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Monday, August 18, 2008

Trek introduces belt drive bicycles

By Yokota Fritz

Trek World 2008: City bikes, belt drives, singlespeeds, and LeMond replacements

Mark Stevenson is spending the weekend in Madison Wisconsin for Trek World 2008 show, where Trek shows their dealers what they have coming up for the next year. He kindly sent me a lot of photos and information about the show.

According to Mark, "commuter oriented really were front and center this year with the star of the show being the Trek District." The District, a flat bar singlespeed bike featuring the Gates belt drive system, will be available in October for around $900. According to Trek, this aggressive road bike inspired design" produces an edgy ride with color matched Bontrager Inform saddle, orange rims, accents on the stem face plate, and even constrasting colored water bottle cage bolts. The Gates carbon belt drive shaves 280 grams from this urban bike while producing a "ninja quiet ride" with no lubrication.

Soho is another belt drive bike, which will retail for under $1000 in December. The existing 2008 Soho (chain drive) has an 8 speed Alfine hub. The 2009 model shows at Trek World included matching fenders and a minimal chainguard.

Trek Allant is a new offering that eschews the suspension bits of a common hybrid for a standard rigid steel fork and seatpost. Standard gear includes fenders and rack. The WSD version with a step through frame puts the rack on the front. Allant will be available beginning in November for $540.

Fisher road bikes revealed at the show includes the Presidio CX bicycle and the Triton, a fixed gear city bike. They twins to the LeMond Poprad an Filmore fill holes in Trek's product line that appeared with LeMond's vacancy.

According to Trek, the Fisher Simple City bicycles have been hugely successful, and dealers are looking forward to possible refinements and additions to this series in the future.

Thank you to Mark Stevenson and Arleigh Jenkins for the photos and details! See more of Mark's photos from Trek World 2008 at this photoset. You'll find more from Trek World 2008 at CommuteByBike and Twenty Nine Inches. I also just noticed that James beat me to posting information from the show at Bicycle Design, where he wrote about the District, Fisher El Ranchero, and the Soho. The El Ranchero is the anticipated longtail bike that will be offered by Trek dealers.

Labels: trek

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Trek utility bike

By Yokota Fritz

From our spies at Trek One World Domination Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin...

Trek was shooting some video of a prototype Gary Fisher utility bike this afternoon at the neighborhood market just down the street from us. She described it as being about the same size as the Big Dummy, but with some kind of integrated passenger seat in the stoker position, a short steel platform, and some "really cool" side bags with zippered flaps. Fat tires, disk brakes and wide upright bars.

Read more: Sconnyboy.

Labels: trek

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Win a free bike from Trek

By Yokota Fritz

Trek Bicycle today announced the "Go By Bike Challenge," a national pledge campaign sponsored by 1 World 2 Wheels -- Trek's cycling advocacy initiative -- that challenges people to put down the car keys and instead go by bike.

“The momentum for going by bike is undeniable,” noted Trek’s Director of Advocacy, Rebecca Anderson. “Growing traffic congestion; skyrocketing gas prices; alarming obesity rates; concerns about global climate change as the result of greenhouse gas emissions; there is interest all over the country for transportation alternatives. The bicycle — as arguably the most efficient mode of transportation on the planet — represents a simple solution to some of the toughest problems; and tons of communities are recognizing this fact by taking steps to become bike-friendly. There has never been a better time to go by bike!”

From July 17th through August 31st, 1world2wheels.org will accept “Go By Bike” mileage pledges online, displaying a homepage ticker that tracks total miles pledged, money saved, calories burned, and pounds of carbon offset accumulated. Visitors to trekbikes.com will also be presented with the “Go By Bike” ticker and invited to visit 1world2wheels.org to take the “Go By Bike Challenge.”

To promote the challenge nationally, Trek will take out two full-page print ads in USA Today, and Trek’s network of independent bicycle dealers will ask customers to make in-store pledges. Each day of the campaign, one lucky pledger will also be selected at random to receive a brand new Trek 7.2 FX fitness hybrid bike, valued at $519.99.

According to a National Personal Transportation Survey, nearly 40% of all trips taken by car are two miles or less. Whether it’s to work, to school, to the park, store, or gym, the “Go By Bike Challenge” asks individuals to think about all the short trips they take by car and instead pledge to go by bike.

Labels: trek

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Bicycle service and parts kiosk

By Yokota Fritz

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Update: Treks 1 World 2 Wheels blog talks about this bike parts vending machine in detail today.

The Trek Stop is a self service bicycle repair kiosk with a vending machine for parts like tire tube, patch kit, energy bar and so forth, according to James @ Bicycle Design.

It's a really cool idea. I like there's even a clamp to hold your bike up for repair work. There's an air hose, message board, area map and even a video monitor that can show instructions on how to perform repairs.

I can see something like this in areas with lots of bike use like Palo Alto or San Francisco, and somebody suggested popular mountain bike trails as another possible location for these kiosks. I've been without tube or patch after hours a time or two; something like this would have been handy.

Read more.

Labels: trek

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Trek recalls girls bikes

By Yokota Fritz

Trek and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of about 49,000 MT220 girls bicycles. Trek has received reports of 13 frames breaking in the United States on 2005 through 2007 model year bikes. 2008 bikes are not involved in the recall.

Bike Europe reports on this recall and several others that have been published since bhe beginning of the year.

Labels: trek

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Gary Fisher Simple City bicycle

By Yokota Fritz

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"Simple City" is the name of the Gary Fisher mystery commuter bike. Cycling News reports in their Trek World 2007 report that the Fisher Simply City was "one of the showstoppers" at the show.

Product Manager Chad Price and his team of 'Chads' (three in total) collaborated with Gary Fisher to create a cool new city shopper that blends the best of Euro city bikes and classic Schwinn townie that are so beloved in communities like Madison, WI and Davis, CA.

"We wanted to create a bicycle that was unique and featured the best of two worlds; useful for transportation and shopping, but lighter and faster than the conventional city bike ", Price said. "Simple City says it all; a simple city bike that has the best features, like the unique geometry we created so the ride is stable and comfortable under load and the adjustable front dropouts that support the optional 'two bagger' front rack".

Arleigh provides some additional information on the Gary Fisher Simple City bicycle, and Bike Hugger Byron gives his views on this bike.

Now for some unsubstantiated rumors I've heard from people who may or may not be associated with Trek:

Product release early 2008, perhaps as early as January?
3-speed will retail for $400, 8-speed for $800.

I'll definitely look for this bike when I visit Interbike next month.

Labels: trek

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Gary Fisher commuter bike

By Yokota Fritz

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Arleigh went to Trek World in Madison, WI, where she snapped lots of bikey photos. Dr. Logan noticed this prototype Gary Fisher Commuter bike in the photostream.

This Gary Fisher commuter bicycle has Shimano's Alfine shifter, Bontrager Satellite Plus reflective sidewall tires, a huge basket on the front, separate fender and rack mounts on front and rear (!), leather saddle and handgrips, full front and rear fenders and a chainguard. I don't believe Alfine comes with a Coaster brake, but I don't see a brake cable going to the rear so they must use something else for the internal gear hub in the rear. A hand brake controls the rim brake on the front wheel. Trek's designer sensibly put a forward facing rear fork end on this bike for easy rear wheel removal.

Guitar Ted talks a little about this and another commuter prototype that he saw in Madison. G-Ted writes:

Fisher was showing off two prototype "townie" type bikes with a retro-ish/hand made flair. Sporting wrap around chain guards, full fenders, and internal gearing, these bikes were quite different and maybe even a bit out of place at the show.

I got a chance to chat briefly with Gary Fisher himself and I asked about these bikes. Were they something that Fisher will actually produce? I got a resounding "Yes!" in answer. It seems that we will most likely be seeing more of this type of utilitarian, work bike coming from Trek and Fisher in the future. I applaud Trek and Fisher for making an effort in this area and the bikes are certainly looking great so far.

In fact, I might even go so far as to say that they look every bit as cool as anything from the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show, where these would have been right at home.

Please remember to click the Digg and CycleCluster links if you like this article.

Labels: trek

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Guy Kawasaki Trek factory visit

By Yokota Fritz

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Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Guy Kawasaki blogged about his visit to the Trek factory in Waterloo, WI.

THe photos are kind of cool, with pictures and details of various Tour de France winning bikes. He also shows us the bike garage, assembly area, and other pieces of the Trek factory.

More interesting to me are Kawasaki's vignettes of life at Trek.

There is quite a bit of testing done at lunch. It can take up to two hours or more sometimes. After all, testing is important.
...
Trek staff heads out for the evening commute. Employees make good use of the commuter program. Each day someone rides, walks, skates or car pools to work, that employee receives credit for Trek products or cash for the cafeteria. This is an incentive to keep in the latest gear and promote general wellness. Between the commute to and from work and the “Lunch Time Ride” my friend at Trek used to average 50+ miles a day during the summers.

Trek factory visit by Guy Kawasaki.

Labels: trek