Spotted: Trek High Pivot DH Prototype (Yes, It Still Looks Like a Session)
It has been rumoured strongly this offseason that a fresh Trek Session was about to hit the race circuit and we think we have our first look at it now thanks to a PB reader who wishes to remain anonymous.
The current generation Trek Session was first shown to journalists at the Lourdes World Cup in 2017 but it wasn't seen in the wild until the Fort William British Downhill series two weeks later. Trek had been developing a 29er downhill bike since 2009 and, although Santa Cruz beat them to the punch by racing one sooner, it still made history as the first production, carbon 29er downhill bike ever. This marked a significant shift in downhill bike design and one that led to the end of full 27.5" downhill race bikes.
The last Session update came in 2017 and it was the first production, carbon 29er downhill bike ever.
Four years on from that unveiling, we've been sent some photos of the new version of the Trek Session from the lift queue at Windrock bike park and it looks to be bang on trend once again with a high pivot and idler set up.
A high pivot design uses a physical pivot, or instant center, that is higher than the top of the chainring. They have returned to downhill racing recently with Commencal starting the trend that was soon adopted by GT, Devinci and Norco. As we've previously discussed, a high pivot design gives the bike a rearward path at the axle, which, in theory, allows the rear wheel to more easily move away from, and then over, an obstacle, an obvious advantage in downhill racing.
Whereas a lot of high pivot designs rely on some form of single pivot design, the new Session still retains its concentric dropout pivot at the rear axle which leads us to suspect this is still an ABP-style system but with the main pivot moved... in other words, despite the overhaul, it still kinda looks like a Session.
The only other thing we can tell from these pictures is that the stays are aluminium but we can't be sure of the frame material of the front triangle. We're also unsure on the wheelsize of the bike as the tires are a bit too dusty to read the hot patches but the reader who took the story thinks it was a full 29er.
If Trek riders are already at Windrock, we're expecting them to be racing at the Tennessee National this weekend so we will try to get some better shots of the bike then. Trek said, “We’re always testing new product and Trek will make an announcement as soon as there is information to share.”
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The dude who shot the Devinci had previously crawled underneath a truck to get a different spy shot. What kind of psychopath would do that? I agree people should be careful with prototypes, but posting spy shots is a selfish endeavor.
GT engineer wearing Trek pants to throw off the PB snoops: Priceless
(I'm probably misremembering some of the details but back in the 90s, one of the British manufacturers used to disguise its road testing prototypes as BMWs to throw the motoring press off the scent. Until BMW asked them to cut it out.)
ahhhh the so-rare the Chevy Citation X-11 HO 1981 me think ????
Here and I thought @canfieldbikes was one of the first to do it nearly a decade before Commencal with the Formula and the Jedi
The Trek Session 10 frame from say 10 plus years ago had high pivot as well
m.pinkbike.com/news/2087-BCD-Racing-29er-Carbon-Fiber-DH-Bike.html
I ride with his dad sometimes. I’ll ask. Living in Amarillo TX, last I heard.
Smaller momentum of the smaller wheel is negligible, if even a thing.
~plus 10% on rim and tire weight, all else being equal. A c-hair more spoke weight, but that’s really negligible.
And this is entirely different. PB wasn’t given an early preview and leaked it, this was a user spy shot legally posted. Their hands were tied, bury it and lose credibility as an industry puppet or post it and piss off the industry.
PB did the right thing, IMO. The dude who had the bike? He screwed up. Pack the bike inside, do something to mask it... seems a bit odd to take practically no measures to hide the bike and then cry foul when it goes public.
I'm the guy that they always say should get stuff first so they could find the weak spots, so I listened and got that job. I do it with bikes too, but unfortunately I'm on the hook to fix/replace them.
Also Loris' contract definitely had a lot to do with this.
If a high pivot bike lets the rear wheel move rearward wouldn’t that be a problem if your wheels start moving in different directions?
Somebody please explain this to me.
No one seems to have this complaint anymore, so idk if rear shocks are better, 650b/29ers allow for less rearward motion anyways, DH bikes are so much longer that the effect is less pronounced, or (I suspect) we aren't a bunch of crybabies anymore (we have other things to cry about now, like superboost)
The benefit is if your rear wheel hits a rock or bump, the wheel will travel backwards then up and over. As opposed to non high pivots where the wheel would be trying to just go up and over.
www.wideopenmountainbike.com/2018/04/how-does-mountain-bike-suspension-work-part-2-pivots
After the demise of Balfa and Canfield, it was mondraker who took the mantle, although they aren’t high pivot, the floating lower link provides an incredible rear axle path, but, this can lend itself to an awkward feeling in corners as the bike gets longer when you slam into a corner so with high pivot bikes and mondraker with the floating suspension design, suspension set up both front and rear is incredibly important
I would love to know the test results from Scott.
Many readers are waiting...... :-)