anonymouse99

Does Trek tune their line of fitness bikes to really make you get one hell of a workout!?

My wife picked up a Trek 7300 FX and as I'm temporarily out of a bike I've been using hers. Granted it is one size frame too small and the geometry is slighly different than what I am used to, it feels soooo slow in comparison to what I was riding before, a heavy mountain bike with slicks. It feels like molasis compared to my previous bike, which in fact felt quite fast. And it is not only me, she too feels like it is sluggish. When we rode together (before I sold my mountain bike to finance the purchase of my new bike which is on its way ) I would be light years ahead of her. Now, I have checked all the typical things that might cause drag, namely the rims, brakes, and hubs. There is no brake rub (I tuned the V-brakes dead center), the rims are true, and the wheels spin freely (the bearings are not too tight).

This is all so amazingly ironic to me considering a hybrid with 700c wheels (a "flat bar road bike") is in theory supposed to be a faster bike. My suspicion is that it might be the wheels on this model fitness bike; I suspect that the 700c WTB dual duty double walled rims that came standard on this bike are significanly heavier than what a typical road bike 700c rims weigh, or what the higher end fitness bikes might have on them. This would effectively counteract the "700c wheels are faster" sterotype because of the increased rotational mass. Perhaps the reason why my similar type rims, except 26", could have been faster.

Am I spot on, or is there something else that might be causing her bike to feel sluggish (besides skewed perception)? If the main cause is the wheels, would her bike stand gain significantly in speed if lighter rims and tires were put in place.

ceridwen

Does she ride a lot or is she just a casual rider? I'm faster than all my friends and it seems like I have to go agonizingly slow when I ride with them, even though it's just 2 or 3 mph slower than I'd be going normally by myself. So her being slower than you doesn't mean much.

Nor does you "feeling slower" on her bike. The perpective is different. The farther from the ground you are, the less the sensation of speed.

Unless you have a cyclocomputer to compare speeds, or have tried out some routes you are familiar with your usual times on with the new bike, I'd be inclined to say it's nothing but your perception of things.

anonymouse99

Indeed, she hardly ever rides and I commute everyday, so I have an intrinsically faster motor.

I considered this heavily the whole while I've been riding her bike (I also have ridden her bike long before I was more recently and temporarily made bikeless), but find this very hard to be the case. I even thought I just needed to become adjusted to her bike, but--with the exception of the speed--I feel quite adjusted to it. I remember once riding an old road bike waaaayy too small for me, and right off the bat I could push that thing to what felt like ungodly speeds.

ZachS

how big are the tires?

anonymouse99

Complete Specifications
Frameset
SIZES 15, 17.5, 20, 22.5, 25"; Women's 17.5, 20"
FRAME Alpha SL Aluminum
FORK Triple butted Cro-Moly
Wheels
WHEELS Alloy front, Shimano Deore rear hub; WTB Dual Duty rims
TIRES Bontrager Invert Hardcase, 700x35c
Drivetrain
SHIFTERS Shimano Alivio
FRONT DERAILLEUR Shimano C102
REAR DERAILLEUR Shimano Deore
CRANKSET Shimano T303 48/38/28 w/chainring guard
CASSETTE SRAM 850 11-32, 8 speed
PEDALS Alloy ATB, clipless adaptable
Components
SADDLE Bontrager Sport
SEATPOST Bontrager Sport
HANDLEBARS Bontrager Crowbar Sport
STEM Bontrager Sport, 10 degree
HEADSET Aheadset, semi-cartridge, sealed
BRAKESET Promax forged V w/alloy levers, Kraton inserts

cooker

Rotational mass is poorly understood, and doesn't have as much overall effect on speed as people assume. Heavier wheel rims are a bit more difficult to accelerate, but once they get up to speed they hold their speed a bit better than lighter rims. So when you say it <i>feels</i> sluggish, perhaps you are feeling that lag when you try to pick up speed, and not noticing that you coast a bit better once you get going.

Also are the tires slick or knobby? I think that makes a big difference.

cerewa

My first inclination is to say that it's a matter of skewed perception. There are a multitude of factors that go in to this, including whether your acceleration on a bike tends to be steadier or come in a tiny burst with each pedal's downstroke (influenced by bike geometry and weight) and the fact that sometimes we might perceive a 1% gain in speed to be really big, and other times it will go unnoticed.

Secondly, I've ridden different bikes and I think the geometry can have a huge effect on how much power your feet put down to the pedals. Your muscles are just not able to give anything close to their optimal effort if they're not positioned correctly. (This means that it's possible another person would be really fast on that bike because it fit their body shape/size better.)

Thirdly, tire pressures and sizes are important, but not exactly in the way that people usually think. Some wide tires can be run at pressures that are rather high (i.e. 90 psi) while sometimes narrow tires are actually used at pressures of 90psi or less. To my knowlege, there are only two times that anybody has tried to do a controlled comparison of a bunch of different tires, and the results were surprising: you could get good rolling resistance by running narrow (about 1 inch) tires but beyond a certain point higher pressure meant more rolling resistance (vibrations/bumps slowing you down, probably) and wide, (about 2 inch) high-pressure tires gave even better rolling resistance. Rolling resistance for narrow tires at low pressures was worse than for wide tires at low pressures.

dynaryder

I donno,my 7200 seems kinda slow. Even compared to the old early-90's Raleigh. I figured it was due to wide tires and lower-end components.

I did notice a slight improvement when I switched from the stock Hardcases to Vittoria Randonneurs(same size).

anonymouse99

Got my new bike today. It is basically a rigid fork mtb with slicks, which is what I've been used to. Underneath my rump, it flies in comparison to the 700c Fitness bike. Yes the initial acceleration feels far greater, but I can definately feel a greater efficiency in terms of comfortable velocity maintained. The sensation I got on the hybrid was that of struggling to maintain a more "normal" faster velocity and not achieving it. Have I simply tuned my muscles to the geometry of mtb's such that taken outside of an mtb geometry, my effective muscle groups are underutilized and vice versa.

If this is indeed due to some sort of perception illusion, does anybody understand how this might be taking place? Is it that the feedback I receive from the bike informing me of speed and such is different between the two bikes, and I am more cognitively tuned to the mtb, but not to the hybrid?

I suppose ultimately all this talk is useless without actual data. I'll try to get some, if possible.

tedi k wardhana

I have been riding this 96 diamondback parkway, 700c wheels too, for over a year now, as my commuter.
I also have a 1980 soviet racer which is not ridden too far, because I felt the lightest gear is still to heavy on climbs. (43/17) The parkway weighs 17kg, while the soviet start syosse is 13 kg.
But...
things are changing.
I have put a single speed hub on the soviet racer, now it is 43/20.
So now I FEEL I can go faster on the soviet racer, even though it is a single speeder now.
I have put only one cyclocomputer on the parkway, none on the racer.
now I prefer commuting on the sovietski steel.......
So, one must try different bikes, to really feel differences among bikes...

justbcal26

Hey dude,

I own a 2005 7200 FX and I have to agree that the term "Fitness" is misleading. On the Trek page and pics it looks like the FX series bikes are very fast, but the sad truth is it's only as fast as the roadies if you spring for $1000+ top of the line models. The lower ends are pretty much slow and causes you to work harder inorder to get "fit"

*Funny story that I raced with my friend's Giant Cypress SX (a true road hybrid) and got my ass spanked really bad Ever since then I've been obsessed with finding solutions to modify my FX to over take the my friend's Cypress

I've also ran into similar problems comparing my Specialized Hardrock mtb with knobby tires against my gf's Fuji hybrid with 700c tires. We were puzzled by how much faster the Hardrock was and ended up just getting her a Hardrock since it seemed to work for her in terms of speed. The best analysis I could come up with lies in the GEARS. The hardrock just had smaller chain rings and generally lower gears allowing the cyclist to accelerate quickly with closer ratio gears. The hybrid does have higher gears, but the main problem is that the gears are so far apart it actually slows down your progression of acceleration. So in theory if you have a strong enough motor you can over take the mountain bike at the highest gear...

I've identified the weakest links of my bike (if your intention is to go faster with less effort).

1) The tires: These bontrager pieces of crap really have to go. 35c is too wide if you want to go faster plus the thin threads do a decent job of creating enough resistance to slow you down. I upgraded to 28c road slicks and immediately noticed a world of difference in effort and speed. I believe optimal should be 25c if you're going to change your tires.

2) Gears: Hybrids in general have too wide of gear ratios so if you aren't in the best of shape you would have trouble transitioning through higher gears. It's difficult to explain gear jargen, but in a nut shell if you just get a cassette that has closer ratio gears you'll notice faster acceleration. An example would be 12-23 or 12-26 in a 8 or 9 speed cassette.

3) Wheels: These wheels actually aren't too bad, but upgrading would further improve performance especially if you opt for the bladed spokes on the upper end Bontrager wheelsets that reduce drag by 40%.

4) Weight: Obviously the lighter the better so whatever you can swap for carbon or just lighter material at a reasonable price you should do it. Currently I have a carbon seatpost w/ lighter race saddle and looking to swap the handlebars, stem, and eventually the fork.

Hope this info was helpful!

Cal

jur

Get the facts. Put a computer on both bikes, use a heart rate monitor or perceived effort and ride. Bikes can be deceptively deceitful. I had a comfort bike, once on a ride while on roughish tarmac it felt it was rolling ever so fast; just a bit further the tarmac changed to very smooth, and suddenly it felt like I was pedalling through treacle.

huhenio

The heavier bike will make you slower, since rarely any ride is perfectly flat nor uninterrupted.

The fatter tires drags you a little bit more, and it becomes more noticeable as the ride gets longer. The bigger culprit is on wind resistance, pushing air is a harder job than it seems at first when your top speed is 10 miles an hour.

I have a comfort bike too, and I only use it in certain trails that call for the 38 mm tires.

1ply

It's not you, it's the bike. I rode the 7.3FX which I was all ready to buy and it did feel slow. Maybe it is the tires which are not exactly skinny, nor smooth.

Earlier this week I rode the Norco VFR5 and it felt faster. Both rides were with jeans and improper footwear so it's not the clothing that was slowing me down.

8bitevolution

I think it's the bike, too. I have a Trek 7300 hybrid and it feels slow in comparision to my other bikes (older Schwinns). Of course, components and geometry are so different it's impossible to compare and I don't have computers on the other bikes yet.

But I agree, the 7000 series (both hybrid and FX) seems to be, or at least feel, sluggish. Couldn't tell you why, though.

edzo

it's the BONTRAGER TIRES. that model blows

dump 'em, get some nice michelins.

EricDJ

The Treks with Bontrager rims should be fine, I use Select rims which a few of their bikes use. You said WTB rims, so is this an older 7300fx with heavier wheels. The tires that come on models until the 7.7 seem very wide, usually 700x32. I have 700x26 for road until they wear out, then i'll go to 700x25.

I think lighter wheels, smaller tires, and if there is not enough change.

Bontrager dealers have a wheel test program where you can try Bontrager rims on your own bike. Maybe try lighter wheels. Also a gearing expert may know if your gearing isn't right for you. My bike has 44-32-22 and you might have 48-38-28 according to Treks last year model. IIRC you should require less turns to go further, but someone else would know better if thats a factor. I do a one mile circle for excercise at a steady pace for 20 miles per day. I can do 20-30mph when it kick it. We both have 1--32 cassettes, Trek site says 8 speed, mine is 9 speed.

Keep in mind you said the size is wrong too, which can affect things.

anonymouse99

Looks like we're going to try some new thinner, lighter, slicker tires first. Depending on how that turns out we may or may not spring for a new wheelset. Any other recommendations for either? An ideal wheelset may be more difficult to obtain considering the dropouts are 135mm.

BrianJ1888

On my FX, the tires were very low pressure rated. Around 70 psi. Even if everything was set to perfection, the tires flatted out a lot, even though I only weigh 140. I upgraded to 120psi UltraGators and noticed a huge!!! difference.

EricDJ

What year is the bike? Wish we knew what the weight of the wheels were unloaded with no tires/cassette.

If its these then they are basic rims made for durability. Before dropping cash on rims, find a Trek dealer and ask about their Bontrager Demo Center program so you can see what different rims feel like on your bike. The tires should change the ride though.

phillybill

about 3 year ago I took a Trek 7300 frame and built it up with road parts. It was a very fast bike and weighted about 21 lbs. It was a bit small for me......but it was one heck of a fast ride.

anonymouse99

It's a 2005, seen here

rule

Wheels and tires make a huge difference. I've been commuting this week on a 36 pound bomb-proof hybrid that I set up as a rain bike with full fenders. I put new lighter weight wheels and slicks on it. They are still 26" but I can haul ass on it compared to what it rode like before. My other commuter is a 7700FX and yeah it is plenty fast. But it should be. As has been said, it is basically a flat bar road bike in terms of components and set up.

dynaryder

WTB makes Slickasauruses in stock size that are plenty fast(and even have reflective sidewalls). I've got them on 3 of my bikes and they rock. I also like Vittoria Randonneurs,which have puncture protection and reflective sidewalls. They come in 28 and 32 widths.

meradi

My wife has a Raleigh c30 (or something like that) hybrid bike which she thinks is a drag to ride... I have a Giant Cypress, another hybrid, which seems much easier to ride.

Hi from Champaign!
Brian