I have been away from racing for over 10 years now,
I am at a point in my life when I am able to start again, so that being said I am looking to get a new TT bike for myself for some events.
( I am fortunate enough where I still road bike 200 plus miles a week so I am still in “cycling shape”)
With my oldest kid being in college at the moment I am not able to stop at the local bike shop and drop down $13K for the latest and greatest TT bike models out there right now.
I am looking at the Trek Speed Concept models, and I see all sorts of different designations on them
project 1 etc etc
I want to stay with a rim brake bike because I have a few good sets of carbon wheels for them.
I would like to stay with a di2 11 speed groupset since I have an extra one here
so what should I be looking for as far as models are concerned ?
I would like to get something slightly better than the entry model offered in the lineup
Currently I have a BMC Timemachine Road TMR01 as my everyday road bike, so I would like the TT bike to be on the same level as that but of course not a brand new model
thanks for any help clarifying the differences between the Trek Speed Concept models
The Gen 1 (Original SC) or Gen 2 models have rim brakes. You probably don’t want to go as far back as the Gen 1, though nice examples of these show up from time to time. The issue with both for you is that they utilize proprietary stems for fine tuning fit. The Gen1 stems are pretty much impossible to find at the extreme ends of the fit ranges and it appears the same availability issue has been occurring with the Gen 2 stems. I’d recommend getting your size picked and taking a look at what stem you’ll need to hit your fit coordinates.
The Gen 1 model had frame (US carbon and overseas carbon) and cockpit (proprietary and standard stems) variations that made for a number of options. The Gen 2 SC models were reduced to where I think all the frames were the same (produced overseas) and the only difference was in the components. The other limitation on Gen 2 is that Trek went from two post aero extensions to a mono-post. Again, lots of proprietary parts required. The mono-extensions were limited to what Trek offered. This was improved later with a mono-extension adapter that allowed the use of any aftermarket 22.2mm extension. These mono-adapters can be very hard to come by. I did see one advertised here in the classifieds the other day.
The Project 1 models you have seen were the base bike with customization such as paint scheme and components. Otherwise there is really no difference from the standard models.
I think that’s the basics. I had two SC Gen 1’s in the house and am very familiar with wrenching on them. No experience with Gen 2 other that what I’ve seen with friends or online. Not a huge number of differences. The brake adjustment and cabling can be annoying. There is also a speedfin cover for the rear brake that gets a lot of complaints. I’m sure others can chime in with more Gen 2 firsthand experience.
thank you for the detailed reply
so after gen 2 they were no longer available with rim brakes ?
and what year did gen 2 start ?