2008 Trek Session 88 FR and DH

Singletrack.com got a chance to look at the new Trek Sessions.  Full article here.

From Singletrack.com:

Trek ushered all of the UK journos into a prefab VW garage at the Sea Otter to unveil their latest bike. It’s a 200mm frame platform that contains nearly every acronym and catchphrase they make. It has an E2 tapered headtube, an EVO-Link, Full Floater suspension and an Active Braking Pivot… Fortunately, after all that, it actually looks fantastic and a bike we’re keen to get to play on soon.

So what is the Session 88? It’s Trek’s new 200mm downhill and freeride frame platform. If you’re familiar with their Remedy then it’s easy to see the family connection. From the front then, the head tube has a bottom-heavy hourglass shape to incorporate Fox and Rockshox’ E2 forks (a 1pointFive inch lower race and a standard 1.125in upper race). The shock linkage is similar to that on the Remedy – only bigger – (and in must-have white).

The frame’s linkage uses the same ‘Full Floater’ technology as the Remedy, where both ends of the shock are mounted to linkages, rather than the frame. This lets you play around with shock ratios a lot more. At the back end, there is the same sort of captive QR for the Active Braking Pivot – only this time it’s a bolt-through axle.

There will be two models initially. A downhill Session 88 and a freeride ‘Shandro approved’ Session 88. The frames are the same, only the DH model has a dual crown Fox 40 and the FR model has Rockshox Totems. There are differences in the components too. All are top shelf items though, which is reflected in the £4000+ price for the complete bikes. (There’ll be a frame-only option too)

The chunky bolt-thru axle also serves as the rear-end pivot. Trek claims that at these bigger travels, their Active Braking Pivot is very effective at removing brake-jack (and other ‘I’m using the rear brake too much on a downhill’ symptoms).

More on the ABP here.