The Madone 4.5 Series pairs race-level performance and technology with all-day comfort and amazing spec value. No wonder it’s our best selling OCLV Carbon road bike. The Trek Madone 4.5 is a road bike built around a light carbon frame but at a price point that makes it far more appealing to the average rider. You still get top notch materials and well chosen components, but everything is aimed at appealing to people who want both performance and value from their next road bike.
The Trek Madone 4.5 features a 400 Series OCLV carbon frame with a super wide BB90 bottom bracket. This means that the bike is not only light and compliant for long distance speed and comfort, but it also has integral stiffness which allows you to accelerate quickly and pull ahead of your mates with less effort.
Frame and Equipment:
The 4.5 uses a considerably higher grade of carbon than that of the already spectacular three.5, creating it notably light-weight at a claimed one,100g for the frameset. The frame itself incorporates Trek’s combat the press-fit bottom bracket BB90, for improved stiffness and fewer weight.
As with the previous top-of-the-range 6-Series, the seat tube is uneven, with identical going for the rear chainstay mount for the ANT+ DuoTrap sensing element (available one by one for £39.99).
The E2 tapered head tube and extremely carven shaping is taken from that US-built superbike, that is actually what you’re obtaining with the four.5; in terms of specification it’s a stripped version of their previous tour winning machine. The 5-, 6- and 7-Series bikes currently have aero-optimised KVF styles, however we’re glad Trek have unbroken the terrific professional level chassis alive.
A frame with style credentials this smart and on a sub-£2,000 complete bike would recommend some downgrades and compromises elsewhere, however Trek are clever with the budget. For a begin, they’ve used Shimano’s Ultegra system for the mechs and shifters, solely downgrading the brakes and container to the still-impressive one zero five vary, whereas the chainset is Shimano’s non-series R565.
The wheel package hasn’t been compromised, though, as Trek’s element whole Bontrager have provided the new-for-2013 Race R1s, that includes elegant, minimal hubs with quality bearings, nice seals and butted spokes. The all-new rims are compatible with tubeless tyres.
The Race R1s square measure shod with Bontrager’s R2 tyres – with a nominal size of ordinary twenty three, they’re if truth be told slightly broader than that, and in our opinion all the higher for it. The distinction in size permits them to be run at the lower pressures necessary for winter grip, while not increasing the possibilities of you puncturing. As you’d imagine, Bontrager conjointly offer the remainder of the Madone’s finishing kit.
The slender, compact reach Associate in Nursingd drop VR-C bar is an adequate entertainer – nicely formed with nice dimensions however very little to form it stand out on the far side that. The Race fatless stem could be a bit classier, and nicely finished with quality hardware.
At the rear it’s a way a lot of spectacular affair, with the Affinity a pair of saddle (fast changing into one in every of our favourites) sitting atop a sublime carbon seatpost (though we have a tendency to did want a liberal coating of carbon preparation to forestall it slipping).
Ride and Handling:
Out on the road, the category of the four.5 is totally evident. we have a tendency to precious the three.5 last year however the four.5 takes everything that created it exceptional and turns it up to eleven. the general feel is totally sleek, and a coffee overall weight and broad 50/34, 11-28 geartrain create the bike a whole breeze on climbs. nonetheless the stiffness Associate in Nursingd oh-so-sorted position create it an absolute blast down hills.
Smashing the four.5 through a succession of bends ne’er caused it to urge rattled or dope off line. Some bikes will have snappier initial turn-in, but the 4.5 doesn’t got to be as rapid; with a motorcycle that provides this abundant communication through its feel, we have a tendency to ne’er found the necessity for unpunctual direction changes mid-corner.
Plenty of the four.5’s ultra-confident ride comes all the way down to the H2 pure mathematics (the prime tube is shorter than the professional H1 by a couple of millimetres, and slightly taller at the front, once more by simply a couple of units). Dimensions that embrace a 190mm head tube and 992mm distance square measure obscurity close to to a fault relaxed, particularly after you think about a regular seventy three-degree seat angle and steeper-than-average 73.8-degree head angle.
The 4.5 scores plenty of its points from the frame being stiff wherever it’s needed (the head and down tube, BB shot and chainstays) and cozy elsewhere. We’d eventually upgrade the typical bar and chainset however would be over happy to pay the value to possess this elegant chassis in our lives.
Image Credit © Trek
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