In my area road racing is dying off. Gravel and Mountain bike racing seem to be the dominate bike racing sports in my area.

I will agree that the cost of entry to race has gone insane. So much so that I don't participate in as many races as I used to. My self imposed limit for entry fee is $50 these days. Anything over that and I'm not participating. One of my local races is $150. No thanks.

You did make all of those assertions -- in post 92. You weren't quoting or citing someone else -- you wrote those things.

Road racing may be dwindling in popularity... I haven't done it since 2009 and don't follow it. But anecdotally, it seems like many of those former road racers (like me and some of my friends) have moved to gravel.

And yeah, some gravel events are pretty expensive -- but if my cutoff was $50, I wouldn't be racing at all. Around here, there are plenty of smaller grassroots events in the $70-$80 range (then add in the Bikereg.com fees); adjusted for inflation, that's a $50 race in roughly 2016.

You feeling OK today? Or just trying overly hard, harder than usual to tell everyone else they are wrong?

Here is what I wrote by the way - I think most can understand - the pro's are saying those words...

" listen to some of the current and past pro's and they all say pretty much the same thing - road cycling in the USA is dead or near death."

The grassroots events here run $30-$50. That's more my jam.

I don't need to spend more than that where my odds of taking top 3 are usually low. I can go in circles on the race courses a different day for free.

Back to Trek...

I have no dog in this fight. All the bike companies are struggling (great time to be buying a bike) but the only thing I think Trek is doing good at these days is their road bikes. We have 2 Domanes in the household. Outside of that, I think the rest of their bike line up is "meh" and costs too much compared to other similar equipped bikes.

Trek has bought up a lot of the independent stores around here. It will be interesting to see who fills the vacuum.

FWIW - Was at my LBS the other day to pick up a wheel that I ordered and the owner was telling me that all the bike companies he deals with are paring back their lines and inventory to save money and that he anticipates longer lead times on parts very soon.

For a guy who doesn’t want to play semantic games, you sure are good at it.

You were clearly endorsing those statements. You spend a lot of energy trying to dismiss responders rather than simply responding to their points.

and from a business standpoint recreational cycling is either high end Ebikers or low end Walmarters neither of which harken good news for big brand bike companies .................................................................. and for the less interested the fixed/SS crowd has really thinned out so much so that my fixed gear bar nites have devolved into 3 or 4 guys lamenting the rise of foodies on Ebikes & scooters

I think it’s worse in the road touring world. Last June I spent a several days on ACAs signature cross country route during a time when you would usually see many riders, like I had done in previous years. Last year I encountered only 7. Three were from Europe. In 2014 I camped with a dozen others one night alone. Not surprising that Trek discontinued its iconic 520 touring bike a few years ago.

Blame cell phones. Road biking is too dangerous.

​​​​​​I disagree that bicycle touring is dying off globally; it is more of a North American issue. As I have stated before, NA is probably the worst place I have ever bicycle toured for what I enjoy and dislike. Take Europe, for example: an estimated 25-30 million cyclists participated in at least one overnight trip last year. These numbers are increasing approximatly 5% year over year. Europe has approximately 467,000 of bicycle lanes, and the Eurovelo system consists of 91,800 km of continuous roads. This does not include the effectively unlimited quiet secondary road infrastructure. With extensive legal protections for cyclists on the road, as well as an excellent driver culture of respect. In Spain, for example, the overtaking driver must maintain 1.5 meters of clearance and, more importantly, be 20 km/h below the speed limit. Imagine that law in Wyoming or Montana.

The driver culture in NA is horrible, and overall, I find it unenjoyable. When you can find a secondary road getting passed with a foot or two to spare by some pickup towing a horse trailer is another version of hell and ruins the whole experience for me. Look at the ACA routes with hundreds of miles along the side of a highway, the only redeeming factor being that a garbage-strewn shoulder is available.

Sales of touring bikes and gear in Europe are strong, and, related to this thread, the good news is that the 520 Disc Frameset is still listed in Trek's 2026 catalogue in several European regions and the UK. Trek now positions the 520 as a "builder's bike." Since serious touring riders often have very specific preferences for drivetrains (like 3x10 setups) and saddles, Trek sells the chromoly steel frame and fork separately so you can custom-build it.

I'm not dead yet

Your mileage may vary on some of this. the 'owner' is gone, and big T took over our local and ruined it; don't think it will ever come back. used to be a fun place to visit, quite lively; now dead. maybe in the Spring they may sell a few bikes, maybe not and probably close up, a once great Bike Shop.

and maybe Bicycling itself is going down with many other great things; remains to be seen.

The big T makes a nice bike and i have a bunch of their brand, they just need to get back in their lane and stay there. Let the real Bike shops sell bicycles, the manufacturers can do what they do best, it is not running bicycle shops.

I don't remember paying entry fees for road races in the '70s. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Come to think of it, entering the Vuelta de Bisbee maybe did cost $15-20, and maybe I paid $5 at signup routinely and just don't remember it. They were not burdensome. Now, I can imagine $150 fees putting off adults, let alone kids.

"Hey kid, wanna race?"
"Sure!"
"Got a hundred and fifty dollars?"
"Umm.."

A relative handful of the big flashy races have those high fees, but most races -- the gravel races, at least -- cost half that. Or way less than half in prj71 's neck of the woods, apparently.

I didn’t claim globally. The post I responded to was clearly referring to the U.S. And as I noted, 3 of the 7 people I met were here from Europe. Now that I think about it, it was actually 4. A German, two Belgians, and a Dane.

When the points have merit - I respond with valid conversation. Then there is how I respond to you... which is different from anyone else, for good reason.

My brief riding experiences in Europe mirror what you said... people for the most part have respect for cyclists on the road over there. While I was in a bike centric place, so it may be inflated - there were riders of all types all over the roads. Riders everywhere - young riders on road bikes, old guys and everything in between. On the mountains, on the connector roads between the mountains and towns - bikes everywhere.

I've come to dread riding on the roads here - other than 6:am Sunday morning, I don't want to be on the roads. And even though I live in the busy North East corridor - my county, especially my part of the county - is sparsely populated farm land. We have little or no real traffic/congestion at any time of the day - but the drivers are just flat angry. Put a person behind the wheel and either they change, or their aggression is unleashed because they are protected by the cage around them.

We rarely see group rides locally anymore, rarely hear about group rides and the local bike club rides are sparsely populated. Very few young people... even out on the MTB trails, its typically old guys or a few middle aged people.

Our local Bike to the Bay MS ride used to have 1000's and 1000's - now its in the mid hundreds and is on the verge of not happening.

Great post. Here's the page for the 520 frameset in the 2026 UK catalogue. To clarify, the 520 frameset comes with a chromoly frame and an aluminum fork.

From that page:

"520 is a steel touring bike made for the open road. It's the longest-running model in our line-up, and it's built to carry you and your gear on your longest journeys. Extra mounts, an aluminium touring fork and included headset, headset spacers, cable guides, front quick release skewer and seat post collar, make this frameset the perfect platform for your custom adventure companion."

Steel forks are available from Trek UK, but they're all listed as replacement forks for Trek's Verve e-bikes, from what I saw.

My guess: Trek went with an aluminum fork for the 520 so that they could meet the stringent modern EU safety standards for bicycle forks while keeping the weight reasonably low. The steel Verve forks are probably built to be quite a bit heavier to meet those standards. Trek must have figured people buying e-bikes don't worry about fork weight.

give it time

Interesting that they went with the old skool Trek logo. I dated a woman in the early 1990s who had nherited a Trek from her mother. It had that same style of lettering. Also noticed that the website only offered three sizes (all sold out), with 54 cm being the largest. At 6' 2", I would have been out of luck.

That was the just the beginning. Now there are infotainment systems in new cars that play videos, have multi-screen displays and confusing interfaces that require one to take their eyes off the road to flip through screens. Then there is eating and drinking and spilling, children, animals and plain old distracted/inattentive driving. And yet, I still manage to log over 5,000 road miles per year. But then slipping in the shower, falling off a ladder, tripping and falling in one’s house are still far more dangerous and I am not moving out of my house to be safe.

I noticed that they list only the three (small) sizes. That suggests that the 520 will be gone from the 2027 catalog.

For a data point, I looked up the entry fees for a very popular upcoming local road race:

$75 Pro/1/2 category
$65/$55 Various CAT 1/2/3/4/5 and masters categories
$30 Collegiate categories
$10 Junior categories