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TECH NEWS
Trek launch Domane 6.9 Disc (there's a Domane 4.0 Disc too)
Trek have launched a disc-equipped version of the Domane, available at two price points and both borrowing bolt-thru axle technology from their mountain bikes. The Domane 4.0 will cost £1,600 and the Domane 6.9 £6,000, and both will be available this month.
We speculated on the launch of the Domane Disc earlier this year as Keith Bontrager told us he believed Trek would almost certainly launch a disc-equipped road bike in the near future. His prediction has come true, with Trek taking the obvious decision to use their endurance model, the Domane, rather than the racier Madone, for their first disc-equipped road bike. They've already launched a cyclocross bike with disc brakes this year, the Boone CX.
There’s been much debate about wheel axle design on disc-equipped road bikes, and Trek have opted to move away from traditional 9mm quick release axles and adopt bolt-thru technology from their mountain bike range. Called Closed Convert dropouts, they have a 15mm front axle and a 142x12mm rear axle. They can be easily converted to a traditional quick release axle for increased wheel compatibility.
New axles means new wheels, and they’ve developed a new Bontrager Affinity Elite Disc wheelset with bolt-thru hubs. The rims are tubeless-ready - Bontrager have been doing tubeless for a while already. The wheels use interchangeable axle end caps so they can be used on any bike with just a simple change of the end caps required. The wheels have a claimed weight of 1,655g.
An exciting upside of the switch to disc brakes is that Trek says both will happily take wider tyres (though they don’t say how wide) and mudguards, because the removal of the caliper opens up more clearance.
Trek will offer the Domane 6.9 costing £6,000 and the Domane 4.0 at £1,600. Both bikes will be available this month.
“The response we’ve seen from riders about the Domane has been unprecedented and adding a disc brake option further opens the door for riders to expand how and where this bike is ridden,” says Trek Road Bike Brand Manager Michael Mayer.
More details to follow
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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41 comments
It seems like the road racing issues could be resolved by everyone using the same size rotors and also by agreeing a thru-axle standard at the outset. 11 speed will shortly become the standard and then the only thing the neutral car needs to know is Shimano or Campag
I can't see the manufacturers agreeing on any set standards for rotor or axle size any more than they can agree on bottom brackets. It'll take the UCI enforcing the standard and until that happens I wouldn't want to invest in something that could suddenly be made redundant. I'm no Luddite but I really can't see any benefit for discs in road racing any more than I can for deep, aero, 250g carbon rims for mountain biking.
Cheers Fukawitribe and well spotted - cheeky little drilling on the back of the seat stays. Can't see anything but according to RCUK, they have "hidden mudguard mounts". Hmmmm. Now to have a little 'chat' with the wife...
If we look at MTBs for a moment, there are in theory 2 disc brake mount standards. In reality there are millions, no two bikes have the hub/caliper/rotor in the same place, you can't take two wheels and assume that you can fit them.
There is already an issue arising about wide c23mm rims as opposed to traditional c20mm rims where brake clearance is a problem.
If discs are to take off, the UCI will need to state clearly what rotor size and where the disc must sit and also how the wheel fits to the bike.
The sarcastic bit is about mixing an almost century old QR system with modern disk brake technology. I for one gladly exchange 5 sec. lost wheel swapping for the massive improvement of braking power in the wet and the fantastic modulation on long downhills. Besides, once the pros adopt disk brakes (next year?), thru-axles will become more swap friendly. Regarding the standards, the road application of disk brakes is in its infancy, best practices will emerge over time. But the technology, honed over decades in MTB, is already mature enough for the mere mortals (count me in at the time of writing).
Regarding wheelsize, I can only speak of humble personal experience, switching from 26inch to 29inch in XC MTB was a game changer. 26inch promptly vanished from the competitive field. Even for trail and enduro, a new 27.5 inch standard is taking over. 26inch was adopted by chance and was not really thought through. Regarding MTB wheel width, wider rims also allow for less pinched, less "lightbulb" tires which improve grip noticeably. Some road wheel manufacturers looked over the fence and now produce wider rimmed road wheels. Maybe the whole story of 20mm narrow road tires is based on myth rather than fact?
Now take the 700C road standard. It probably evolved as a compromise between lightness and stiffness a generation or two ago (?). But with the massive improvement in materials and manufacturing technology, the standard might have become obsolete. The 29inch MTB wheels on my mountain bike incl. tires are positively huge compared to the wheels on my road bike. Which started me wondering. Any wheel manufacturing enthusiast out there who can move the argument further?
The reason these issues are worth investigating, is that the bicycle is slowly being rediscovered as an ideal mass transportation tool powered by the human heart, and the latter can gratefully use all the improvements we can think of.
Indeed - my Tarmac has a seatpost battery ... way better than any other place.
My Jamis Nova Pro cyclocross bike rear wheel moves all the time. It's a pain and is enough to stop me buying disc brakes for the foreseeable future until the technology standards bed down
Err, no
What qr do you have on? I ask because I've found that external cam qrs don't always close tight enough. An internal cam type like Shimano is more reliable.
In which case, I haven't, no.
To everyone fretting about a proliferation of thru-axle standards: stop. MTBs have already settled on standards for both the front and rear wheel: 15 mm and 142 mm, respectively (there's 20 mm for the front too, but no one's going to try that on the road). There are plenty of different fasteners (DT Swiss' RWS, Rock Shox's Maxle systems, et al), but from a wheel swap perspective the difference between them is the same as the difference between an external- or internal-cam QR.
The only changes in the standards environment necessary for the smooth operation of neutral service as we know it today would be to specify a rotor size and it's lateral positioning.
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