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feature
Trek Emonda ALR 5 B@bCheck out Trek’s Emonda ALR 5 with an advanced alloy frame that ‘looks and performs like carbon’
The Emonda ALR 5 is Trek’s light and responsive disc-brake equipped road bike with a more wallet-friendly advanced alloy frame that is designed to give it the sleek looks and handling of a far more expensive carbon bike.
The lightweight 300 Series Alpha Aluminum frame features shaped tubes and Invisible Weld Technology, and is paired with the Emonda SL carbon fork that’s been included to absorb vibrations from the road.
> 14 best aluminium road bikes — explore this popular material
Trek says that it can reduce the amount of weld material needed by hydroforming tube shapes that fit together perfectly. This, it says, allows for larger continuous surface areas on the frame, which increases strength and cuts weight.
> Trek to launch new Domane range
The ride quality is what really impressed Mat Brett when he reviewed the bike: “This is one of those bikes that's never flustered. It handles rough roads without any drama – which is just as well because there are plenty of 'em round our way – and stays fully planted on sketchy corners.”
> You can read his full review of the Trek Émonda ALR 5 over here.
All of the Emonda ALR bikes are built to Trek's H2 geometry, which is a little less low and stretched than its H1 or H1.5 setups but still focused on speed.
"It's the perfect fit for most road riders because it's not overly aggressive but still puts you in the right position for power," says Trek. The H2 geometry is essentially somewhere between an aggressive road bike and an endurance bike.
“I was happy with the position once I'd shifted the stem as low as it could go on the steerer, but we're all different,” Mat commented. “I did find myself down on the drops in search of efficiency a little more than normal, but that's not a bad thing.”
With a dependable Shimano 105 groupset including hydraulic disc brakes for reassuring stopping power in any weather, Trek has built this bike to perform on club rides and races alike.
Also Bontrager’s Blendr stem technology lets you clip your gear directly to the stem of the ALR for a neat finish as well as user friendliness.
“The better performance of disc brakes, an advanced alloy frame that looks and performs like carbon, and a reliable Shimano 105 drivetrain give this race-ready ride an incredible amount of versatility,” Trek sums up.
The complete 58cm Emonda ALR Disc bike we had on test came in at a very reasonable 9.16kg (20lb 3oz).
The ALR 5 Shimano 105 build comes to £2,200. With the £1,750 ALR 4 you’re getting Tiagra, and the frameset alone costs £1,150.
Anna has been hooked on bikes ever since her youthful beginnings at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. As an avid road and track racer, she reached the heady heights of a ProCyclingStats profile before leaving for university. Having now completed an MA in Multimedia Journalism, she’s hoping to add some (more successful) results. Although her greatest wish is for the broader acceptance of wearing funky cycling socks over the top of leg warmers.
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32 comments
I am relieved to know that Koga isn't the only brand that makes beautifully slick aluminium frames (my preference for 10-17 degree sloping top tubes aside). I wish, the entire industry did away with ugly aluminium welds (and started using 3D-printed lugs that mimic carbon's beauty instead) and hydroformed the tubes and junctions to look like carbon. Unfortunately, that's not entirely the case: the rear end and the bottom bracket area still show ugly welds.
Also, a frame price tag of a €1.000 is well over the top for anything but carbon, titanium and maybe the very finest of modern steel.
To summarise, Is happily at this bike to my collection, if:
- The top tube sloped at least 10-11 degrees, but preferably closer to 16.
- There was not a single ugly aluminium weld anywhere on the bike.
- Bring back the Purple Flip colour scheme, please!
- The frame would cost under €800, or the bike with mid-range assembly (incl. something like the Rival AXS or a Rival AXS / Eagle GX mullet, €600-800 wheelset with no system weight limit, a RedShift ShockStop stem & seat post and a microfibre-upholstered version of an SMP Plus saddle, etc.) would cost under €2000.
... Oh, also mounts for:
1. racks front and rear.
2. mudguards.
3. fork crown -mounted headlights.
4. extra mounts for bottle cages and bikepacking gear, including a bentobox.
And lastly, I'd happily pay €1.800 for the frame alone, if it also came with Santana / 22Bicycle type invisible couplers and rapid, leak-free coupling fittings for internally-routed hydraulic brake hoses, and another €250 - for a dedicated hard case that hard foam inlays with cutouts for the split frame and parts, designed so as to keep the dirty tyres and rims from touching parts of the bike that area supposed to be clean (i.e., everything above the bottom bracket, especially the handlebars, the brifters, thee top tube and the saddle and the seapost).
Setting aside the marketing speak, this looks to me like a potentially important bike. Assuming the sleek lines are not simply not-enough-welding-and-too-much-filler under the paint (so that it just breaks after 5 years) it could actually be a technological development. I always assumed aluminium alloy bikes were cheap, nasty, harsh and easy to break. However, I was doing up Daughter 1's university road bike for Daughter 2 and it was possible for me to ride it and it coped well with rubbish roads round here- and that really was a non-expensive basic Halfords. In other words, old aluminium is much better than I thought, and modern aluminium alloy frames could indeed be really good off the shelf!
Important because looks-ists want you to think it's carbon fibre and so form trumps function (or is added on for aesthetic reasons)? At its worst this would be like fake tweeters on Amstrad stereos in the 70s or fake full-suss MTBs.
Or do we utilitarians celebrate because we know that aluminium* bike frames can be perfectly decent and CF are a problem at end of life, and this style of bike might persuade some that they don't need CF?
I like the look of this but would be unlikely to buy given that my aluminium Cannondale with Tiagra was just over a third of the ALR4 price, new, in late 2019, and Dolan, Boardman and Ribble can do you something just as nice for way less.
Important because looks-ists want you to think it's carbon fibre?
No. Because it shows that 'new technology' might not all be fake. Maybe they can hydroform or whatever so that the tubes fit accurately together. Maybe several Taiwanese/ Chinese etc. factories can do the same thing. I have several steel bikes, one titanium and one ancient aluminium mountain bike. I now think that I might contemplate an aluminium road bike because it seems likely they're getting good at it, but I'm unlikely to consider CF because I can't be bothered with push fit BBs and advice to scrap the frame because there's a chip.
There has been some interest in aluminium frames for a few years now and speculation that there was room for development, given the appropriate levels of R&D. Perhaps the 'stiffer, lighter, faster' thing had run its course as owners felt their fillings were at risk on grotty roads. Giant's Defy alu frames were often said to be better to ride than some carbon frames so they must have been doing something right.
Appearances matter to buyers but, that aside, if a big brand like Trek can produce something that gets people interested then other manufacturers will follow. Madison did something similar with steel (notably the stunning stainless models) and their designer at the time, Dom Thomas, mentioned that in a recent interview with David Arthur:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQlPfPghDZg
Another Dom - of Mason Cycles - also feels there is a future in aluminium frames. In 2015 road.cc reviewed the Definition and said "It's good. So bloody good it's been difficult trying to get into words just how a handful of alloy sticks welded together can leave you feeling so excited."
https://road.cc/content/review/149005-mason-definition-road-bike
Aluminium frame with 105 - £2,200. Crazy.
Dear cycling industry
Alloy is not short for aluminium. You might be thinking of 'ally'. But an alloy is a pure metal mixed with something else to create a material with different/superior properties to the pure metal.
Kind regards
Aidan
Nobody's building bikes out of pure aluminium though - it's an aluminium... alloy.
"Aluminium alloy" tells you that it's mostly aluminium.
"Alloy" tells you nothing useful - it would be an equally accurate description of any steel or titanium bike, or indeed any other alloy someone might choose to make a bike out of (Magnesium anyone?).
Should we call steel bikes "alloy" too?
Yes, and? It's still an accurate description.
And it doesn't just call it 'an alloy bike' - it refers to 'an advanced alloy'. Obviously the 'advanced' bit is copied and pasted marketing blurb, but the point is they're selling it on the fact that it's a new alloy.
Yes.
Even so, "advanced aluminium alloy" would be a more useful description.
Moreover, it refers to an "an advanced alloy frame" and I'm not convinced the "advanced" specifically modifies the "alloy" but the frame as a whole. They are obviously not very open as to exactly what the alloy involved is, but as far as I can tell the alloy is likely to be one of the common aluminium alloys and it is the hydroforming and welding that creates the "advanced" frame.
Agreed. I wouldn't suggest it's well written - it's basically just Trek's marketing blurb rehashed to make it less clear than it was to start with - but it's not simply conflating 'alloy' with aluminium.
Conflating alloy with aluminium happens all the time:
https://road.cc/search-results?search_api_views_fulltext=Alloy
Maybe so - but it would have been more relevant if you'd exercised your pet peeve on one of those articles where it happened, instead of this one.
FTFY
Er, no. I never said that it didn't happen. Nor did I say that you should have mentioned it before - only that it wasn't a relevant comment to make here. The point was that you implied (by posting the comment here) that in this article they were using alloy to mean aluminium. Which they weren't.
See my post just below
You might need to be a bit more specific - you've posted quite a few comments, but I can't see one that makes sense as a reply.
Though, to be honest, I think probably way more than enough words have already been wasted on what was an entirely pointless discussion to start with.
They're not referring to the alloy being advanced, they're referring to the processes (forming, welding etc.) being advanced. Trek's "Alpha Aluminium" is just the brand name for their aluminium bikes and it's been around for years.
It is common practice in the cycling industry (or at least in cycling journalism) to refer to aluminium frames and components as alloy. Not an alloy of aluminium, just alloy. This is not the case for any other metal.
And so everyone knows exactly what they mean when they say it and so it doesn't really matter, does it.
You wouldn't be wrong in calling them alloy, but to call them 'steel alloy' would be every bit as tautological as saying 'aluminium alloy alloy'.
Perhaps the 'steel is real brigade' could add some cachet by calling it 'Iron alloy' which has a nice gas pipe ring to it.
almost every metal we use for anything is an alloy, even gold used in jewelery is not pure gold.
Titanium frames - titanium alloy (aluminium and Vanadium added)
Steel frames - steel alloy (chomium/manganese and molybdenum added)
Not sure what your point is here, you seem to have tripped up over your own pedantry. Because you are quite right, alloy is not short for unalloyed aluminium, but neither is the author suggesting the frame is made from such.
Alloy is generally accepted as being short, in context, for aluminium alloy, which given the context clearly is the intended meaning here. Nobody was confused here, not even you.
The point is 'alloy' is only generally accepted as shorthand for aluminium within cycling. Nobody is confused here because it's a cycling website, but it would be considered nonsense in any other context.
hmm, go ask the driver of a bottom of the range car to point to the alloys. When they smack you for impertinence you can gleefully tell them the bodywork is made of an alloy, but I'd advise against.
Besides, it isn't accepted as shorthand for aluminium - see above.
Fair point on alloy wheels.
As for alloy being shorthand for aluminium alloy vs aluminium, my point is that (for example) nobody refers to titanium alloy bike frames as alloy.
And this bothers you why?
It's stunning how you both get and don't get the point all at the same time. Like, you're not wrong, and yet you're also totally not right.
Consider: "The point is 'dog' is only generally accepted as the word for 🐶 in English. Nobody is confused here because it's an English website, but it would be considered nonsense in any other language. So stop using it when you speak English."
￡2200 for the 105 build - only ￡900 more than I paid in 2019 for alloy/105 (regular welds, not this make), so in the scheme of things, not too bad I suppose.
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