Trek Ticket S - Review

The Ticket S is available in a single large-sized frame, with a 22.1'' top tube length and a stubby 13'' seat tube. You'll have to put your own build together as the $1,539.99 USD Ticket S is only available as a frame (with shock), which is what we did before handing it to Sam Dueck, a rider who's stood on the podium at Whistler's Crankworx slopestyle comp. He then tested the bike at his own hidden jump spot and provided the feedback for this review.



Frame Details

The production aluminum Ticket S frame is actually almost the very same as you'll see under Semenuk, with only the carbon seat stay unit found on the Silent Assassin's competition machine to set it apart. That means that the Ticket S you can buy from your shop is sporting the same geometry, and is surely within a handful of grams when it comes to weight. You'll also be on a pretty short list of riders if you get yourself a Ticket S, as Trek says that the bike is actually a limited production item and that relatively few will ever be welded up. That makes sense because as interesting as bikes like this are, the market for a 100mm travel slope-specific bike is far smaller than even the demand for downhill rigs, which themselves only make up a very small piece of the pie compared to the bread and butter bikes in a company's lineup. In other words, you're a lucky duck if you have one of these limited production bikes sitting in your garage.




Not surprisingly, the Ticket S looks very much like one of Trek's Remedy or Session bikes that was hit with the shrink ray gun, and it also sports many of the same features. This includes the E2 tapered head tube up front, a pint sized EVO link that drives the shock, and a set of ISCG 05 chain guide tabs around a press-fit bottom bracket. The frame also has an incredible amount of stand over clearance, as you'd hope it would for a bike of its intentions, with the top tube dropping down drastically and a seat tube that's just 13" long - it sits well below the top of the rear tire.

There's also what looks like two bolts on the top of the down tube where you might want to mount a water bottle cage, but that's definitely not what Trek has in mind for them. Instead, this is where a crafty slope rider is going to mount his rear shifter via a custom-made bracket, thereby allowing him to spin the handlebar around without worrying about tugging on the shift line. It also puts the shifter in a much more protected location, which also doesn't hurt matters. This is exactly what Semenuk did when he mounted a SRAM bar-end shifter from a road bike in this spot, and it's also how test rider Sam Dueck attached his Shimano Saint shifter.




The Ticket's Suspension Explained

Trek has long employed their Active Braking Pivot design on everything from their cross-country race bikes to the long-travel Session models, and you'll also find it here on the back of the 100mm travel Ticket S frame. The system allows the dropout pivot to rotate concentrically around the axle, which thereby limits the amount of rotation between the caliper and rotor. Trek says this helps to keep the suspension performing in a more consistent manner, regardless of if the rider is grabbing a handful of brakes. Just as with the other ABP equipped bikes, the Ticket accepts a standard 12 x 142mm thru-axle.

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Sam immediately took the Ticket S to his local spot, a hidden Shangri-La in the woods with a few good sized hits and one seriously huge trick jump, and it didn't take him long to get used to the different feel of the Trek compared to the hardtail he had been riding there. ''It's just as easy to throw around in the air as a hardtail,'' he said when questioned about comparing the two very different bikes that were built for the same purpose. "I'd still prefer a hardtail on really tight jumps, but the overall feel of the bike is good and the rear end is short. That makes it super easy to throw around in any direction.'' Were there any moves that he felt were made more difficult by the 100mm of travel compared to the rigid rear end of his hardtail? ''Nope, and the bike tail whips like a dream,'' he also pointed out.

The confidence inspiring feel is partly down to the large sized frame's 22.1'' top tube that Dueck said he felt was spot-on for how the bike is meant to be ridden, saying ''It's long enough to allow me to be comfortable in the air, but not short to the point where I'd have to worry about the end of the handlebar hitting the seat when doing bar spins or tail whips." Clearly those aren't the concerns of the average rider, but this isn't the bike for an average rider, either.



Is there anything Sam would change when it comes to the bike's handling? It doesn't seem so: ''I wouldn't want to change anything about this bike when it come to design and geometry," he said about Ticket. ''It handles very well for what is was designed to do, which is slopestyle." And that's where the bike's rear suspension really comes into its own, on larger gaps with slightly mellower takeoffs than you might see at your local BMX jump spot. Coming back to earth from supersized gaps and drops, and especially if you're in the midst of getting your feet back on the pedals or clearly going to land at an awkward angle (which obviously happens when you're at your limit), is when the added forgiveness of the Trek is really an advantage.

Trek did design the Ticket's suspension to ramp up through its travel in a quicker manner than they would have if the bike was meant for more average use, but Sam still found the bottom of the stroke more often than he would have preferred. The 100mm of travel no doubt helped when it was needed, he said, but Sam also explained that he needed to run the shock at maximum air pressure in order to keep it from bottoming too often. Now, the truth is that almost anyone who is going to be pushing the Ticket S harder than Sam will be riders who have their own video parts, so it's debatable whether the average slope and dirt jump rider is going to also need to run such high air pressure.




The Ticket S is a helluva bike when it's ridden in the environment that it's intended for, but just like when you get a downhill race bike on tame terrain, the Ticket S isn't ideal unless you're really doing some good sized moves. ''I would choose a regular chromoly or aluminum hardtail if I was only ever hitting dirt jumps all day,'' said Deuck after riding the Trek on some local, steep dirt jumps that look like they were built with 20'' wheeled bikes in mind. The Ticket S was put together for man-sized slope courses, including more spaced out jumps and two-story tall drops, not tightly packed and near vertical lips. ''I had the rear shock pumped up to the maximum air pressure and felt that the rear end still compressed too much on the face of steep lips,'' he explained. ''But a burly slope course is where having the 100mm of travel out back is going to give you an advantage over riding a hardtail.'' That is where the bike's rear end could save you when sticking the landing isn't guaranteed.

Sam also found that he had an issue with keeping the pivot hardware tight that joins the EVO link and seat stay assembly, with it loosening off multiple times during a few hours of riding on different occasions, and even after some Loctite was applied. It pays to check the bolts on any bike every now and then, but especially on the Ticket. S.



Pinkbike's Take:

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Visit the high-res gallery for more images from this review

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www.trek.com / @trek

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Reviews and Tech Reviews Dirtjump Bikes Trek Trek Ticket S