Trek Emonda SL 6 Pro £3,350 | 7.9kg

James Bracey spends some time with Trek’s newly updated and aero-tweaked lightweight GC race bike

- James Bracey

Trek recently released a brand new reimagining of the Emonda, the brand’s lightweight climbing/GC model platform, featuring a drastically aero-ised chassis. The model family is split into a higher tier SLR and the lower SL range that this SL 6 Pro sits in. The critical difference is in the carbon layup and the enhanced integration sported by the SLR range.

Frame

The frame on the Emonda SL 6 Pro is constructed of Trek’s own 500 Series OCLV carbon fibre. This carbon layup might be heavier than the newly showcased ultra-light 800 Series OCLV of the top level SLR Emondas, but is considerably more economical to produce, helping keep the SL range prices in a much more affordable tier.

The Emonda features a new set of tube shapes, most of which have gone down the aero route. But Trek is at pains to keep the comparisons to the Madone aero race bike to a minimum; this isn’t simply a ‘Madone Lite’. Rather than being the same elongated shapes as found on a proper aero race bike, the aero shaping of the Emonda’s tubes is much more subtle and is based around the principle of unsteady aerodynamics.

In this case, it’s more about how drag is affected through wind gusts and other factors at slower speeds than the usual 45kph. There are still the characteristic truncated airfoil shapes, but the effect is far less dramatic and produces a frame that still has a traditional look.

Trek hasn’t jumped on the dropped seatstay bandwagon with the new frame either, preferring to stick to a set of widely spaced, yet aero-shaped, thin seatstays. The new frame also enjoys a little more integration, bringing it more in line with the Madone. All models now see the cable routing brought neatly into the frame at the front of the head tube, keeping the front-end profile as slippery as possible.