Trek Bikes has unveiled the Domane, a high performance road bike designed for the Classics like Flanders and Roubaix.
Slotting alongside the Madone as a second “full race platform”, the Domane name means “the King’s Crown” in Latin and is pronounced doe-mah-nay. It’s also a nifty anagram of the Madone’s letters. As suspected, it’s built to be stable and comfortable (but still fast) compared to the Madone’s stiff, light design, and it’s been in development for three years.
The most visible new feature of the Domane is IsoSpeed, an insert that isolates the seat tube from the rest of the frame. Looking at the frame, the seat tube goes straight through the split top tube, neither tube directly touches the other. Between them is a decoupler with two round elastomer inserts that give the seat tube the ability to flex back and forth. Check the video and more after the break…
Click to enlarge and you’ll see the IsoSpeed coupler is very well integrated into the frame. At a quick glance, it looks like a solid, contiguous frame. Trek’s dealer literature says the IsoSpeed coupling should last the life of the bike without creaking, wear or degradation, but if something does happen, it’s a simple swap of parts without any special tools. We’ve learned that the entire IsoSpeed mechanism adds less than 100g to the frame, putting a full frame in around 1050g (claimed) with paint.
Topping the seat tube is their no-cut seatmast, which Trek says lets them make the frame lighter since it doesn’t need to be reinforced to handle the stresses of a seat collar clamp. The fork also gets IsoSpeed technology and has a rather unique construction. It sweeps forward of the dropouts, which end up sitting down and back from the end of the fork legs. The design has 20% more fork offset than the Madone.
The Domane has what Trek is calling “Endurance Geometry” and the head- and seat tube angles, BB drop and other measurements are all new for them. Overall, it added around 3cm to the wheelbase and 1.3cm to the chainstays versus the Madone. Put it all together -more rake, curvier fork legs, longer wheelbase, new angles- and you have a formula for both stability and bump compliance.
Trek says your fit should be set up as normal, that there is no “sag” that needs to accounted for, and that riding position won’t be noticeably affected as the IsoSpeed system does its job.
Finishing off the touchpoints is Bontrager’s new carbon IsoZone handlebar with integrated, replaceable closed cell foam pads on the top of the bar and in the drops. The bar flares out slightly at the drops for a more ergonomic position, and it’s a short and shallow shape. Trek says the pads are a lighter overall solution than third party add-on gel pads or extra tape.
The flip side of all that comfort is their Power Transfer Construction. The PTC starts at the front with their tapered E2 headtube, runs through a massive downtube to their extra wide BB90 bottom bracket and through the chainstays to the rear axle. The head tube is asymmetric -it’s wider on the sides than front and back- which Trek says keeps it stiff while minimizing weight.
That thing on the bottom of the BB shell is the battery mount for electronic drivetrains. The Domane frame is built with wiring integration in mind, but that mount is replaceable with a cable stop. Wire and cable entry ports (everything runs internally) are swappable, putting electronic or mechanical specific stops where they’re needed for a very clean look regardless of drivetrain choice.
The frame also uses their DuoTrap integrated speed/cadence sensor on the non-drive chainstay, which works on ANT+ and is completely hidden inside the frame.
To make sure all the comfort and speed don’t go to waste at on rough cobbles, there’s an integrated chain catcher on the frame to keep the drivetrain parts where they’re supposed to be. Two sizes are available to go with either standard or compact cranksets and has a small amount of adjustment by rotating it around the frame to get it as close as possible to the small chainring.
Another feature rides may want on bikes like this are fenders, and Trek says there’s adequate clearance for them. With the usual lineup of brakes, tire clearance is limited to 25c, but the frame itself has more room. We suspect as this model trickles down, some folks will put wider brakesets on and run fatter tires, particularly for harsher courses.
The new Domane will be offered in two models, both using Trek’s top of the line 600-Series OCLV carbon fibers and construction. The Domane 6 Series Team Edition, pictured at the top of the post, comes in at $11,896.47 with Dura-Ace Di2. The other model is the custom one you can build in Trek’s Project One program, starting at $4,619.98 and shown above with the Ultegra Di2, aero wheels and a sweet orange-and-blue Bikerumor paint scheme (about $7,850).
Trek dealers will be able to order through Project One to stock whatever spec they want or get a preconfigured 6.2 Shimano Ultegra version. At launch, only the 6-Series level will be available, but we suspect it’ll trickle down to lower price point specs pretty quickly.
Video above is the backstory on the frame. Look for Cancellara to be aboard the Domane this weekend at the start of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders), which runs Sunday, April 1 2012, and again shortly thereafter at Paris-Roubaix.
A few glamour shots for you.
