Rumors having to do with Trek making 29″ers have swirled about for the past three years. Last year I heard that by the 2011 model year, (or in about three months for Trek/Fisher) that Fisher would be a completely 29″er company and that Trek would be a completely 26″er company in terms of mountain bikes. However; that doesn’t really mean anything unless it actually happens. Rumors are…….well, rumors, and as such, sometimes we can not put too much stock into them.
My personal feeling is that Trek will do a 29′er someday, and that day is approaching faster by the minute. Take into consideration, if you will, the fact that Subaru/Gary Fisher Bike Team members brought home four National Championships and a bronze medal at World’s aboard 29″ers. Wouldn’t it make sense if you were a Trek Team rider that you might want to check the 29″er thing out at least? Consider the awkward situation that results every time Lance Armstrong uses his Superfly in Texas races, and the pictures come out on the internet of this fact. Wouldn’t it make sense for Trek to have Lance be able to ride a Trek 29″er? Or wouldn’t it make sense for Trek to have a racing 29″er for their team racers if those racers thought it would give them an edge? (Especially so when they start seeing Specialized, Orbea/Luna Chix, and other teams dabbling with big wheels).
But let’s also face facts on the other side of the coin. The 29′er market pales in comparison to 26″ers, and Europe, while seemingly wakening up to big wheels, is still the realm of the 26″er. Lance Armstrong won Leadville handily on a 26″er, this being arguably the most marketable mtb victory in the U.S.A. of 2009. The World Cup athletes dabbling in 29″ers will have to prove that it is more than a one time deal to be successful on 29″ers, or that it isn’t just a “Fisher thing”. All these things play into Trek sticking with 26 inch wheels.
Still, at least here in North America where the 29″er has gained a foot hold, the market is getting bigger and can not be ignored. Think of the hundreds of Trek dealers that are not Fisher dealers that could sell big wheels if Trek made them. Think of the possibilities Trek could bring to the table that are not being addressed by many other companies. Sub-grand bikes, full suspension designs, and an increased leverage on the OEM manufacturers to bring more 29″er product design to the fore front.
To me, it makes too much sense, that at least here in the U.S.A., Trek wouldn’t try this. I really believe that they will, then again, it could just as well not happen.
Trek will follow the money. Plain and simple.
I didn’t see it, but got the nod/wink treatment about an aluminum prototype 8000 floating around down south. My bet is a Seaotter release or mid summer at Trek world.
I agree with martini, SeaOtter release would make perfect sense.
We all know GF is a trek brand. Its like Toyota and Lexus, so it makes sense to me that Fisher stays 29er and trek with 26. However, I would love to see Trek bend the component market towards 29ers.
It definitely would of helped this year with almost every GF 29er sold out . Hopefully we’ll get a carbon Rumblefish for 2011 too.
A High mod carbon Trek Fuel 29er would be Hot.
I’m surprised that Trek hasn’t had some of their riders ride “prototype” bikes that are actually Fisher 29ers with Trek stickers on them – or maybe they have.
I agree with BigT, Trek might want to go the route of the Madonne but with 29er wheels and super uber advanced technologies. But that will be hard to top the already top of the line offerings that Fisher has in their line up.
I’m not anything of an industry insider, but GF and Trek sold 26ers side-by-side for years, so why not 29ers? It might not make sense financially for both brands to create competing designs. Maybe Trek should just to keep GF as the flagship for the cutting edge 29er stuff, to keep R&D costs focused, and then rebadge older models for their own label. So basically, GF keeps the high end of the market, but Trek gets to play in the mid to low end, which is where their bread and butter is anyway. As for the racers – well, just give them the bestest GF gear and change the logo to “Trek”. Call it a “team edition”. The parts all say “Bontrager” anyway. Oh yeah, and they let Lance race on a Litespeed, so it’s been done before.
Trek got burned with that “69″er contraption a few years back. My feeling is they’re letting us forget about that before they touch another 29 inch rim (even if this time it goes on BOTH ends).
By the way GT, I like how you refer to your country as “the U.S.A.,” and not the usual “America.” I mean, I live in America as well, just a lot closer to the equator!
“North America” to also include Canada! You get an A+ in geography!
Howcome a pretty much invitation-only race can have the most remarkable winner? A US bike rider beats another, off road. When did a US rider last score muchos in a significant MTB race, where riders from other countries also come, in representative numbers? With all due respect, outside the top-10, US riders would need to worry about getting lapped on the World Cup.
Lance’s ride in leadville was remarkable. That’s more a Lance thing than the people he beat. Let him take on Brentjes, Frischknecht and selection of other contemporaries. Throw in some young talents too. They won’t beat hem over 21 days of asphalt, but they have a realistic shot over 100 miles of off-roading.
Trek, I have given up on them. They are NOT in the business of making the best bikes possible. I am so relieved 69 didn’t catch on. Recently, the most famous webstore in my country had oen they couldn’t sell. Fox Fork, $$$ brakes, the works. EUR599, and it wouldn’t go. Eventually a guy on a forum broke down, he bought it. For parts, the fork covers most of his costs. The frame can be made into a lightweight 26″ dirtjumper with a 150mm fork by someone.
Take a step back, with any bike brand, and wonder “are they in the business of making the best bike they possibly could for their customers?”. If in doubt, DON’T buy from them. The bike bizz, however many millions Trek makes with 13-a-dozen bikes, is just not a serious business. There is no technological competition to mention. Look at cars. They actually try new things, or see if old ideas that didn’t work out, can be made to work with updated materials and techniques. Reviews or cars are a serious thing. You cannot come up with a car that comes to a stop too slowly, or takes too long to get to 100kph. Not against a similar car, of the same price.
It’s shocking to me, hwo mcuh I used to, and others still spend, of fundamentally, conceptually flawed bike products. Aren’t we hoping to buy the best?
“Dear LBS guy, I’ll settle for a mediocre bike for today the purchase I saved up for the past 2 years. Please throw in a few design flaws, a handful of compromises to ride quality, and please don’t give me one of those fun and safe ones this time, will you?”
Cloxxki-Chill my man. Trek has done a LOT for the sport of cycling. Your choosing to see the bad in everything. Trek makes some of the best bikes that you’ll ever see or ride. Your choice if you don’t wanna buy one, that’s fine. Several hundred thousand other people will because they make a great product. Are they the best at every single thing? I dunno, but they are in the discussion anyway.
Cloxxki those are some bizarre comments.
Trek 29ers…..who cares?…blah….
Thanks, glad to hear I still have my touch.
I don’t see it, all that great progress at Trek. Madone’s a fine bike, but for almost the same money, you can get a custom made frame, they way you want it, that weighs 300g less, and performs just as well.
I know their trekking bikes have been picking up pace, even advised an ex-gf to get one at the time. Not sure about the trend to get everyone on power-assisted bikes though.
I once almost bought a Trek 8000, but decided to save up for something nicer, another brand, more customized. Since, I’ve been under-impressed. I’ve distibuted for their main competitors in Europe, I’ve sold bikes as an LBS, the Trek thing never convinced me. I must add, that this goes for at least 90% of the brands out there, and perhaps 95% of all bike sales.
Fisher has been (barely) allowed to try out 29″, got minimal support, considering the name giver of the sport backed it so passionate from the start (granted, a WTB affair). Fisher was saved from being a supermarket B-level low-end brand, by offering 29″ers that are just great. And staying on top of things, with commisioning forks, updating geometries, big sale singlespeed bikes, etc. Not saying Fisher is doing all it could, but in comparison…wow!
Trek-brand Bontrager is doing great also. Offering 29″-specific tires now, how awesome is that? They’ve joined forces with Fisher after that one (or two) years on IRC tires. Fishers have always had great tires, stock. Tubeless ready for 29″ have been executed greatly, I read of few tubeless problems of late.
But under the Trek name.. what do we have? A 69er project that was an outdated rear end on the front end, just like Fisher’s. I can imagine prototyping such bikes, to see if it’s better for your customers (heck, I did that in 2001 myself, only just for me), but to offer it for sale, multiple models, and NOT offers true 29″, it doesn’t make any sense.
Fisher is NOT making all the 29″ sales the Trek empire could sell. Specialized, Giant, Cannondale, etc, are all selling 29″ers of which some could have been Trek sales. Even if Trek is unable to make additional bikes, they have the opportunity to sell more better bikes, and less outdated, so-so ones. What strategy is that? They’re surviving, making money, so they’re doing fine. Being a Trek customer, as an MTB’er, is now just a worse straw to have drawn than most any other, at least on the US market.
Important to see, is that due to the new things to understand, and get right, badly designed 29″ers seem to be VERY rare. They’re designed pretty purposely. This is not a real customary practice in cycling. You just do what you feel like, usually last year’s model, with some vague features no-one really notices. 29″ has been very demanding on bike designers, and they’ve mostly brought the goods. Fisher set the bar high for them.
Is that maybe it? Can Trek only join 29″ by trying to match Fisher? Is there little left for them to “innovate”? Take their latest 26″ FS model, and try to make it 26″, that’s been done, and even didn’t work too great for Fisher.
Should Trek 29″ers be priced higher than Fishers, for being “real” Treks, or lower being just a random word made into a downtube stickers? Fisher as a name stands for 1970′s MTB birth, for the mainstream side of things. Gary won a UCI World Masters title, no small feat, let alone for a guy with a daytime job. Gary unarguably has his own style and attitude. Racers bearing his name on their bikes and clothing are kicking butt, in true Fisher style, daring to be different.
Trek had the luck to sponsor one guy from Texas with an uncanny talent to ride ikes hard, especially on the hardest-contested roads. That’s been their program for over a decennium now. That’s sold bikes of which the top tubes functioned as carbon beer belly-suspenders, perhaps half of the times. Might explain the few compact models in their line-up?
Trek has a glove to take up. Balls to show. Potential to act on. Reputation to protect, or even re-gain.
They may not like it, they sure have tried to keep it under (not bringing 29″ers to Eurobike when selling like mad in the US), but it’s not their game to run anymore. Even if Fisher would pull out of marketing bikes (hey, it happened to Lemond), 29″ers will keep increasing their share of the global bike market.
If they’re not going to join the hype, how are they going to beat it? The downsides of 29″ are one-by-one being scratched. Forks, we have them. Thanks to Fisher. Good tires, we have them, thanks to all brands now, including Trek’s own Bontrager. Tubeless, again Bontrager, it works. Suspension? Need it better than a Fisher? You have options now, and Superfly 100′s are winning XC races. Don’t fit small people? Then why are the S sized Fishers winning big medals with XS riders on board?
I’d like some stronger arguments against my rant, beyong “Trek make good bikes”. Show me a good Trek bike, and I’ll show you an excellent bike, from a smaller brand, at a lower price.
Trek 29″ers will do one thing for sure : make the average MTB sold, a better bike. Until they do, they are part of the forces keeping wheels smaller, for the wrong reasons.
Bikes are no rocket science. It’s not that hard to figure out which bit goes where, and how it should be sized.
Ahh, I’ve missed ranting….
@Cloxxki……..Top Fuel, Fuel EX, Remedy all with ABP, full floater and all highly raved about. Have you ridden one? Have you raced one? Name a small company that can make a carbon all mountain bike that rides better for less money. Trek (and the other big co.s) are in the business of making the best bikes possible. That high end technology is paid for by the bread and butter bikes. Those dime a dozen pay the bills and in turn get trickle down technology. Trek has chosen to put it’s eggs into a different basket. That basket being 26″ full suspension and carbon road and mountain frames. To say that they are not producing great bikes is just an ignorant statement. Prove that they are NOT making good bikes. You’re quick to point out Fisher suspension and race wins. Don’t forget where that technology came from. At the end of the day, Trek is still winning. Those consumer dollars, whether spent on Trek, Fisher or Bontrager all go back to Waterloo, WI where GREAT bikes are developed, tested and put into production.
well Cloxxki, i’d say impressive rant, but a rant has a point and some kind of reality behind it, which none of yours did. Oderus has it right, all the new Trek bikes are highly touted, great riding bikes, with technology that is well thought out and executed. They are passionate about making the best bikes possible, which you’d know if you’ve ever talked to anyone at Trek. They make a complete line of bikes from the very entry level to the highest end racers of every spectrum, with tons of steps in between. Compare Trek to Raleigh, and this becomes painfully obvious. Raleigh has a couple of decent 29er, and a bunch of crap mountain bikes, and their other company, DiamondBack, is no better.
Trek and Fisher are placing themselves in great market positions, and differentiating their brands to not compete against themselves. Fisher isn’t a “B” brand to Trek, it’s a complimentary brand, which is evident not only in their entry level mountain bikes, but their road lines as well. I really don’t think you can say “Fisher has been (barely) allowed to try out 29?, got minimal support” when they’ve been able to create full carbon single speed and geared hard tails and a full suspension frame.
Cloxxki, it’s obvious you’re mad at Trek for being a big brand, which doesn’t make any sense. If you want to support the tiny business that’s great, but how big is the company that owns Cannondale, or Giant, or Specialized? Which of those brands still makes bikes outside of East Asia? Small companies cannot reasonably produce products at low prices strictly on scale, it will cost less per frame the more you build.
Your car argument doesn’t work either. Half of GM’s cars have the exact same frame, and many similar body, engine and electrical parts. Same with Toyota, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and VW brands. There aren’t alot of technological advances either, and if cars progressed the same rate that bikes did we’d all be driving 100mpg hover cars.
Built steel long live the ferrous !
Chief, I was obviously talking of Trek’s intensions with Fisher, a bit prior to the carbon models. When Fishers were selling out super-fast, and without any discounts offered, that sent a message. One of money.
Trek’s early efforts to promote teh 29″ers, litterally on paper, were decent. When you’d give them a call though, they’d downtalk the concept. Trek personnel had to be called, you don’t get a Fisher inside sales person on the phone, at least not in Europe. This negative attitude made the full-page adverts for demo days, a total waste. It put Fishers and 29″ at even greater distance in Europe.
Fisher of course just inhereted the Lemond capacity for road bikes, although from what I’ve seen, there is a distinct Fisher twist which I applaud.
I’m not a blind Fisher fan, just have to give credit where its due. They’re getting thing right, years before the others catch up.
@Cloxxki, why should Fisher have to offer a discount on it’s product. What is your argument that they have to provide a discount. They have a solid product that is backed by R&D and hands down one of the best warranties in the industry. Why should you get a discount? Is it scratched, dented or flawed? No it’s not. Trek/Fisher is a business. Businesses make money. Sure every business wants the max market share that it can get. But giving you a discount because you think you’re entitled to one is just silly. Next time you go to fill up your car with gas, ask the attendant for a discount because you’ve been driving for so many years and you deserve one. Then snap a pic on your phone of him laughing at you.
Update: I was tipped off by a reader that recently toured the Trek facilities that a new version of a carbon hardtail 29″er was spotted in/near the engineering department. Apparently it has a very “Trek-like” look to it. (This person claims to have had a very good, close up look at it)
Could it be a version of a 9.8 29″er? Maybe a USA made Superfly hard tail?
Who knows, but something might be popping up at Sea Otter in a few days.
Riders have been pleading for an OCLV 29″ hardtail since years before were given the Superfly. It will have to be pretty good to beat a Superfly, and present Trek as the prime hardtail brand, even within the Trek group
Competition from Specialized, Niner, etc, is “stiff”…
@ Cloxxki:
“Chief, I was obviously talking of Trek’s intensions with Fisher, a bit prior to the carbon models. When Fishers were selling out super-fast, and without any discounts offered, that sent a message. One of money.”
If something is selling out super-fast then it is in high demand, no company will discount something if it is selling well, and most companies will raise the price if it is selling faster than expected. It’s basic supply and demand economics. Go to you local college/university and sign up for an economics class.
Guys, what he means by ‘and without any discounts offered’ was that the bikes where selling out dispite not having discounts, not that they should be discounted. The opposite of his view would be ‘GF’s sold out because they discounted them’ when he means ‘GF’s sold out without having to discount them’ as in, they are in high demand!
My Cannondale Flash Carbon 29′er 1, thats been on order forever should be here in a month! (excited)
Not sure exactly when, but it will be here soon!
JJ
Ow, and Cloxx, stop smoking…
JJ
Fisher 2010 road bikes look nothing like lemond. Superfly 100 are OCLV, so it’s not sold out, everything else is. Anybody else’s 29er product line sold out for 2010?
Jelle knows I’m an anti-smoker.
And thanks Thomas, for helping me out, my English is not always as clear. I was raised in and still primarily use another language.
For a time, Fisher was making all the complete 29″ers sold, and making them as fast as Trek building slots were allocated to it. People got these bikes, despite being less than die-hard Fisher fans, despite them being quite pricey at the time (I paid a fortune for a used 2002 frame set), all because they were just SO interesting, and brought the performance.
Since 2004, Fisher is rollin really well. To not have adjusted after 6 years, with even arch enemy “we will never offer 29″ers, because they are dumb” Specialized selling thousands of healthily priced bikes, is saying “no” to money. No more, no less. Saying no to money. Let that sink in for a while.
Imagine you work at a bakery. You make the most amazing brownies, not a secret recipe, but you know your way around the oven. The baker tell you, to not make more than one plate, 10 of ‘em, every day. Yet, soon enough, before the shop opens, you’ll have dozens of interested buyers, most of them to be disappointed to not get to have a taste.
Other bakeries have caught up with the recipe you use, and start offering plates full, at high prices for brownies. And they are all sold within the first hour after opening each day. Your baker though, says it’s a normal bakery, and not to be a browny store.
You do the match, and see that one plate makes you $20. Much more than 3x$1 with the breads the baker prefers to sell. It doesn’t add up for you, and neither do the other bakeries understand. They just think your boss is nuts. And rightfully so, because he is.
All these discussions about what Trek SHOULD be doing always make me laugh. Who owns Trek? Oh? That’s right. Trek owns Trek. One of the reasons they’ve stuck around long enough to not get bought by somebody else is because they know what they’re doing.
I have always admired Trek’s FS designs, and really admire their carbon fiber expertise. Beautiful stuff. Alas, it has always been 26″ stuff. I went 29er a couple years ago and haven’t looked back. Presently own a Speccy Epic 29er, among others. That said, I wouldn’t mind owning a Fuel EX 9.8 29er! CF frame, nice parts, hint, hint!
MD
I would love to see a OCLV 29″ hard tail. It would make a perfect replacement for my 08′ Superfly. Only time will tell.
Fred,
You’re right, of course, but you could have said the same thing about Schwinn in the 90′s or Cannondale five years ago. Trek won’t own Trek in five years if they don’t continue to innovate and maintain their market share. To that end, a huge part of this discussion is how much 29ers ARE impacting the market. Can Trek afford to keep all their eggs in the 26er basket much longer? If GF 29ers are selling like hotcakes, why wouldn’t Trek want to get it in on that action? Maybe the answer is for Trek to just grow GF. I suppose they could do that too. But are they willing to allow GF to supercede the flagship brand in the mountain bike segment if the mountain bike market becomes dominated by 29ers, as many think it will?
We are a Trek dealer (one of the oldest but one of the few w/o Gary Fisher) in the heart of 29er country. We really need a 29er to offer people. This is a wide, gaping void in our range. We also carry Litespeed but the absence of an affordable 29er makes some people question our legitimacy and credibility as a “real” bike shop. That uncertainty results in lost sales across the board – kids bikes to elder bikes, parts and accessories. Similarly, Trek will have to do more than offer a 29er to ever be regarded as a “real” bike with some elitists, no matter how many TdF and World Cup wins they amass – but it’s a start.