Please note that some links on this website are affiliate links. We may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you click through our links and make a purchase from one of our partners. See our Affiliate Disclosure for more details.
Trek Madone Series 2.1 Road (Racing) Bike 58cm frame. Carbon forks. Good Condition (Originally Cost £980)
** COLLECTION ONLY – PLEASE **
On line Review
The Madone 2.1 is the Trek’s most affordable Madone model and sports a smart aluminium frame with Kammtail Virtual Foil shaped tubes, internal cable routing, tapered head tube, PressFit bottom bracket and a Shimano 105 groupset for £1,000. While it’s easy to get distracted by the glitzy superbikes that cost many thousands of pounds more, this Madone shows just how good affordable road bikes have become in recent years… well, on paper it does we don’t want to pre-judge the issue before we’ve actually ridden it.
The frame is made from 200 Series Alpha aluminium which is shaped with the same Kammtail Virtual Foil (KVF) design as found right at the top of the Madone range. Aerodynamics are becoming a key design consideration for many products, and it’s fascinating to see that Trek have employed similar thinking in their entry-level bikes as they have on their top-tier race bikes.
‘Aluminium you say?’ Madone, you say’. Yes, we raised an eyebrow at that too – given that to many the Madone is quintessentially a performance carbon machine, but new manufacturing techniques for forming aluminium now mean you can get similar shapes in aluminum as you can in carbon. Trek also do alu and carbon versions of the Domane too – although both are recognisably the same bike with the same design executed in different materials with different build kits.
Trek also pack other modern features into the frame, including a Press-Fit BB 86.5 mm bottom bracket. This houses the bearings inside the frame and allows the shell to be wider, and in turn allows the downtube to be much wider. The result is a stiffer frame – that’ the theory and usually it turns out the be the practice too.
An E2 tapered head tube pairs a 1.5in lower bearing with a 1 1/8in upper bearing to increase front-end stiffness which should give improved handling and steering response over a standard set up. A carbon fork with KVF profiled legs slots into the head tube. In the right leg is Trek’s SpeedTrap, a specially designed integrated mount for a computer sensor that eliminates the need to zip tie a sensor to the fork legs. A much tidier approach, and good to see if on this model. Talking of tidy, the cables are internally routed for clean lines.
Geometry-wise, Trek’s H2 fit couples a taller head tube with similar angles to those you’ll find on the top-of-the-range Madone models. We have a 58cm model to test (from seven sizes ranging from 50 to 62cm) with a 19cm head tube and 73.9 degree head angle and 73 degree seat angle. The effective top tube is 57.4cm and the wheelbase is 98.7cm.
On paper the Madone 2.1 stacks up well against competition that includes some strong rivals, as our £900 to £1,000 road bikes buyer’s guide(link is external) shows. The main contender is the Giant Defy 1 at £999, which manages to also offer a Shimano 105 groupset, rather than Tiagra which is more commonplace at this price. The Giant also has a very up-to-the-minute frame design with a Press-Fit bottom bracket and tapered head tube.
Current Price: £295.00
This Trek Madone Series 2.1 Road (racing) Bike 58cm Frame. Carbon Forks. Vgc may be available on ebay