork, which is shorter than the original (the original fork is very long when compared to most forks). I cant say that I notice poor handling with the new fork. I’m set up pretty far forward and low. No real problems, but I’ve never ridden a true forward designed tri bike to compare it with.
Styrrell
Tom,
Was this sort of a stab at a beam bike…?
Was it mismarketed or did the UCI kill it? I thought that when the UCI banned non triangle framed bikes, Trek dropped development.
out of curiosity, is the frame alot heavier than a standard aluminum or carbon frame?
Hello,
I don’t remember the exact weight, but its not a tank. I think the weight of a medium size frame w/o fork is about 3-3.5 pounds.
Styrrell
You also have to keep in mind that this was a few year ago, so it’s not really fair to compare it to today’s frames. Who knows what would have been possible with another 5 years of development. It’s a pity the UCI banned it. I can see banning things like fairings and limiting dimensions, but merely banning something because it looks different seemed a bit luddite.