13/3/06 Back To School

Last week Oli and I went back to school with Trek, attending a two-day Trek University seminar at the Eastway cycle circuit put on for their dealers to learn all about the latest and greatest things Trek are up to.

The first day was spent in the classroom, sitting through a selection of videos and presentations. The science behind their WSD women-specific products was interesting, as well as the reasoning behind their full-suspension designs. The road stuff was not so relevant to us but interesting none the less, lots of footage of Lance in wind tunnels and that sort of thing.

Because we all behaved ourselves on the first day, the next day we got to play on all their bikes. With Canary Wharf and the Gherkin providing an unusual change  of back-drop, we took the full range of Trek and Gary Fisher hardtail and full-sus bikes around the Eastway course, and with the rain lashing down really got to test their limits. Being able to ride all of them back to back was great for being able to feel the difference between the different designs, and jumping straight from a carbon hardtail race bike on to the 7" travel Session was good fun!

Of all the bikes we rode the Bigg'n hardtails from Gary Fisher really stood out for us. Billed as freeride hardtails, they reminded us very much of the Nicolai Argon we're both enjoying riding so much at the moment - fun throw-around bikes that should be great to ride round here. In fact we liked them so much, we've now got the mid-range Bitter (£650) in the window at the moment! 

-Dan