Trek

When the Equinoxes first came out, we felt Trek was charging too much of a premium for its admittedly hallowed headbadge. Trek's folks either adjusted the upcharge or got better at product managing their tri bike line. Either way, the Equinox 7 is now, at $1600 and change, a robust value, so much more because QR has aged-up and abandoned the $1500-$1600 price range. Trek’s chief competitors in this price category are now Felt's S32 and the Specialized Transition Elite (each a bit lower in price than the Equinox 7), and the Cervelo Dual.

The Equinox 7 has an aero tubeset, faired rear wheel, and parts from Cane Creek, Bontrager and Shimano (105). Making this bike a better value yet is a running change from 9-speed to 10-speed. It was advertised as 9-speed at the beginning of ’06, but the bike began showing up with 10-speed as early as January and now Trek’s website has been updated to reflect the change. Trek dealers can sell this bike on spec & tech alone, without having to lean on Trek's superior customer service, warranty, and so forth.

Trek also makes the Equinox 7 WSD (WSD is Trek's designation for those bikes it points toward women). Someone is going to have to explain this bike to me. The Equinox 7 already has its 50cm and 52cm sizes made with 650c wheels (that’s a good thing). The Equinox “XS” and the Equinox WSD in size “S” are roughly a similar size, at 50cm or so. These bikes are geometrical twins in almost every measure, except the WSD version has 14.5cm of head tube, versus the 11cm in the “men’s” bike. When one considers that both bikes are spec’d with Profile Design Aerolites, it’s plainly going to be a challenge for a good fit to be established on the WSD version. The aerobar pads sit 7cm atop the pursuit bar, and this extra 3.5cm of head tube height sticks the bars way up in the air. Simply looking at Trek's pics of the built-up bike demonstrates how hard it’s going to be to get the armrests much below the height of the saddle.

The Equinox 7 WSD also comes in a 47cm size (XS), and this size is not available in the standard men’s Equinox 7. Trek would be well advised to uncouple the Equinox idea from the WSD idea, and just come out with a 47cm Equinox 7 with a 9.5cm head tube.

This is my sole beef with the Equinox 7. Excepting this, it's a really fine bike.

EQUINOX 9

This is next in the line-up, at around $2100 street price and pretty much the same bike as the Equinox 7, but with Ultegra instead of 105, and the next level up wheels and cranks from Bontrager. This bike sells for a $500 bump over the Equinox 7, but is not a hugely different bike. At that $500 discount the bike is a really nice value. But the Equinox 9 is in more exclusive company, like making the jump from Cat IV to Cat III and finding the racing quite a lot harder. Simply put, the Equinox 7 competes favorably with QR, Trek and Felt, but these other companies put up a much tougher fight at the Equinox 9's price level.

EQUINOX TTX

As of this writing, mid-May, this bike is being ridden by the Discovery Team in the Giro d’Italia time trials. It’s due out for you and me in July and, finally, Trek has a top-end tri bike to crow about.

The Equinox TTX was rolled out to the media at the 2005 Ironman in Kona, and here finally is a bike all its Ironman athletes (Chris Lieto, Karen Smyers, Cam Widoff and Tim DeBoom) can ride. The bike is a dynamic improvement over the Team Time Trial bike (Equinox 11 to triathletes), which was geometrically problematic.

The Equinox TTX will sell for $5000 or perhaps a tad under when outfitted with a complete Dura Ace kit, or for a very affordable price closer to $3000 if you buy it with a value-priced Shimano-105 kit on it.

There is one difference in the frames on these two versions of the Equinox TTX. They are variously made of 110 versus 120 GSM carbon (grams per square meter). Therefore, the expensive one will be slightly lighter, say, by a quarter pound.

The Equinox TTX joins bikes made by Cervelo (P2 and P3 Carbon), Quintana Roo (Seduza, Caliente and Lucero), Kuota (K-factor and Kalibur), Kestrel (Airfoil Pro), Orbea (Ordu) and Giant (Trinity I & II) as being mature, dynamic, robust carbon values for triathletes. Each of these companies is making bikes from the low $3000s to the mid $4000s that will stand up to anything made by any company at any price.

Here’s the irony: Trek’s Team Time Trial bike was a bike made by and for road time trialing, but sold to triathletes. Now we have a bike made for this sector’s true market: triathletes. And guess who’s riding it? Discovery, Trek’s sponsored pro road team. This just goes to show you that a bike built around triathlon’s handlebars, for triathletes, will work very well for road racing’s time trialists. Cervelo was the first company to prove this, and Trek has now recognized this fact. When you make a bike that is going to work well for those who’ll ride it all the time (triathletes), it’s the best bike for those who’ll ride it a little bit of the time (road racers).

This is being written on the eve of the Giro’s individual time trial. For those who read it in time, and have access to the time trial coverage, you’ll notice most of the Discovery team riding the triathlon version of these bikes (the frame will say "Equinox").

There is a bike called the Equinox 11, and this is the complete bike version of the Trek Team Time Trial bike. Pass it by. It’s a geometric mystery for triathletes and, in any case, it’s being phased out for the very sexy and interesting Equinox TTX. In fact, all the "Lance geometries" are going away in due time, and the 73.8-degree seat angle bikes will all be replaced by the 76-degree Equinox geometries that are further adjustable by flipping the seat post fore and aft (see photo above).