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Trek carbon fiber remedy 2010 landon horsethief
We spent a day and a half riding Trek's new 2010 Remedy this week in
Colorado's Western Slope. In an effort to check out all its SuperHuman
properties, Landon Monholland, a Grand Junction local, took his Remedy
down the Horsethief drop in off the Loma trails in Fruita. As you can
see from the video, Landon Pulled it off on his first try. There was a
big crew there on all sorts of big travel bikes and Landon was the only
one we saw ride the whole thing without dabbing. Look for a video soon
in which Landon gives us tips on how he does it. If you have ever
ridden this nasty washed out section yourself, good for you. This was
the most washed out and nastiest I've seen it and Landon rode it like a
champ.
 Okay, on to the 2010 Remedy - from an XC racers perspective.
Its
a trail bike, not a race bike. If your buddies are all riding
lightweight race rigs and you are on the Remedy, you are going to be
working a lot harder if you are riding an area with any long climbs.
Even with the new carbon set up its still in the 27 lbs range so as a
climber it works great for a trail bike, but its still no uphill speed
demon like a 20 lbs hard tail or a superlight dualie.
But in
Fruita, where we test rode this rig, there were no extended climbs,
just short punchers that we could attack and get to the top before
getting too winded. When climbing out of the saddle the suspension was
active and there was some bobbing the harder I pushed on the pedals but
with a smooth spin that bobbing dropped significantly, and when seated
and focusing on a smooth spin, the bobbing was negligible.
As
apposed to my race bike, the Remedy was more of an upright ride. My
spine was not hunched over in a race postition and I didn't have as
much weight pushing onto the front wheel so in order to get that front
tire to grip I would have to think about getting forward on the bike to
weight the front end. Part of that was because I was heading into
corners and down rough sections much faster than I would normally and I
slid towards the rear out of sheer panic. Which brings up how this big
really shines: riding downhill.
Fruita has some fun ledges and
usually I take the timid lines or scrub speed so much that I get
dropped from my normal race fit crew on bigger travel bikes. But on the
Remedy, I was super confident and rolled into 4 foot drops at speed
without even twitching a finger toward the brake levers. The trail
looks different and feels different on a 6 inch travel bike verses a 3
inch dualie or hard tail. On the Remedy its just a downright blast.
Racing hard into ledge filled uphills was kickass too. The Remedy would
take the hits and keep on rolling like there was nothing in the way. I
think I was out on the trail for more than 4 hours or so and was ready
for some more loops but ran out of my new secret weapon (Chocolate #9
gels - look for a write up soon and sorry for the shameless plug, but I
felt great all day on those things, was it the Remedy or the Chocolate
#9? I'm not sure but it was a great combo.)
Oh yeah, back to the
Remedy. On day two of the Trek Dealer Demo (a big thanks to Larry at
Trek, and the Hub of Aspen for inviting me along) I had a chance to
ride any other bike from the Trek/Gary Fisher Fleet. So I decided to
grab an EX (120 cm front and rear suspension). When I got to the
trailhead at 18 Road, I dicovered that I had accidentally grabbed a
Remedy instead of the EX. Decided it must have been destiny and rode
that Remedy on just about every trail in the 18 road "cloverleaf". A
lot of loose short climbs and fast, rutted out descents and the Remedy
rocked the house.
For most of the first day, I was debating with
Ross Schnell (Trek racer and 2009 Single Speed World Champion, who was
giving the Loma tour) about how necessary it is to have so much travel
with the added few pounds when you ride with practiced finesse on a
shorter travel race bike and still charge up the climbs. Schnell, who
was riding a Scratch (Treks DH rig) on this cross country ride, made a
point that really hit home. He said that if you are not racing, why
ride a race bike when you can have so much more fun on a big travel
bike?
Yeah, I understood. In the type of terrain like rocky
Fruita and Moab, that trail bike was super fun and I didn't feel like I
had been smashed to bits at the end of the ride like I would on a hard
tail. But would I give up my race bike for a trail bike? I don't think
so. But if I had the cash, I'd want this trail biike for trips to Moab
and elsewhere where there is no start/finish line and/or clocks. At
$6500 its a lot to pay to play, but I'm planning to start picking up
pennies when I see em on the sidewalks and just after I get this
article posted, I'm going to look for change in under my couch
cushions.
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