Trek Domane 2.0 road bike

Over the past few years, Fabian Cancellara has romped to a podium in every cycling monument he has finished. Many of these performances have been on Trek's Domane endurance frames. Through the magic of trickle-down technology, the same platform that is available to Spartacus is available to you, in aluminium form, for a fraction of the cost which is what we have here in the Trek Domane 2.0.

Frame/Fork: Quality products for the low price

The big talking point here for Trek is the ISOspeed decoupler. Essentially the seat tube isn't welded to the top tube/seat stay junction. The IsoSpeed itself consists of a bearing on either side, with a bushing forming the mechanical attachment between the top and seat tubes; this allows the whole length of the seat tube to flex under load. The initial, industry-standard 'lean on it to see what happens' test revealed a fair amount of flex in the frame - even in aluminium form, a material often known for building into frames that are a bit stiffer than carbon fibre equivalents.

On the road the compliance arising from that flex was noticeable - sometimes. I found that the frame's small bump sensitivity was not much different from other sportive or comfort bikes. However, when the going got even rougher - like on big potholes or really rough unpaved tracks akin to the cobbles of Flanders and Roubaix - the frame came into its own a bit more, softening the big hits.

The head tube is long at 17.5cm (I measured 17.3), and as such I found myself slamming the stem right down to the (quite tall) headset cap get my usual position (admittedly I run quite a racy position normally). Having said that, I have seen much longer head tubes on other endurance bikes too - Cervelo bikes spring to mind.

Build quality on this frame is excellent. The welds are all reasonably subtle, and there are both mudguard and rack mounts - a big plus for me, as I don't do riding on turbos throughout the rainy months, opting for the great outdoors instead. Similarly I was happy to find that the frame took 28mm tyres with a good few mm of room to spare. More on tyres in a minute.

Press fit bottom brackets are becoming more and more prevalent on lower end bikes. You can make arguments for and against them. I tend to fall on the side of preferring threaded bottom brackets for ease of removal and maintenance, especially as the stiffness benefits of a press fit bottom bracket were not really all that tangible to me on a bike like this. However the cranks span flawlessly and there was no dreaded press fit creak to be heard.

Other than that I found the frame to be more than adequate. I can't say I stripped the bike down to get an actual weight of the bare frame, but it seemed pretty reasonable while out on the road. The paint finish was top notch - it ooked like I was riding a more expensive bike than I actually was.

The Domane 2.0 fork is carbon, with an aluminium steerer. The fork is also an IsoSpeed product aiming to isolate road vibration, which manifests in the fork legs curving rather gracefully over the dropouts. The fork design works, but doesn't provide the same level of compliance as the rear end because the decoupler is a much more effective engineering solution. That led to a rather odd ride over certain road surfaces: there would be a lot of buzz through my hands, and then much less through the saddle. This is a minor point though, and I all but stopped noticing the difference as I became more accustomed to the bike. A way to compensate for this would be to run slightly less pressure than normal in the front tyre than the rear, or just fit plusher bar tape.

Build: Good value but a couple of changes needed.

The Domane 2.0 is supplied with 25mm Bontrager R1 tyres. At first glance, on dry roads they seem like a decent idea. But at the first hint of rain or greasy roads, I didn't feel comfortable leaning the bike over in fast corners at all and found that the wheels would lock up rather too quickly for my liking. I did start to get used to them as I rode the bike more, but I was never fully at ease. Swtiching out to 28mm Continental Gatorskins - which aren't even the most supple of tyres - I was immediately more confident to really attack the descents.

The wheels are unbranded hubs laced to 'Bontrager-approved' rims with 24 spokes both front and rear. Unsurprisingly these wheels were no featherweights, but they performed perfectly well and weren't horrendously draggy on the climbs. The wheels also stayed true throughout the test, despite my best pothole and bridleway clattering, which was a bonus.

The unbranded alloy dual pivot brakes supplied were actually surprisingly powerful and had reasonable modulation. When combined with better tyres than those supplied, braking power was really excellent for the bike.

Trek supply the Domane 2.0 with a Shimano Tiagra group set. The group comes with a 50/39/30 triple up front and 12-30 10 speed cassette out back. Personally I'm not a fan of a triple - I've never run out of gears on a compact/28 cassette combo before - but with this combination I'd back myself to ride up a brick wall (provided enough science was ignored) and it complemented the considerable weight of the bike well. The cadence I could produce was epic, even on gradients of 20% or more. This is a big plus for those who might be just starting out in the world of cycling, or are looking to do some seriously tough and hilly days. It also meant I could do some sweet sweet wheelies up my local commute climb.

Out of the box I found that both derailleurs required a couple of barrel adjuster twiddles to really be sharp, but other than that the Tiagra performed excellently. I have a gripe with the Tiagra shifter hoods though. They are very big and even my average to large sized hands struggled when braking from the hoods. Shimanos 105 hoods are considerably more ergonomic in my eyes, and also do away with the 'washing line' gear cables coming out of the sides. That's purely an aesthetic factor though: my main problem is the ergonomics, or lack thereof.

The supplied bars - again 'Bontrager approved' - are 42cm wide. I ride 40cm bars on all my other bikes (that are 56cm, as with the bike on test) and the 2cm difference was noticeable. In my opinion the bike would have suited 40cm bars far better.

The Bontrager Affinity 1 saddle was rather good, sat atop the seat post that was another heavy but solid 'Bontrager approved' product. For longer rides I would personally have switched the saddle out for something that suits me better, but that sort of decision is always a very personal thing.

Ride: Comfy yet still responsive.

On the flat I found the Domane's weight to be unsurprisingly tough to accelerate up to speed, but the bike cruised well once you got it there. While climbing, again the hefty wheels held the bike back a bit, but it was comfortable both in and out of the saddle, and the triple chainset meant that I could scale any and all Tarmac grades I could find.

When pointed down the hill and getting into the drops (and with different tyres) the Trek was stable and surefooted. I had the bike up to almost 90kph down some of Bath's steeper declines and found I could bank the bike over in hard and fast corners with no hair-raising moments. The steering was reasonably responsive, potentially siding on the slow, rather than the twitchy side. But this was no problem for me and I really enjoyed hammering descents on it by the end of the test. This bike was never aimed to be a racer, but thankfully Trek have managed to marry the expected comfortable 'endurance' position for this bike with a lively steering response.

As pointed out before, at first the ride was slightly odd between front and rear wheel in terms of differing levels of road buzz, but overall I found it to be comfortable and never overly flexy. That's as close as I dare get to the dreaded 'compliance/stiffness' cliche.

At the £900 mark, Trek have provided a frame and fork that is fully primed for some long term upgrades. If the bike were my own, my first priority would be to change the shifters and swap out the triple for a compact crankset. Upgrading these parts would cost more than the 200 jump up to the next bike in the range (the 2.3) but at the same time you are now out of the magic £1000 cycle to work scheme price point. So it's sort of swings and roundabouts really. Either way you are getting a top frame and fork for 900 quid, with perfectly functioning gears and excellent scope to upgrade in the future.

Verdict

Comfortable and entertaining entry-to-mid-level bike, with excellent scope to upgrade in the future; change the tyres though