Represent
by Mike Sullivan

Represent: Trek Fuel EX-8

The thrill of the new.

After pushing, pulling, dreaming, and drooling I finally dropped dime on a new FS bike. In my previous posting here at MBT, I had been looking at the Trek Fuel EX-6 but just couldn’t bring myself to drop $1200 on a bike that had been discontinued. My eye started wandering to the lesser EX-5 until I took the EX-8 for a test ride.

For me, this bike defines what an all around mountain bike should be and what most manufacturers are trying to achieve. Out of the box (or freshly assembled at the LBS as the case may be) the bike weighs in at right around 30 pounds for the 19.5” frame although it feels deceptively lighter on the trial. It sports 5-inches of suspension travel compliments of Fox, and Trek’s new Full Floater rear suspension and Active Braking Pivot design. Shimano takes care of shifting the gears with XT derailleurs and shifters while a set of Avid Juicy 5s brings things back under control. As one would expect from a Trek, Bontrager rounds out the wheel, tires, seat, bars and stem.

On my first ride out I tackled one of our local XC trails topping out at about 10 miles of flat unforgiving Florida pine scrub. This place is a pedal slogger’s nightmare! No climbs, no drops, patchy sand, sticky mud, and enough palmetto roots to make a grown man cry. The EX-8 handled it all in style. Right out of the gate I found the bike to be extremely responsive and it accelerated like a scared rabbit. The cockpit was very roomy and the longer reach from the seat to the bars keeps the rider in an aggressive and in-control body position. Pedal slogging over flat trail with no terrain didn’t kill me nearly as much as usual and I didn’t feel like I was lugging around any extra weight either. The palmetto roots that always made for some fun entertainment on my hard tail were easily smoothed out with the 5” of travel and at the same time I was delighted to note that there was no noticeable pedal bob that usually plagues full suspension bikes. The bars seemed a little wide for me (having been used to the 24” bars on my hard tail) and the stock grips were about one step up from grip tape. The brakes performed flawlessly despite the challenge of slowing my 200 lb frame to a stop.

Since that initial break-in, I have shortened the bars from 26” to 24” and replaced the stock grips with some Oury Lock-ons, which has successfully increased responsiveness a little. It wasn’t bad in stock configuration but I had a tendency to over-steer, which is no fun when surrounded by pine trees and palmetto bushes. Following the advice of some buddies who drooled over this bike at the LBS I decided to ditch the tubes and go tubeless as the wheels and tires are tubeless ready in stock trim. I’ve never run this configuration before and the jury is still out on the verdict.

I have since had a chance to take the bike onto some more challenging trails and found that it climbs like a homesick angel! Not sure if it’s the well balanced chassis weight, the frame geometry numbers or just serendipity but for whatever reason this thing climbs better than my hard tail. It also jumps really well and handles drops like a dream. The Juicy 5 brakes, while lacking pad control dials, have yet to emit a squeal and provide a very responsive braking package that modulates well and offers excellent control.

Bottom line: With a $2400 MSRP (I paid a bit less at my LBS) the Trek Fuel EX-8 is well worth the cash. It sports just under top of the line components and Trek’s latest and greatest FS frame design. The Full Floater suspension platform works exactly as advertised and coupled with a 5” travel fork has easily handled everything I threw at it. The bar mod and tubeless conversion was a personal preference and with the exception of swapping the grips there is little or no need to spend your hard earned cash on upgrades.