Look at those slender and long rear stays with no brake arch to help compliance! Right now the lanes are in pretty poor condition and it was no issues on the ALR: those chunky 28c tyres cushioned the road well enough and the frame did a fantastic job at reducing the buzz. What I like the most here is that you are getting the best from the brakes and the best from the tyres thanks to the clearance, without the weight penalty that a sub-£1,800 bike would normally give. But did the Emonda ALR live up to it at home on UK roads?
On relatively well paved roads on a very warm summer’s evening the bike performed amazingly well and did one thing that I like for an aluminium bike: that is to not to ride like an aluminium bike. I got to ride the Emonda ALR 5 disc for 60 or so kilometres around Trek’s home in Waterloo, Wisconsin. My lasting memory of the Trek Emonda ALR was a good one. It still looks great though and on our industry ride from the Cycling Weekly office the other day, it turned a lot of riders' heads, followed by a "no way!" when I told them the price. I have the black version here, which comes in Trek's Emonda ALR 4 guise, but it's been built up with Shimano 105 hydraulic disc which means it is really the Emonda ALR 5 – the frameset stays the same. Get up close and you can really see that Trek has done a stellar job at making the Trek Emonda ALR as close as an aluminium can be to looking like carbon. I rode the purple piece of perfection (called purple flip) in Waterloo, Trek's base at home. What makes the bikes look like carbon is what Trek call its “Invisible Weld Technology” and it ultimately increases the surface area of the frame which adds to strength and cuts down weight.
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