[Closed] Trek Stache 9 29+ - new bike

Nice duck.

I like it... There, I said it.

Interested to know how it rides... Look forward to hearing about it tomorrow!

Your garden is far too neat and well maintained. How are we meant to make sarcy irrelevant comments with a picture like that. Nice bike BTW. Let us know how it rides.

Hmmm....

Newly laid patio and extravagant bicycle purchase?

I suppose your neighbours think that Mrs99 has "gone away for a few days"

I'm on to you o.p

[img] [/img]

cheers, lots of other plastic garden animals as well.

[img] [/img]
Regards

Denis

Haven't seen the wife for a while....
Regards

Denis

How are we meant to make sarcy irrelevant comments with a picture like that.

Hmmm.

How about: "Your garden is far too clean - you obviously don't ride it enough - now go and get it dirty."

?

I had a quick test ride on one of those a couple of weeks ago. Only on tarmac, but it certainly didn't feel sluggish at all.

Regards

Penis

Regards

Penis

You could put a smiley or something behind that, my name is Denis, I'm just being polite
Regards

Denis

Alex leant me his for a demo ride, I wrote about it here:

[url= http://southdownshosting.co.uk/sussexmtbtours/reviews/trek-stache-9/ ]Stache 9 report[/url]

Really enjoyed it, a very fun bike to ride 🙂

I like it.

Looks ace!

That does look bob on! More pics please and loking forward to the ride report.

You clearly do not wash and lube on the back patio.
Is that a baby robin in the flower bed?

Very observant posters here, yes, no bike cleaning or lubing allowed on the patio, small robins are allowed however.

Here are my impressions of the bike.
Had a good assessment ride, out for three hours, at Afan including climbing and descending - not much else really at Afan….

Sram X1 is fine, can’t see me wanting anything else in terms of a gear set up, works flawlessly and much more intuitive. I have always been a Shimano Xt man , running 2 x 10 on my other bike, but Sram X1 is much better.

Manitou Magnum fork worked very well, will leave alone for the moment to let it settle in etc, works very well with the 3" front tyre. Sag set at 25%, but will play with settings to fine tune. Front end felt very secure with large wheel and 110mm spacing.

Tyres are now tubeless and ran at 12 psi front and rear. Sounds like a tractor at speed, wide bars at 740mm give a sort of invincible feeling.

I went for the 19.5 inch frame , look carefully at the Trek geometry, as it is actually 18.5 from centre of bottom bracket to top of seat tube. I’m 5 10 1/2 tall with a 32 “ inside leg.

Dropper post, the only negative. I can’t see the point of this for me, so it will be replaced with a normal carbon post very soon to save some weight.

Bit slower on the climbs , but doesn’t seem to mind, it feels nicely sedate in a relaxed sort of way - it just doesn’t want to be rushed ( which is fine my me), and the grip is impressive.

Like a bulldozer descending, sort of rolls and thunders over all sorts of things with the forks and 29 x 3 inch tyres.

I like a lot….

Very different from my Cannondale F29 lefty, which is good, didn’t want two bikes which were in any way similar.
Regards

Denis

Nice bike. How does tubeless work with those rims (which appear to have holes in)? I accept that I may be asking a stupid question here.

I hate Trek and really want that to be an awful bike, but blimey it does look rather fine. I'm sure you've got a keeper there.
I too like the duck.

Thanks

What Trek have done is to produce a different type of bike by looking at the frame design to fit the 29+ wheels.

The elevated chain stay and the X1 drive chain make a very good combination, no chain slap either , very quiet ride.

The forks and the 3 inch tyre work very well.

It has been thought out extremely well.

Dropper post doesn't suit my style though.

South Downs bikes where I bought the bike from St the tyres up tubeless with Stans tape and valves.

You leave the original rim tape in place and add the tubeless rim tape .

I probably would have adopted the method below, but credit to Southdowns bike shop for prepping and setting the bike up, worked flawlessly.

https://gypsybytrade.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/tubeless-fatbike-guide-nate-to-rolling-darryl/

Like the reflective stuff!

Just wondering how you are getting on with it a bit further down the line?

Just sold my full sus and looking at ordering one of these.

Looks nice. Enjoy.

Dropper post, the only negative. I can’t see the point of this for me, so it will be replaced with a normal carbon post very soon to save some weight.

eh? it's a trail bike, not an XC bike... how can you not see the point?!

(i've ridden the stache 9 quite a bit myself... it's pretty rad)

What's the bike stand..? Looks quite a good one...

EDIT: Found it; Andy Stand AS2!

wiggles

here's a little more detail, but i think its great , it attracts alot of attention everywhere though, so be prepared for alot of questions.

Tyres are great, immense amount of grip, I'k running them tubeless front and rear, 10psi front, 12psi rear, no problems whatsoever.

The fork is probably the best I have ever ridden, maybe the boost (110mm) width , coupled with the lightly different axle retention helps, but it is excellent. Seems to float over the stutter stuff very well.

I'm about to change the stem though, comes with an 80mm one, will change to a 60mm.

I also changed two other things, but they didn't need changing, its just me being a little fussy.

Chris King bottom bracket, Thomson dropper.

The paint being a flat matt black doesn't clean up that great, but once you're on the trails its always dirty - doesn't bother me at all.

1 x 11, I didn't think I would like this, but i find it much easier to ride than double or triple ring setups.

Climbs very solidly.

On the trail it feels like its on rails,

1 x 11 makes the whole drive chain very quiet, no dropped chain yet.

I find the geometry spot on, 19.5 inch frame - I'm 5 10 tall.

If you are local to South Wales, near Afan, you are welcome to have a ride with me to help.

A tad expensive, but worth it in my opinion.

Regards

Denis

Ref the dropper

I did find it a little strange at first with the dropper, still not 100% convinced, but I have had the dropper in and out at least twice, using a normal post etc.

Eventually decided that I would get a Thomson dropper and just leave it in there, comes in handy sometimes, it's more about ne and my riding style I suppose.

Had the KS up for sale, but nobody seems interested, gathering dust in the garage now.
Regards

Denis

Was considering the frame only option and running it with a 140mm fork (obviously with a standard 29" tyre)
Short chain stay, slack HA and a bit of extra cush at the back but plenty of bumph up front to smash the jumps

Cheers for the info Denis.

I am in south wales actually, I'm 5' 8" so planning on getting the 18.5" with a short stem,hopefully I will have one soon but thanks for the offer.

Fork is based on mattoc so not surprised you like it.

I had a go on this bike and it felt good but I can't justify it.

Cool bike,

Thanks for the info Denis, sounds fun. Any idea what it weighs now it's tubeless? Have you had any issues with rim strikes running the rear wheel at low pressures? It would be annoying having to run the tyre harder than optimum just to stop the wheels getting damaged when your riding the bike hard (drops / landing onto rocks etc). I've had this problem a bit on conventional hardtails....with 120tpi casing tyres?

Cheers

About 28lb, tubeless.

No issues at all with rim strikes, and I ride at Afan which is relatively rocky in parts.

The rims are still like new and unmarked, the tyres have the odd scuffing mark, but again nothing to worry about.

The only issue is that the Bontrager tyres are still unavailable in the UK, and the tyres will be expensive.

You may have found this already, but it's tricky to set the fork pressure correctly. I watched some guys setting a set up the other day, you have to invert the bike and disconnect the pump before the pressure can move to the air spring (IIRC, they had to get the handbook).

Thanks for that. It's a good weight for the whole paccage really. Have you experimented with tyre pressures much? just wondered what the workable limits are say above and below 10 psi. If you dont mind my asking...what do you weigh?

It is a bit odd of Trek to spec a stem that long, i wonder why they did that. seems out of context with the cutting edge thinking on the rest of the bike. did you have chance to try an 18.5" before you bought yours by the way?

cheers.

I tried 15psi and sort of worked my way down to 10psi really.

10psi in the front is fine, sometimes I have put 12 psi in the rear for just a bit more reassurance.

I weigh 79 kgs on the bathroom scales, so add about 4 kgs for Camelbak and clothing as a total weight.

I bought the bike blind really, didn't have a test ride, in my experience it is always difficult to make your mind up on a test ride anyway. The test ride bike usually feels different, and trying to decide if this is better or worse can be difficult.
Easier if the bike in question is radically different, but in my case I wanted a solid hard tail trail bike that offered some squish without rear suspension.

Can't say I'm disappointed really. Sorted out the bottom bracket long term with the Chris King version, stem will be changed soon.
Can't see me doing anything else to it except riding it and wearing out brake pads, tyres and cassette.

Bike sizing can be a little odd, have a look at theTrek geometry charts.
The 19.5 inch is actually 18.5 inch from centre of bb to the top of the seat tube, which tends to be ideal for me at 5 10 tall.

thanks again for all the info. I'll check out the sizing a bit more for sure. What was the thinking behind fitting the CK bottom bracket? did the GXP one fail? (i know they have a poor reputation of old). Do CK even make a GXP compatible BB or did you have to use an adapter to get the X1 crank in?

many thanks.

No problem.

Not a fan of press fit bottom brackets at all, the Trek one fitted was ok but it had just started to make the odd squeak.

It's more me really, I don't like things falling apart just at the wrong moment, so I got it replaced with something that should be trouble free ( hopefully).

The King bottom bracket fitted easily with the supplied diagram, but I did let my local bike shop fit it (Skyline Cycels, top shop), being such an expensive part.

hi Denis. just wondering how things were going with your trek? any new settings or weaknesses developed? out of curosity are you able to get the fork to use 110mm of travel measureing from the top of the dust seal to the rubber o-ring on the leg? only i was looking at a 9 the other day but was only able to access 95mm of travel before the fork bottomed out! not sure what had happen to it.

regards,

jake

Hi Jake,

Haven't been able to get out much recently, however, probably getting close to 100mm of travel.

The travel and the feel of the fork is very good. Probably the best suspension fork I have ever owned, I rate it very highly.

Haven't really got many negatives about the bike, the bottom bracket wasn't to my liking, so that's been changed for a Chris King unit.

Climbing is a little slower and more like steady touring as opposed to getting a rapid move on, but the traction it obtains more than makes up for this.

If it is bought and used as atrial bike then I don't think anyone would be disappointed.