New Trek Madone spotted at Critérium du Dauphiné

Trek-Segafredo riders race on a brand new aero bike in France.

(Photo: MatosVelo.fr)

Published June 5, 2022 07:39AM

A new Trek Madone has broken cover at the Critérium du Dauphiné WorldTour stage race. First spotted by the French website MatosVelo.fr, the new bike features a remarkable new design including a split seat tube.

Speculation on the development of a new Madone has grown in recent months, with an official launch now looking increasingly likely ahead of the Tour de France starting On July 1. Now, as Trek-Segafredo begins its ramp-up to the Tour, Trek has decided to begin in-race testing, confirming both the existence of the new bike and a forthcoming launch.

While photos are understandably scarce of the still unconfirmed new bike, what we can see is a complete redesign of Trek’s dedicated aero bike. As is almost the norm for new aero bikes now, Trek has opted to significantly increase the surface area at both the head tube and bottom bracket areas to improve aerodynamics. Trek has also increased the depth of the downtube and forks in addition to developing a new aero one-piece cockpit.

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Unquestionably the most interesting element of the new design is a form of split seat tube. Rather than running directly from the bottom bracket onto a seat post and onto the saddle, Trek has dropped the seat post, leaving a significant gap below the top tube and between the seat stays. Trek has shunned a move to dropped seat stays, as is so often seen in modern aero designs, and instead the seat stays run directly into the top tube. This in turn houses a seat mast and seat post design as used in previous Trek road bikes.

The design leaves the seat post and saddle suspended behind the top tube: seat stays junction. While we await further details from Trek on the exact benefits of this new design, it seems reasonable to speculate that the new setup offers some level of improved comfort and seems to replace Trek’s IsoSpeed decoupler feature that has become so familiar with Trek bikes. Given the Madone’s aero heritage, it seems likely Trek might also have found some aero advantage from the new seat post design.

We will bring you more on the new Madone as we have it.

Critérium du Dauphiné Lidl-Trek

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