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| The unassuming building that houses Trek's world headquarters Trek's world headquarters are located in Waterloo, Wisconsin, a sleepy town filled with farms and quaint houses, and is only a few miles from where the first Trek bikes were welded together in a red barn. This location is not only Trek's spiritual residence, but also home to their in-house carbon frame manufacturing. Part office building and part technological safe house, its appearance from the outside deceives its forward thinking office space layout and warm interior. You won't find pint-sized cubicles squeezed in to maximize floor space, instead, a more open floor plan is employed. Those who design wheels sit next to those who work with tires, including Keith Bontrager himself. |
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| History on display Trek proudly puts a massive emphasis on moving forward and using the best technology available, but it's good to never forget where you came from. The first thing that you see upon entering the building is a large display, including two glassed in bikes, one of which is one of the first steel touring bikes that was welded in the original Trek building - a big red barn. The lobby walls are covered in photos and memories of Trek's founder, Richard Burke, and other important figures in the company's past. Leaving the lobby through a set of large glass doors puts you in the above room, a large open expanse with opposing walls adorned with standout bikes from the past. One of Gary Fisher's very first clunkers (left) is bolted solidly to the wall. This beast is said to weigh about 75lbs, sports drum brakes front and back, and most importantly, had been fitted with a rear derailleur by Gary himself. The mountain bike wall also had the once futuristic Y-bike and some more current race machinery on display. The opposite wall was mostly occupied by bikes that Lance has ridden to victory, and was arranged by technological advancements, not chronologically. |
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| Trek's Race Shop We can only imagine the rad race-team-only products that have made their way through this spotless room. I challenge anyone to find a spec of dust or dirt in here, it is kept clean to a nearly surgical room kind of level. Team rider's gear gets the special treatment in here, be it a completely custom made gadget on the in-house CNC machine or one-off frames like McCaul's slopestyle bike. Hanging on the rack up against the far wall is a selection of frames bound for Trek's professional road team, including their impressive carbon time trial rig. There is a Park Tool for any sort of repair that would ever need to be done, and the work benches use massive solid wood table tops. This room can get quite loud when machines are being used so they have pimped it out with a monster sized JBL stereo system. To all home mechanics out there, you can close your mouth now. |
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| Machinery in the Race Shop Sometimes you need something special, and if you happen to be a Trek factory rider, you may get it. The Race Shop uses these machines to build one-off components when the demand calls for it. A perfect example of this would be when team rider Rene Wildhaber called up looking for a special chain guide. The Race Shop milled one up to his specs and had it in the post in an impressively short amount of time. The Race Shop isn't here just for mountain bikers, but also roadies and triathletes as well. |
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| Inspiration There is a good chance that the crew in the Race Shop have been vital in the success that these jerseys stand for. Yellow for the Tour, pink for the winner of the Giro d'Italia, and Tracy Moseley World Champ's jersey from Mont St. Anne, among others. Each is adorned with a very personal thank you message from its owner. |
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| The Race Shop is where factory rider's frames and bikes are assembled, and each part, from the smallest cable end to the larger custom made parts, are all stored here. Picture one part operating room, one part custom fab shop, and one part bike shop that happens to cater to its customers every need, no matter how small. |
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| Organization is not taken lightly within the Race Shop. Every part has its place. |
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| Trek's in-house gym Employees at Trek's HQ are encouraged to take time out of their day to leave their desks and squeeze some exercise in. There is an impressive amount of equipment in this room, as well as motivational quotes from Lance and Willow Koerber about pain, glory, and all those inspirational sorts of things. Fitness trainers are also made available for staff to take advantage of. Trek's private trails and testing area, where you'll find about 18 miles of professionally made trails, is located just a mile down the road as well. I spent the majority of the day touring Trek's headquarters and didn't run into a single person who looked out of shape. |
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| 29'er DH bike in the ACG room Next stop was the one that I was most looking forward to: Trek's Advanced Concepts Group, better known as ACG. This is where ideas get massaged and theories are proven or ditched. Casually lounging in the ACG room was this bike that will surely stir the pot. Hold onto your "29'ers suck" comments, I was told that this DH big wheeler isn't slated for production anytime soon. If not production, why bother? Dylan Howes, the evil genius with the mechanical engineering know-how, explained that many avenues must be explored when thinking about what could work in the future. Obviously, all sorts of things would have to be sorted out, including the development of proper tires, but who knows what the future holds. On top of building this bike just to see if certain theories work, it also serves as a rolling test bed for other ideas are that hidden behind locked doors, concepts that we may not know about for three or four years. Despite the wagon wheels and different suspension layout, this one-off shares a few similar lines to its production brother, the Session. Look close and you'll be able to see the pinch bolts at the front of the head tube, no doubt to let the engineers adjust the geometry for evaluation purposes. |
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| Old school prototype hanging from the ceiling in the ACG room A perfect example of something that was tested, but never made available to the public. This all black special uses a triangulated rear end and two links to control wheel path and shock rate, but its colossal head tube reinforcement is what caught my eye. Burly! |
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| Sharples' swiss cheese VRX DH frame The way things were. This VRX prototype was used by RaceBrain front man, and our own Sharp As A Marble columnist, Scott Sharples. The frame uses a simple single pivot swingarm with an early incarnation of a RockShox coil shock. This particular retired dinosaur no doubt enjoyed an interesting life, but one has to wonder if the "speed holes" were simply added afterwards or if the big bike was designed with them in mind. It was never going to win a beauty contest, and the complete bike looked implausibly tall when built up |
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