Zed
Active member
Long story short, I bought a Fuel EXe and while I was quite enamoured with the bike at first, things got a bit meh. I lost interest and it was a big chunk of money to fork out for something not that interesting to me.
Trek earnt themselves a repeat customer and budding fanboy by letting me swap it out for Rail. I'm so grateful. To be honest, I thought about just selling it new as I hadn't really planned on a Rail and gone through the whole mental processing of building up the desire for it. A strange situation to suddenly have a high spec bike I didn't really plan on. But all the reasons I went for a new bike are still there - I won't exercise otherwise, I have nothing to do when my kid is at his mums, it puts a smile on my face.
It's such a sweeeeet spec so after much deliberation including making the ad to sell it and then deleting it twice, I decided I was going to have to give it a go. Chucked a MaxxGrip Assegai on the front, a 3C Dissector with a cushcore on the rear, my grips and saddle, and rode it this morning.
It was really nice to be bombing down the trails again. Exciting. Just hucking off stuff not caring where I land was freeing too. Railing corners uphill. Yesss.... that was missing with the EXe... I had a lot of fun. Had to cut the ride short with parental responsibilities, burned the batt down to 52% in 90 mins or so of EMTB mode.
I've learnt then that the mid/low power bikes are not for me. I don't really want a bike that's more like a non-e bike. I want an ebike. Lighter and better handling would be good, but here I have a pretty damn light example of a full powered bike. Not sure it'll get much better that this for a good while yet.
My last full fat was an Orbea Wild and this Rail does fix some of it's shortcomings. It's not as monster truck, it doesn't soak everything up quite like the Wild did. This means it wants to get off the ground, which I really like. The Rail feels lighter and is more playful by a decent amount. The Zeb was superb on ride 1 with recommended settings. The rear soaked up landings superbly but needs some fiddling I think. XTR clangs into the next gear instantly, it's very nice.
One downside is I can feel the Bosch motor clutch clang through the pedals. I thought at first something might be loose. The bike shop gave me the bike without even putting sealant in the incorrect tires, so that didn't help my paranoia. But it's just the stiffness of the bike/cranks I think. Maybe it will wear in, if not I'll get to used it. I'll go retorque everything before next ride tomorrow morning
Dusty, post ride:
I thought that above photo, hosed down and still wet, would look good... Anyway, here's some clean ones pre my bits...
The paint job really is sweet, like a pearl glitter through it and without sun hitting it just looks dark grey like above.
Love the bike. Glad I didn't sell it. Will it keep me engaged long term? It has a good chance. We'll see...
Trek earnt themselves a repeat customer and budding fanboy by letting me swap it out for Rail. I'm so grateful. To be honest, I thought about just selling it new as I hadn't really planned on a Rail and gone through the whole mental processing of building up the desire for it. A strange situation to suddenly have a high spec bike I didn't really plan on. But all the reasons I went for a new bike are still there - I won't exercise otherwise, I have nothing to do when my kid is at his mums, it puts a smile on my face.
It's such a sweeeeet spec so after much deliberation including making the ad to sell it and then deleting it twice, I decided I was going to have to give it a go. Chucked a MaxxGrip Assegai on the front, a 3C Dissector with a cushcore on the rear, my grips and saddle, and rode it this morning.
It was really nice to be bombing down the trails again. Exciting. Just hucking off stuff not caring where I land was freeing too. Railing corners uphill. Yesss.... that was missing with the EXe... I had a lot of fun. Had to cut the ride short with parental responsibilities, burned the batt down to 52% in 90 mins or so of EMTB mode.
I've learnt then that the mid/low power bikes are not for me. I don't really want a bike that's more like a non-e bike. I want an ebike. Lighter and better handling would be good, but here I have a pretty damn light example of a full powered bike. Not sure it'll get much better that this for a good while yet.
My last full fat was an Orbea Wild and this Rail does fix some of it's shortcomings. It's not as monster truck, it doesn't soak everything up quite like the Wild did. This means it wants to get off the ground, which I really like. The Rail feels lighter and is more playful by a decent amount. The Zeb was superb on ride 1 with recommended settings. The rear soaked up landings superbly but needs some fiddling I think. XTR clangs into the next gear instantly, it's very nice.
One downside is I can feel the Bosch motor clutch clang through the pedals. I thought at first something might be loose. The bike shop gave me the bike without even putting sealant in the incorrect tires, so that didn't help my paranoia. But it's just the stiffness of the bike/cranks I think. Maybe it will wear in, if not I'll get to used it. I'll go retorque everything before next ride tomorrow morning
Dusty, post ride:
I thought that above photo, hosed down and still wet, would look good... Anyway, here's some clean ones pre my bits...
The paint job really is sweet, like a pearl glitter through it and without sun hitting it just looks dark grey like above.
Love the bike. Glad I didn't sell it. Will it keep me engaged long term? It has a good chance. We'll see...
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