i'm talking about my italian made columbus tubed one.... not the taiwanese one, sucka.

The Pista is the Trek of track bikes. And now Trek has gone and built their own track bike.

you're the huffy of evening swimwear.

I'm not sure what that means but it made me laugh.

me too

p.s... id ride that top of the line trek roadbike any day.. nothin sexier then a reverse sloping top tube..even if the ****s got flames.. o.k...maybe i couldnt do the flames..

I'm the Magna of Wednesday nights.

I rode the T1 at work the other day.
Rides like a road bike.
But light as hell.

Trek bike teams won the last seven Tour de France(s?). That company must understand a thing or two.

Can one of you guys let me know if the wheels on the pista 06 are strong enough for daily commuting? I live in London (uk) and have been on the cheap Fuji which I had to have the wheels rebuilt on as the roads here are ****ing terrible-thank you Tony Blair!

FYI, there is a recall on fuji's crappy wheels. So maybe you can get a new wheelset out of them, who knows.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?p=2425045

Lance would have won those TDFs on anything that has two wheels. 90% of the time, pros use equipment (frame, wheels, handlebars, you name it) that they know is not the best, or not what they would ideally like to ride. If a manufacturer sponsor comes along and gives the team a shipload of equipment to use and a bunch of money, they must use it and that's that. It's worth it for the maker because people like you believe it's the best stuff. (Of course, pro teams won't use anything thats outright crap, but still...)

I replaced the stock 28mm raked fork on my '05 Pista with a 43mm raked carbon fiber road fork. With the stock fork, I would have described the handling as lugubrious and predictable -- but not necessarily stable, and really not that enjoyable for street riding.

With the new 43mm raked fork, the handling is quicker, more precise, and the bike seems to be easier to ride no-handed.

Why is that? It has to do with the mechanical trail. By increasing the fork rake, or offset, the mechanical trail decreases, which seems to "quicken" the handling of the bike. This is good for street riding, as it's easier to dodge potholes and make sudden turns. Perhaps it's not so good for track riding, where handling at speed is more important. One thing I noticed about the decreased trail, and which explains why it rides better no-handed, is that although it may stray off-course easier, it is also easier to recorrect this tendency with subtle body english. Again, these are my perceptions, and probably influenced by my riding style.

I've ridden the bike on the velodrome (Alpenrose) with this fork as well as with the stock fork. I like the quickness of the handling with the new fork better than with the stock fork. My perception was that the stock fork made the handling slower, but more stable when sprinting out of the saddle. However, I felt more comfortable riding in a paceline and in a pack of riders with the longer fork rake, as it seemed that I could react more quickly to the changes in motion by adjacent riders.

Now, on the subject of aesthetics, we all have our own thresholds of tolerance. Pesonally, I think that the appearance of the unicrown fork is more suited to a piece of farm equipment than to an elegant machine such as a bicycle.

me too.

i don't know the ins and outs, but i have a really hard time believing lance rode his 6th or 7th tour win on a bike he thought was just o.k.

That's why it pays to be prepared...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...82345929&itm=1

As any custom bike maker will tell you, the fit is the most important part of a frame. And reportedly, Lance is/was fanatical about fitting stuff correctly. Once something fits, even if it isn't the best money can buy, you tend to like it.

I have only recently started watching competitive cycling on OLN, but I did find it strange that I didn't see anyone out there on a vanilla, or a merlin or a litespeed. Half of them were on giants or other taiwan bikes; I might have seen a single LeMond but I wasn't sure. I know lance trains on handmade treks from their R&D department, but it would seem 50 year old roadies up the street have way better bikes than the average pro cyclist.

Lance may have had confidence in the bike, but I am also sure it wasn't his absolute favorite bike in the world. He has to have a litespeed or a campy or a handmade Sky Yaeger somewhere in his stable that he would've rather been riding, right?

Outside of aesthetics, in what ways, specifically and measurably, would a Vanilla Frame be a better ride for the Tour than the highest end Trek? What are the assumptions? I'll offer an assumption of my own: The Trek/Nike R&D budget is a thousand to one higher than Vanilla's. Not to call that company out, they make nice beautiful frames, but their business/building model is dissimilar to the extreme.

A big bike company uses the same loving care and devotion to detail that a artisian builder does when designing a perfect fitting bike for Lance + the R&D budget, wind tunnel testing and engineering department to build him a different frame that's been optimized for climbing stages, time trials, etc, plus back up bikes. And bikes for the rest of his team. And back up bikes for them. Does this make the Trek that you or I can buy in the shop and better? I dunno, trickle down technology?
I don't think there are a lot of small builders that could support a pro team if they wanted to. I'd guess that a lot of the well known established builders, with year+ waiting lists already, probably wouldn't get the same return on advertising that Trek does. Trek's got a couple warehouses full of hybrids and 5000 series carbon road bikes to sell to the world who just discovered TdF. The guys building custom handmade frames a la Vanilla are probably already selling close to the number of bikes they can/want to make in a year.

In response to your comment about Trek's warehouse full of hybrids and 5000 series carbon frames, it's amusing to note how much Trek throws away.
Some friend's of mine went dumpster diving at the trek factory here in Wisconsin and came away with some carbon frames and many many carbon wheelsets.
Trek's trash could outfit a team.

Look how far Cervélo has come, we Canadian riders are super proud of those guys. It's because of having pro riders on your gear that you can afford to R&D stuff to death.

'Win on Sunday = Sales on Monday"
Henry Ford

Wow, I'm surprised that they don't 'destroy' their frames/wheels before they throw them away. Even if it's just an aesthetic blemish, they'd want to prevent it from being used with their name on it. Not to mention those carbon wheels they made with that lot of epoxy that never really cured. ;)

There were some destroyed frames and wheelsets, from crash testing and what not I assume.
But just as many cosmetic blemishes in perfect working order.
Aparently Trek will prosecute if they catch you, but I've really been itching to check it out.

Dumpster diving nirvana

I think taiwan is dumpster diving nirvana. Just think there are probably days when they have to throw out entire production runs of carbon frames/wheels.