First Look: New Trek Checkmate | A dedicated Gravel Race Bike
With Madone-esque tube shapes and a premium carbon build, the new Checkmate is Trek’s first race-dedicated gravel bike.
Had such a bike been released five years ago, there’d have been little interest. Considering the current gravel boom, a dedicated race whip will be a hit. Trek says this bike is 100% focused on speed and to that end they’ve created a new gravel race geometry, given it the same drag reduction tech as on the new Madone and molded it with their lightest carbon.
Whitney Beadle of Trek HQ says: “In simulation, at 200W on the Unbound 200 course, the new Checkmate is 38 seconds per hour faster than the outgoing Checkpoint SLR. Over the entire race distance that translates to a total time that is almost 6 minutes faster.” That increase in performance comes from a loss of around 500grams on total bike weight, the Full System Foil tube shapes, the XPLR groupset and that spicy-looking one-piece cockpit.
Key Details
| 800 Series OCLV Carbon frame and fork |
| 45mm tyre compatibility |
| IsoSpeed tech (floating seat tube) |
| Full System Foil Shapes – as on new Madone |
| One-piece aero cockpit |
| New Gravel Race geometry |
| Frame mounts for gear and hydration storage |
| 1638 grams for Checkmate SLR frame & fork |
The development crew at Trek identified the need for a pure race bike and have excluded any frills that add weight and might slow things down. So, unlike the new and more versatile Checkpoint that was also released today, this new Checkmate cannot be run with a suspension fork and does not have internal frame storage. We are told, the range-topping Checkmate SLR 9 AXS model tips the scales at a svelte 7.55kg’s, in size M/L.
The Gravel Race Geometry is not a vast departure from what works well on the outgoing Checkpoint SLR bikes. There’s literally not much more than a few millimeters and fractions of degrees that have changed to create a ride position that is marginally lower and shorter. The end result, the new bike will be a more aggressive fit with faster responses to acceleration and handling inputs.
Rider’s can run up to four water bottles on the Checkmate and there’s plenty of mounts for top tube, triangle and frame bags. Maximum tyre clearance is 45mm and the brand’s IsoSpeed (aka compliant seat tube) is the built-in chatter reduction tech.
The Checkmate is available in two models. The SLR 7 or SLR 9 are both AXS equipped bikes, will retail at R185k and R255k respectively through Trek’s custom build plan, known as Project One. // trekbikes.com