First Look: All-new Fuel EX | Trek’s trail bike for trippers or rippers
Looking at the new Fuel EX it’s clearly a whole new package that Trek has put together. It is still a do-it-all trail bike but (now more so than ever) it can be dressed up for longer trail missions or dressed down for laps on your local flow trail. Trek says their focus was to build a bike that, through its adjustability, is versatile enough to work for all trail riders, wherever they ride. Travel wise there is 10mm more squish upfront and 10mm more in the chassis, so it’s now a 150 front and 140 rear trail bike. This change in travel pegs it squarely between the Top Fuel which is a 120mm bike and the Slash, the 160mm big hit Enduro weapon.
It’s the broad range of adjustability within this latest Fuel EX that will surely kindle warm fuzzy feelings with any discerning trail rider. So first off, the bike is available in eight frame sizes with reach numbers extending from 402mm to 547mm. Across those size curves and starting with the smallest frame, Trek increases the chainstay lengths from 435 to 440 to 445 to 450 which will improve your weight distribution between the front and rear wheels giving you more grip and better handling. That’s neat, and it’s something the brand has tried on their Session downhill bike (a few other brands do it too) with multiple upsides.
There are adjustable headset cups to run the bike in either the neutral position, one-degree steeper, or one-degree slacker. The Fuel EX also features the Mino Link flip-chip which is another geometry adjustment tool to further tweak head-angles and BB height. What this all means is although the bike ships in the ‘stock’ 64.5° head-angle, you’ll be able to tweak that out to 63.5° or up to 65.5° to suit the trails you ride and the feel you prefer. This bike can be mulleted and to do that Trek is recommending running the bike with a 160mm fork which means you’ll be needing a longer air spring.
At the lower shock mount, Trek has included a Progression Chip that lets you adjust the leverage rate of the bike. Setting the bike in the “Less Progressive” position will give you better roll-over on square edge bumps and the “More Progressive” position will provide more mid-stroke support which improves stability on flow lines and high-speed trails. The bike is also coil shock compatible.
The seat tube is bumped up to a 34.9mm diameter to better facilitate longer dropper posts and Trek has designed the chassis to accommodate longer dropper posts. So for example, if you are say 1.76m tall, and you prefer the feel of the size large (reach of 487mm) you’ll be able to run a 200mm dropper post to deal with the jankiest trails in your drop. The downtube storage box seen on the newer Top Fuel and Slash models has now been added to the Fuel EX too.
Other neat features include internal (and guided) cable routing which will help keep the bike quiet, the Active Brake Pivot rear suspension design that keeps the suspension fully active when under braking, and full downtube protection if you want to shuttle.
Overall, I’d say the Fuel EX should be a great option for long-ish trail missions where you still want the confidence in equipment to hammer the descents. With a lightweight set of tyres you’ll be fine running mid-pack at one of the country’s marathon missions. Then in 29 or mullet mode, it’ll be a great trail shredder, Enduro racer or flow line lap sled. It is most definitely a rig I’d like to try. As is often the case, whilst the global launch is today, various markets (including South Africa) are only scheduled to land the new bikes in 2023. Head to trekbikes.com for local pricing and a look at the models scheduled for our market.
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