SpeedofLite 

georges1

Very good bike I am pretty sure that with a modern groupset and a modern pair wheels , it should be a lightweight

1989Pre 

From a marketing viewpoint, I don't know why TREK decided to give the 62cm size frame as the reference. If they had chosen a more popular size, like 54cm, they could have advertised a bicycle in perhaps the 19 lb. range. I like the fact that Easton was thinking ahead, but Spehar does not specify which size frame he is referring to when he said that the butting of the main-tubes reduces weight by 42.5 grams. It's all very nice, but is it just a gimmick to boost the price of the bicycle? The price of the bike is definitely in the high range for 1989. If I was going to pay anywhere near that much, I'd want a couple switches made by the L.B.S; give me a new freewheel with 13-26T, swap the inner chainring for a 39T and give me some tires with a 23mm width, like the other guy noted. I'd also like to know just how they joined the lugs and b.b. to the tubes and why they chose to make the lugs invisible (maybe I missed something in the article). Nice touch from TREK adding the high-quality pedals.

Bianchigirll 

I had one of those frames, at least I think it was the same one just a different model/year, it was OK nice and light but just felt like it had so soul and spirit.

Trakhak

I think Trek didn't give the 62-cm size as the reference; more likely, that's the size requested by the guy who planned to write the article, and the listed weights are those measured by him.

A thousand bucks for a full Ultegra group and a bike that would have been among the lightest available for anywhere near that price seems reasonable to me.

Objecting to the $200 difference for butted aluminum tubing---that's quite a bit less of a difference than going from a plain-gauge steel Columbus or Reynolds tube set to a butted one would have been. As I recall, the butted steel frames often retailed for something like twice the cost of the unbutted frames.

As for the changes to the cluster range, chairing size, and tire width: you'd have had to make the same changes for any similar upper-mid-level steel racing bike. Was any racing bike of the era equipped with a cluster with a 26-tooth large sprocket? I don't remember any.

In any event, in the late '80's, it was very rare for customers buying off-the-shelf bikes to request any such changes to the stock setups. Such customers, in our shop at least, were buying Italian framesets and having us build them up with their preferred components.

Trakhak

They built the frame using socketed internal lugs that the tubes fitted over. Bonding the tubes to the internal lugs meant that they could use a higher-strength (non-weldable) alloy and didn't have to worry about heat treating.

Thinking back to working in the bike shop then, we found it mildly interesting that we were now selling aluminum racing bikes alongside steel ones. Didn't seem earth-shattering at the time.

Customers did like the idea of buying something new and different, and arguably state of the art, but some also liked the idea that they could buy a bike with a U.S.-built frame, and one whose tubing was made in the U.S., too: Easton aluminum for 1989, True Temper aluminum in later model years.

Sometime around 1991 or 1992 or so, I asked our Trek rep whether introducing the aluminum bikes had had any unforeseen consequences for the company. He said that the main one he knew about was that they didn't have to keep as many frames in stock for warranty replacement, compared to previous years when they were selling steel-frame bikes exclusively.

Bianchigirll 

Is that because their steel frames broke a lot or it was easier to use the same aluminum frame across more models?

Trakhak

From what I remember, he was saying that all major bike manufacturers who sold lightweight high-end steel bikes knew that some small percentage of those would fail for one reason or another, mostly from overheating at a joint or a braze-on, I imagine. Or maybe because the bike was being ridden by a rider who was bigger or heavier than the comparatively light racers who were the original target market for which the tubing was designed. So the manufacturers routinely maintained a stock of such frames for warranty claims.

I've told this story before, but it's apropos here:

Sometime in the mid-'80's, a customer who had bought a Bianchi racing bike from us a year or so earlier brought it back with a crack across the top of a seat stay, at the seat cluster. The Bianchi rep stopped by a few days later to look at it and agreed---clearly a warranty issue. He called Bianchi USA and ordered the replacement frame.

I asked him, more or less idly, what was going to happen to the old frame: would Bianchi of Italy ship a free replacement sight unseen, or would he have to ship it to them first, or what?

He said, "Bianchi of Italy doesn't cover frames under warranty; Bianchi USA does."

By way of illustration, he went on to describe a scene he'd witnessed some time earlier, when some of the Italian Bianchi people visited Bianchi USA, in South San Francisco. One of the Italians was visiting Bianchi USA for the first time, so one of the other guys urged him to ask about Bianchi USA's warranty. He did, and the whole Italian contingent burst into laughter at the look on his face when he was told that Bianchi USA gave free replacement frames away under warranty.

The head Italian then told the Americans that, yes, we can sell you frames that we'd cover under warranty. "They'd just be one or two kilos heavier."

Bianchigirll 

@Trakhak Interesting. I've warrantied a few customer frames and even one of my own but I never realized Bianchi USA picked up the tab.

1989Pre 

Aha. Thank you very much. Internal lugs. That's something that is something that I have not investigated. You have piqued my curiosity. Was it only the flux that held the lug to the tubing? The reason I ask is that, for comparison, Technium used three types of connection/retention on their steel lugs; Prior heating of the lugs, which shrunk and fastened onto the aluminum tubing when put in place 2.) a locking ring on the lug that "snapped" into place when the tubing was inserted and 3.) the flux, itself.
I see what you are saying about "arguably state-of-the-art". While TREK was using 7000 series Easton, double butted, Raleigh USA was using slightly-oversized 6000 series (they did use T8, which I'll give them credit for) straight-guage. TREK also dodged a bullet by avoiding the Suntour indexing system and opting for Shimano. How well were the aluminum dropouts received? I would also like to ask (to anyone here), "Why did TREK go to a fork with a 45mm rake? The relatively-steep frame angles seems a strange combination with that. With 7-speed cassette, TREK was ahead of Raleigh USA in two ways in 1989.

1989Pre 

Bianchigirl, I know what you are saying about aluminum's ride characteristics, but that is just the price we pay for light weight. After my Technium got me through some really tough, long rides by it's light weight alone (compared with the weights of the rest of my road bikes), I found its soul and we understood eachother completely. It's the bike I whip out when it gets serious.

Trakhak

About the change from 40 to 45 mm of rake: the text of the 1500 article reproduced in the first post above says that they made the change to reduce the trail and thus make the handling a bit quicker.

Which reminds me of another article, posted by SpeedOfLite several months ago, for which Trek provided two racing bikes, one with a steel frame and the other with the new aluminum frame. The bikes were otherwise identical: same components, wheels, tires, etc., and same steel fork for each.

All the reviewers who rode the two bikes raved about the aluminum bike---all of them preferred it to the steel bike, saying, among other things, that the aluminum bike was more comfortable on all road surfaces. One of the few criticisms offered in that article was that both bikes were a bit sluggish with respect to steering and would profit from having the front end or fork reconfigured for quicker handling. (They also said that Trek should upgrade the aluminum bike with an aluminum fork, incidentally.)

About the aluminum tube-joining process: I just looked through my copy of the Trek Retail Technical Manual from 1994.

Leafing through, I'm embarrassed to realize that I never bothered reading it back then. What I learned in the last 30 seconds:

The "new shifting systems" should not be subjected to "dry-firing"---i.e., operating the shift mechanism in the brake lever when the chain is not in motion (actually, I knew that, but I don't remember the term "dry-firing").

The mechanic should become adept at "side-actuated brake adjustment"---adjusting, that is the Interloc Racing Design Widget, which allowed the use of cantilever brakes with rigid and suspension bikes alike.

Same deal for Paul Component Engineering Cross-Tops.

And same deal for Trek's own BAUs (Brake Actuator Units).

They were already moving on from aluminum to OCLV, and they don't go into a lot of detail about the aluminum bonding method.

To the point: the only mention of the details of Trek's bonding process is in the section on the manufacturing of the OCLV frames, as follows (likely with some similarities to the aluminum bonding):

"Bonding is a process that uses aerospace adhesives to glue the lugs and tubes together, but this is no ordinary glue! Similar to the adhesives used to join airplane fuselages or hold helicopter rotor blades together, it would take 16 tons of force to pull two pieces of an OCLV frame apart. Actually, the material surrounding a bonded joint would give way before the bond could be broken."

So that's all I've got. I'm prepared to answer questions about those rear-suspension cantilever brake work-arounds, though.

ShannonM

The bonded aluminum Treks are probably the most reliable bonded frames ever made. When I worked at a Trek shop in the early 2000s, I never saw a broken one. Neither had our lead wrench, who'd been working there since the late 80's. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Trek had a much lower warranty rate on the bonded bikes than on their brazed steel ones.

And, yes, they used the same frame across all models. The only difference was the components. (Maybe in the years where they switched tubing, the lower models got the previous year's tubeset... not sure about that.)

--Shannon

1989Pre 

"Trail" is something that I have not researched, but probably should. I had assumed that a longer rake would provide some shock-dampening for the rider.

Trakhak

Possibly a little, but that wasn't mentioned as an objective. In the 1988 magazine article that I mentioned earlier in this thread that SpeedOfLite thoughtfully posted a few months ago, the reviewers said that while it was helpful for the evaluation that the two bikes (Trek 550 steel racing bike and Trek 1200 aluminum racing bike) were identical in every way other than frame material, they thought it was unfortunate that the aluminum bike had been downgraded by the use of a steel fork rather than the previous year's aluminum fork.

Interestingly, all the reviewers of the two bikes agreed that the aluminum-frame bike had a smoother, more comfortable ride than the steel bike but also said that both bikes would have benefited from a front-end geometry with less trail. Quoting from the article:

'Unfortunately, the 560 sports the same bland geometry as the 1200. If Trek had specified an aggressive head angle and tight wheelbase on the 560, the bike would hold a definite selling angle over its aluminum shadow. Instead, it rides with the same stretched-out balance as the 1200---a 39 5/8" wheelbase, 73-degree head angle and 2 3/8" of trail. Like the 1200, the 550 is a tad slow to steer, but tracks straight ahead and is stable at all speeds.'