Trek Domane Review

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It’s a substantial increase and one that, according to Trek, not only enhances rider comfort, and therefore lowers fatigue, but improves rear wheel traction over big bumps by keeping the tyre in contact with the road surface for longer.

This is certainly an effect universally attributed to effective vehicle suspension and is one appreciated by Cancellara, who needs to connect as much of his

600 series OCLV

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huge power output to the ground as possible.

Questioned about aspects of IsoSpeed such as damping and ride tuning, the Trek Domane project engineer, Ben Coates, explained that, while no adjustment is available, in practice none was found to be needed. In fact, it is clear from the way the seat tube bows – as it does so it also tries to pull the top tube towards the bottom bracket – that it introduces an inherent rise in the rate of resistance to movement; small bumps are easily accommodated, bigger ones less so.

Regardless of the size of the frame, this rising rate resists excessive deflection; a heavier rider on a bigger frame with a longer, more flexible seat tube (assuming they are made to the same specification) and longer seat mast giving greater leverage will experience greater movement – compliance – over any given bump, but will quickly come up against a limit to said movement even over the biggest of them.

Even so, the system offers greater deflection than the competition, as can be seen from an interesting series of graphs showing measurements taken by accelerometers mounted on test cycles. The graphs show that the Domane saddle spends a greater percentage of its time at higher deflections of over 1mm,

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indicating that it is absorbing a lot more of the big stuff. So, a definite figure. It is defined as the Deviation from the Average Distance and, going by the graph, seems to be the practical limit to deflection seen while riding.

Vertical compliance in graph form

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