Most innovation in the bike industry over recent years has come in the trail bike and long-travel categories, but does this mean companies have given up on the XC race crowd? Not Trek – in 2009 they have one of the most radical looking XC racers we’ve seen in years.
The new Top Fuel sports a semi integrated seat mast, partially inspired by its roadie equivalent, the Madone. With an all up weight for the 9.9 World Cup of just over 21lbs, Trek has worked seriously hard to get the weight down, and has had to come up with some small, but well thought out innovations to get there.
Bottom bracket and headset bearings are press fit, but sit on carbon races rather than heavier aluminium ones, and the BB90 bottom bracket allows racers to more closely mimic the narrower Q-factor of their road bikes.
The bike looks great, but unfortuntely samples are limited to pro bikes at the moment. We probably won’t get the opportunity to ride one until Interbike, but we’ll bring you the lowdown of all the new tech in the September issue of MBR.