Trek Fuel EX 9.8 Review - BikeRadar

The £4,500 carbon 9.9 may be the official superbike in Trek’s Fuel EX family, but it turns out that its more affordably priced EX 9.8 brother, with its pearl white finish, is more than enough bike to compete with the very best.

Whatever trail challenge we threw the Trek EX 9.8 into, it performed superbly. Totally sorted geometry, tight frame feel and well-balanced suspension in a low-weight package make it one of our favourite all-rounders.

Ride & handling: Taut-feeling bike with impressively muscular trail connection and authority

At just over 26lb (11.8kg), the EX 9.8 is no heavyweight, and it’s a very taut-feeling bike with impressively muscular trail connection and authority.

The ABP suspension system is one of our favourite setups in terms of overall performance. Tight feel and minimal pedal bounce meant we only flicked the ProPedal platform damping lever to grunt up road climbs and always left it fully open off-road.

Here it sucks up hits without interruption by pedalling or braking traction, and picks up drive immediately from any point of the stroke. The floated position and high volume of the Fox shock give it very capable and (excuse the overused but accurate cliché) bottomless big-hit feel compared with most 120mm (5in) travel bikes.

The EX 9.8 also naturally pushes a lot harder and feels more comfortable through incoming chaos on ‘sight unseen’ descents. While it’s not as dramatically obvious as Trek’s hype would have it, the lack of braking influence on the rear end does mean you can leave your anchor points later on trails you know.

While the tyres aren’t particularly grippy (they trade stick for easy rolling speed), the broad 28mm rims plump them out nicely for a secure, surefooted plant on the trail, and they rarely wallow or twang out of line either.

All of these aspects make it very easy to keep the trail pace consistently high on the Fuel, and the handling is well up for the challenge.

With a long top tube, you never feel cramped for breath. However, even when drifting through tight, flat or off-camber kitty-litter corners, we never felt nervous or off-balance as we pushed to the last millimetre.

It’s poised through tight singletrack and stable on descents too, and while it’s not a wheelie king you won’t struggle to get the front wheel up when you need to.

There’s no doubt that a wider bar will help you exploit the stiff frame/fork steerer setup more easily, though. At £800 less than other similar bikes, you’ve got plenty of cash in hand for a bit  of upgrading, and any smart bike shop would probably swap a bar to clinch a £3,000 deal.

Trying to get them to chuck in a stiffer 15mm through-axle fork probably won’t be as easy, but that would be another item on our wishlist.

Frame: Same chassis as its top-end brother, with Trek's top ABP suspension design

For a start, you’re getting the same new OCLV Black carbon front end (handmade in the USA) and alloy rear end as with the EX 9.9. That means Trek’s E2 tapered steerer head tube for a better weight-stiffness ratio, big headbox section, buttressed extended seatpost and a monster bottom bracket shell housing press-fit bearings for maximum pedalling stiffness.

The 3D-forged magnesium rocker linkage squeezes the large volume Fox shock against the extended lower chainstays for a fully floated rear end. Trek’s innovative ABP design – for active suspension while braking – puts the rear pivot exactly on the rear wheel centre line, with the extra long skewer screwing directly into the driveside nut.

Tyre clearance is ample for 2.3in rubber, cabling is neat and there are bottle cage mounts under and on top of the down tube. You’ll have to chop to drop the long seatpost, though, and the alloy rear end means you’re only getting a 200g weight saving compared with the full alloy bike.

About BikeRadar reviews: Our review scoring system has changed in 2010. Therefore recent reviews may have comparatively lower scores than past reviews. Click here for a full explanation of our ratings.

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