BoSoxYacht

I like the La Vie Claire themed paint, but the bike is sinfully ugly.

WalksOn2Wheels

As much as people may not like the looks, I think Trek proved with the new Madone that you can have a nicely integrated and aero bar/stem/spacer/steerer tube interface without limiting yourself to one ridiculous position for the stem that Look seems to be obsessed with.

GlennR

You know, i'm a "B" rider and have a Emonda SLR. Not that i can ride it to its full potential, but I certainly can feel the improvement and over my previous Madone 4. At first i questioned if spending over twice as much as my previous bike was a good decision. But every time I ride the Emonda I know its well worth it.

I'm not a fan of Aero bikes but I did test ride a Cervelo S5 and it was a great bike.

People say that unless you ride over 20mph you can't take advantage of "aero". But i can tell you I do feel an improvement with the 45mm wheels I have at speeds below 20 especially in the wind (which nets air speed over 20).

If someone showed up to a "B" ride with a Madone 9 or a Cervelo S5, I would watch how they clip in. If they do it like they've done it before i'd be cool. If its their first time, i'd chuckle to myself.

cydewaze

When I was in the wheel market, I decided to go with light weight over aero, so I ended up with some 22mm deep rims. There's a Strava segment in my area that is around a mile and a half, and has a verrry slight uphill grade when you're coming back into town. Also, you almost always tend to have a headwind dead-on, or one coming from 11:00.

I've just about euthanized myself to get the 3rd fastest time overall, and I know the guy who's second, and he's only ahead of me by 2 seconds. He has deep, carbon rims that are probably 50-60mm, and every time I look at that segment I think, "Why didn't I get aero rims? They've got to be worth two seconds over a mile and a half!"

GlennR

I have both the RXL wheels that came with the bike and the Zipp 303s. The Zipps sure feel faster.

cale

Might as well roll down the street throwing money out of your car. I'll bet it'd be nearly as thrilling! Haha

Dave Cutter

A high-end item that requires periodic maintenance.... back at the shop? OMG that's a deal breaker? I do most of my own work (I really enjoy it)... but it would benefit the LBS if a bike had to "go into the shop" a little more often.

SloButWide 

LOL, I suspect there are three kinds of high end bike owners: serious riders who do most of their own maintenance, serious / semipro riders who have access to team / sponsored mechanics, and status owners who rarely ride their bikes. Only the first are affected by the Madone's design choices.

Dave Cutter

I took one of my bikes in for work a few days ago. I couldn't figure out what was wrong (I somehow missed a crimp in the cable housing). It didn't hurt at all. It wasn't even expensive as far as prices and repairs go now-a-days.

SloButWide 

In IT, it's common to see invoices of $100 - $250 / hr, plus travel and living expenses. That makes paying $20 - 50 in labor at LBS seem pretty reasonable, even if it's a 5 minute fix for a skilled mechanic. I figure I'm paying for what he knows, not how long he spent.

StanSeven

That's actually pretty low. The really knowledgable IT design and development people are many times more as are top notch lawyers, financial consultants, and system analysts. All this makes $50/hr at the LBS not bad at all.

GlennR

How many people that own Porsche's and Ferrari's ever drive them over 75mph, let along take them to the track?

I'm a mainframe Systems Programmer with 40+ years experience and you don't want to know what my company bills my time at. As I tell my boss, "if it were easy, anyone could do it".

Also i work on vintage Volkswagens as a hobby and have built over 40 engines. I do 95% of my own maint on my bike. But I do have a excellent bike mechanic that I use for the 5% of things I need his advice and experience for.

StanSeven

I'm anxious to see a comparison test with the Venge Vias and some other aero bikes. Trek sounds pretty confident this is the fastest bike you can buy

andr0id

That's actually a really nicely written manual.
I had heard about the cable length guide, but had not seen it before.

I'm the first category. Not that I would ever buy a Madone, but if somebody gave me one, the manual would certainly be enough to allow me to do whatever I wanted to it.

SpeshulEd 

Red Bull needs to sponsor a team and force them to ride this bike. It looks just like their logo.

datlas 

Looks like their heads have been @timtak'd.

colnago62

I love aero bikes. They are , in general stiffer than more standard designs. I am not overly concerned about weight. I want something that won't flex much or cracked under heavy use. I ride with low bars because I always have. In my formative years cycling, spent more days at the velodrome than on the road. I have a heard time justifying the price, however.

Fox Farm

I think that it is unreasonable to try and lump all aero bikes into one category of being heavy, ugly, not still, etc.

I do think that the new Madone looks kind of cool but I wonder how much is gimmick, particularly when it comes to those concealed brakes. It certainly is not the most expensive bike you could build up but with some high end carbon clinchers or tubulars; electronic shifting; the integrated stem/bar set up, it is a very very expensive bike like a Dogma of C60, etc. Not something that most people can afford. All of that said, I will never buy a Trek given how they dealt with Chris Horner. I am 10 years older than Chris. If Trek had demonstrated that in spit of his age, signing him and supporting him for at least one or two years after his Vuelta win would have won many "points" with us older guys. I am not totally down on Trek and owned one of their early bikes back in 1981.

I am a decent home mechanic but there are some things that I don't own the proper tools for working on with my newest bike, such as bottom bracket maintenance, etc. and for that reason, it occasionally goes to the LBS.

Fox Farm

Sorry for the typos! iPhone.....