The new bike of reigning world cyclocross champ Sven Nys.
Last week, Trek announced its new sponsorship deal with reigning cyclocross world champion Sven Nys and his Crelan-AA Drink team. This week we find out about the new bike Nys and fellow Trek-sponsored rider Katie Compton will be riding.
Meet the Boone (as is Daniel), a range of carbon fiber cyclocross bikes that feature the IsoSpeed decoupler first seen on the Domane, Trek's popular endurance road bike platform. As a refresher IsoSpeed is a unique bearing system that decouples the seat tube from the top tube-seatstay junction, allowing the seat tube to flex. This increases vibration absorption and doubles vertical compliance, claims Trek.
It all makes perfect sense for 'cross racing, where smoothing out bumps is one of the keys to success. (That's why we covet the low tire pressure permitted by tubular tires.) To that end, Trek also moved the decoupler back slightly in order to make shouldering the frame more comfortable.
The IsoSpeed decoupler (as seen on Katie Compton's bike) helps smooth out bumps.
Trek also co-opted the Domane's bump-absorbing fork design, which has blades that sweep forward paired with rear reaching dropouts that conspire to permit slightly more flex. Additionally, Trek says the frame is completely weather sealed, meaning you can blast it with a power washer after muddy races and not worry about water contaminating your BB or brake cables.
Like Trek's former No. 1 cross steed, the Crockett, the Boone was designed with the aid of Compton, who helped fine tune geometry. The new bikes were debuted by the reigning women's World Cup champ and Nys at the New Year's Day Grand Prix Sven Nys in Baal, Belgium. And on cue, both riders came away victorious.
Reigning World Cup and U.S. national champ Katie Compton was part of the Boone design team.
The Boone uses a BB90 bottom bracket standard and is built up using OCLV carbon, keeping weight low, though Trek is yet to publish claimed frame weights. The frames are also electronic or mechanical shifting compatible and come with an internal battery mount. A 3S chain keeper is also borrowed from the Domane line. And like the Domane and Madone road bikes, the Boone comes with a seat mast system.
The Boone comes in three models with cantilever and disc brake options (Boone 5 cantilever and disc, Boone 7 cantilever, Boone 9 cantilever and disc). Boone will also be available as a frameset in both cantilever and disc brake options, which are not cross compatible. Prices range from $2,840 to $6,300. Disc or rim brake-specific framesets run $2,300.
In Baal, Nys rode the top-end Boone 9 painted with world champion colors, and set up with Shimano R785 hydraulic brake levers and disc brakes, paired with a Dura-Ace 9070 derailleurs. His mechanics swapped in XTR clipers for the stock XT model to save a little weight. It's the same approach already being utilized by current World Cup leader Lars van der Haar. Now the question is weather Nys will continue to run disc in the more important races to come.
Learn more at www.trekbikes.com and check out the extensive photo gallery below for more images of this very interesting bike.