Trek madone suitable for commuting? Please help!..?

Question

I want to get a Madone that is light so I could do normal road riding/racing, but also suitable for commuting/packing. Are all of the Madones suitable for this? Like, are the frames built to be able to have panniers hooked to them? And it has to be a WSD, not a men's. I was thinking of the 4.7 but it looks like I won't have enough money by the time they stop selling them because of the new models coming out soon.

Answer 1

It looks like the highest end road bike trek makes that accepts racks for commuting is the 1.2 WSD.  The Madone is a great bike but you would have to carry all your stuff in a backpack or messenger bag, I wouldn't recommend that.  Also, where are you going to keep a $2700 bike while your at work?  I would buy a cheaper bike that can carry your stuff to work and will be easier to replace should it get stolen and save your money and buy the Madone later.  Another solution is you could take all the clothes and supplies you will need at work for the week by car, bus or train to work on Monday and use the bike the rest of the week.  This would at least lighten the load you would have to carry on your back during your commute.

Answer 2

Just browsing the Trek site, I don't see any carbon bikes with braze-ons except the 7.9 FX, which is a flat bar road bike and does not have a WSD model .  If you go under the categories of Urban and Bike Path on the Trek site, you will find the bikes designed for commuting, which are pretty much all aluminum.

Answer 3

Madones are racing bikes and designed just for that. There aren't braze ons and carbon generally doesn't have the strength to handle even light touring. I agree with the last answer: Buy a steel frame and ride on it. It's comfortable, a little heavy, but durable for commuting on. It would suck to have anything bad happen to a Madone. I'm not sold on the Trek fad, but they do make good bikes.

Answer 4

Don't get a trek and don't commute on it.

Get an old steel frame from the 70's

Answer 5

As far as I know the Madone series does NOT have the necessary "braze ons" for attaching racks. It would be a bad choice for commuting as well since it is made for high performance, not for load carrying..

You are going to have to do a bit of legwork to locate a bike for both commuting AND racing. This is called "audux" in Europe.

There are plenty of bikes out there that are suitable for what you want (but none out of carbon fiber), to this end I'll make a suggestion since your price range is pretty good. Contact Waterford Cycles or Serotta Cycles. These guys- Richard Schwinn (yep, THAT Richard Schwinn) and Ben Serotta can build you a smokin' bike. These will far outstrip anything you could buy from Trek or Cannondale or other production builders... plus you can pick your colors and may even save a few bucks in the process.

My personal favorite in custom builders is Bob Jackson of Leeds England. They are lower priced than most U.S. builders but also are a bit harder to work with. I also am likin' the stuff from Paketa... magnesium frames.