Trek Emonda SL 6 Pro 2021

The latest iteration of the Trek Émonda focuses on aerodynamics more than ever before, which makes this SL6 Pro one very quick and efficient road bike. The stiff frameset offers a firm yet fun ride, while the component choice keeps the weight down to exploit that stiffness on the climbs. It's a very good all-round package.

> Buy now: Trek Emonda SL 6 Pro 2021 from All TerrainCycles for £3350.00

Ride

This version of the Émonda was launched back in the middle of June, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on the bike about a week before that. I was able to give my initial findings in a First Ride piece here.

To be honest, not a huge amount has changed from my early thoughts, but the extra miles and plenty of different roads and conditions have cemented just how much fun the Trek is to live with.

First up, the comfort.

I picked up on the fact that the SL6 Pro has quite a firm ride – a little bit old school, dare I say. By that I mean that a lot of carbon fibre frames have become much more comfortable over the years as designers and manufacturers have learnt about carbon fibre grades, tube profiles and, more importantly, the layup of the composite material.

The Cube Attain GTC SL I tested recently highlighted this in the way that it really managed to reduce road buzz while retaining plenty of feedback through the frame and fork.

This isn't a criticism of the Trek at all, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting. I like it; I'm a big believer in ultimate performance over comfort when it comes to race bikes, and that is exactly what the Émonda delivers.

Stiffness throughout the fork and the lower half of the frame is very impressive, and means the Trek is responsive to your inputs. The wide bottom bracket shell allows for a large down tube and chunky chainstays to reduce flex when you are really nailing it, while the front end backs this up via the tapered head tube and firm fork legs. Sprinting and climbing are all taken in the Émonda's stride.

As you'd expect from a race bike, the riding position can be set up to be pretty aggressive – with a relatively short 151mm head tube length on this 56cm model I could achieve a low handlebar-to-saddle drop to aid the aerodynamics, especially when in the drops.

The rest of the geometry follows the same theme with a 73.5-degree head angle and a relatively short wheelbase for a disc-equipped frame (the chainstays are often a fair bit longer than those on rim-braked frames because of the extra axle width at the rear dropouts) at just 983mm.

Trek has achieved a good balance here with the Émonda I reckon.

The shorter wheelbase makes it nippy, which allows for snappy direction changes at high speed, yet it's managed to tame the handling just enough that the Émonda never becomes a handful unless you do something really stupid.

In my First Ride piece I mentioned that I hadn't managed to point the Trek at my favourite test hill, one that is fast and twisty with off-camber bends and chicanes. It really tests every part of a bike's handling in a blur.

Well, I have now, about five or six times, and the Émonda really impressed. It has the quickness in the steering and the overall agility to be pushed very hard into the corners.

After a night of heavy rain, gravel had been washed out into the lane slightly out of sight as I went into a fast left-hander at about 45mph; I dabbed the brakes a little, but seeing the grit and stones spanning the entire road there was no real way out of it. Letting the bike hit the gravel and predicting where the slide was probably going to end was the only option, and it was a sketchy couple of seconds.

As the front tyre regained grip on the asphalt there was a second where the still-sliding rear wanted to get in front, but the Trek's well-balanced handling allowed me to quickly regain control and blast to the bottom of the hill.

In less extreme circumstances the Émonda is an absolute hoot to ride downhill, with just slight adjustments to body position and the handlebar allowing you to flow from corner to corner.

On longer rides the Trek is just as well mannered; it is a very easy bike to ride quickly even when fatigue can kick in or when you are on unfamiliar roads.

The stiffness I mentioned earlier doesn't come through as a negative on higher mileage jaunts, especially if you get on with the saddle and have a decent pair of shorts on. The three- to four-hour rides I used the Trek on were a lot of fun. Unleash the power for the fun bits and then when you are on the flat, straight slogs you can just hunker down and keep the pedals turning over.

The only thing I needed to do was to shift the saddle 5mm closer to the bar than I would normally have it, because of the width of the top tube as it flows into the seatstays either side of the seat tube. I have quite large thighs and I could feel them rubbing on the frame every pedal revolution when I first started riding the Trek.

Frame and fork

The Émonda has always been the lightweight bike of Trek's road range, leaving outright speed to the Madone, but for this latest model Trek has incorporated more aerodynamic profiles in the Émonda's design.

Unlike most aero bikes, though, the Émonda's frame doesn't focus on being fast in a straight line or at high speed, it is a climbing bike after all. Instead the engineers have focused on 'unsteady aerodynamics', which fit in with the much lower speeds found when ascending.

Most of the attention has been placed on the front end, including the head tube and down tube. The top-end SLR models use the Bontrager XXX aero handlebar/stem combo which further increases the benefits, but that isn't available on the SL options.

The SLR models also use a new OCLV 800 grade carbon fibre while the SLs use the 500 series, which increases the weight a bit, although a claimed frame weight of 1,142g and 380g for the fork is far from shabby.

If wind cheating is your main goal then it's worth noting that the Émonda is optimised for 25mm tyres, as that is the most common size used for racing, but if you want something a bit wider 28mm will fit while still allowing 6mm of space around the tyre.

As you'd expect on an aero-based bike, the Émonda has full internal cable routing but this is taken to an extra level compared with most frames, with the cables and hoses leaving the handlebar and entering the frame through the spacers rather than the head tube or down tube. This gives much cleaner lines at the front.

You won't find a standard seatpost either. The Émonda's seat tube continues up past the top tube by a fair old way and then an external seat mast is placed over the top; you tighten the hex bolt to clamp it into place at the right saddle height.

The Émonda range is now completely disc brake-equipped which to my mind is a bit of a shame as I am a big fan of rim brakes, and it would certainly bring the weight down for a bike aimed at climbing.

Many manufacturers are seeing sales of disc models outstripping rim options by a large margin, though, so it is kind of inevitable. There is also the cost – the Émonda is available in seven sizes so that'd be 14 different moulds required if Trek offered both brake options.

The Émonda comes with flat mounts, as you'd expect, and 12mm thru-axles front and rear.

I mentioned the wide bottom bracket shell earlier and this is normally only achievable by using a press-fit BB, where the bearing cups are pressed into the frame. If tolerances aren't adhered to, creaking can occur, especially after water or grit gets between the mating faces, which is why we've seen many brands return to external threaded options.

Trek has gone for what is possibly the best of both worlds with the T47 system. First introduced by Chris King and Oregon's Argonaut Cycles, they thread into the bottom bracket shell which allows it to be wider, increasing stiffness without affecting the width between the pedals (Q-factor).

If you want a more in-depth look at what changes and design tweaks were made to achieve this new Émonda frameset then it'd be worth checking out Mat's full breakdown here.

Wheels and tyres

Trek says that the SL 6 Pro comes with all the lightweight components you need as standard, so there is no need to upgrade. You could save a few grams here and there, but overall it is a pretty complete package.

This model is the first carbon bike in the line-up that comes with a set of carbon fibre wheels. The 35mm Bontrager Aeolus Elite 35s are 35mm deep and are tubeless ready.

It's a good set of wheels for a whole range of riding styles: shallow enough to work on the climbs and just about deep enough to give you a small aerodynamic gain without being affected by crosswinds. Comparing the price of the near-identical SL 6 suggests you are getting them for just £450 too.

Reliability isn't an issue as they took on everything that was put in their way over the test period, and should anything happen and they get damaged Trek will replace or repair them for free in the first two years of ownership.

Wrapped around the wheels are a pair of Bontrager R2 Hard-Case Lite tyres. They are all right in terms of rolling resistance, grip and durability, but their 60tpi casing does give them a bit of a 'wooden' feel. You aren't getting a whole lot of suppleness which would really benefit the frameset, so I'd definitely upgrade when they wear out.

I've been using the R3 Hard Case Lites recently and they are a much better tyre, so something like that would be a good upgrade if you want to keep the Bonty/Trek theme going.

Drivetrain and brakes

On the SL 6 Pro, Trek is giving you a full Shimano Ultegra hydraulic/mechanical groupset and it suits the bike very well. You are getting near-Dura-Ace performance but at a much reduced price.

Trek has specced a 52/36-tooth semi-compact chainset and an 11-30 cassette, which is a great choice of gear ratios for a bike of this style. There are plenty of top end gears for speed work while the 30-tooth sprocket will give you an extra bailout gear over the more usual 28T found on the majority of race bikes.

The gear shifts from Ultegra are top notch. You get quite a light feel at the levers, but one that also gives a very nicely defined click so you can be sure that the shift has taken place.

When it comes to the braking, Trek has chosen to fit 160mm rotors front and back, which give more than enough power for a bike of this type.

Shimano's hydraulic systems are very powerful but also easily modulated thanks to loads of feel through the levers, allowing you to stop quickly without the fear of locking up the front tyre, even in the wet.

Finishing kit

All of the finishing kit is supplied by Bontrager, Trek's in-house parts department, and it's all decent quality stuff.

The handlebar is the Bontrager Elite VR-C which is an aluminium alloy model with a short reach and a shallow drop, making it ideal for a whole host of different riders' proportions. Helping that is the fact that different size frames get a different width bar, ranging from 38cm up to 44cm.

It's the same for the Bontrager Pro stem: the smallest 47cm bike gets a 70mm unit, with the 62cm extending that out to 110mm. The stem on each frame size seems to come up a bit shorter than most bikes of this type, but it seems to work.

I got on fine with the Aeolus Comp saddle. Its shape is well suited to riding hard and fast, and I like the firm padding which gives you a good platform to push against when you are really hammering it. (There's a separate review of it here.) 

Value

This SL 6 Pro model has an rrp of £3,350, which isn't a bad deal for what you are getting here with the aero carbon frame, fork and deep-section wheels.

> Buyer’s Guide: 21 of the best 2020 aero road bikes

The similarly themed Scott Addict RC 30 is £3,199 and also come comes with an Ultegra groupset, but it is begging for an upgrade to the wheelset. It is light, though, at just 7.88kg.

If it's aero that you want then there is the Orro Venturi. The closest model in price is £3,299.99; you only get alloy wheels, but you are getting Ultegra Di2 for the gear shifting.

Conclusion

Overall, the Émonda is a very good bike. The aero tweaks have turned it into a very fast and efficient bike that still manages to deliver on the weight front and this SL 6 Pro model is so well specced there's no need to update anything when it comes to the components, just the tyres when they wear out.

Verdict

A quality frameset that works both on the flat and the climbs, and well specced for the money