Road Cycling

Trek Silque SL 2015 Womens Road Bike Reviewed

Designed to provide a silky smooth ride, does the bike deliver?

First up, lets address the colours – because it’s bound to come up: this Trek Silque SL is black and ‘flamingo pink’. Some people will like that, others won’t. If you don’t, you can choose to create your own custom design for a little extra…

At £2,200, this is clearly a very considered purchase, too, but within that price tag you’re getting yourself a bike that’s designed to work hard for you, over a long period of time – this bike could be your bestie for many years to come.

If you like the sound of the Silque’s design, but not the price tag, there is a Trek Silque C 2015 women’s road bike with a more value orientated groupset available for £1,400, and plenty of models in between – so don’t stop reading yet.

As smooth as a well brewed flat white…

The ride is super smooth – as smooth as a well brewed flat white, an Aero Bubbly or a magic carpet. Road vibrations barely reached me when I took this bike for a spin.

Similes aside – what have Trek done to create a bike that sails over lumps and bumps with such serenity? It’s all about the ‘IsoSpeed Decoupler’. Which means the square root of zero to most people.

Trek have created a design that means the seat tube is isolated from the rest of the bike, so road buzz from uneven surfaces isn’t felt so strongly. The end result is that you’ll move around less in the saddle, feel more stable, and fatigue will be kept further at bay.

Trek’s mens Domane bike has been using this technology for some time, but the Silque has been developed following careful research into what works for women.

No lugging proportionally heavy bikes up hills

Women who are smaller will generally weigh less, and so the same tubing used for a bike ridden by a 6ft man is going to be proportionally heavy.

This carbon frame goes right down to 44cm (for a rider around 4 ft 8), so Trek have addressed the issue by adjusting the tubing so that its thickness is size specific to the frame.

This means that women aren’t forced to lug bikes up hills that are heavy in relation to their generally lower body weight.

Lifting the bike to carry it down the four flights of stairs at TWC, I can confirm the frame feels super light.

No pick and mix componentry

When a bike brand is trying to save money, they’ll mix up high end, mid end and low end components.

This bike has a full Shimano Ultegra Groupset. This does increase the price of the bike – but for that you’re getting lightweight components that will last the test of time.

The wheels, tyres, saddle, and (rather nice, infact) Microfibre bar tape are all Bontrager, everything matches and is produced to a high quality.

Jacqueline-of-all-Trades

In terms of the sort of riding – the Silque prides itself on being a bit of a Jacqueline-of-all-Trades. The smoothness of this ride, compact chainset and 22 gears for climbing, plus hidden mudguard mounts, mean you could take this bike to the mountains, complete a long distance sportive, or ride it on a club ride in total comfort.

The overall position is fairly relaxed, but when I tested a few 20 second sprints along the roads around Regent’s Park I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of ‘go’ this bike produced. The stability provided by the bump-smoothing design and tempting light weight mean you could race this beauty comfortably if you wished.