Gear of the Year: Bike
The highly efficient and energetic Trek Domane earned Best Bike of 2020 in our Gear of the Year.
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From $2,900
Trek’s third-generation Domane is the best version of this popular endurance road bike and the best bike we’ve tested all year. That may surprise some, given the number of exciting and innovative new mountain bikes, gravel bikes, and e-bikes that have been developed over the past 12 months. But this model does what no other drop-bar road bike has done for some time. Through creative design and smart engineering, Trek has injected life into a category that has seen very little change. And the company did it within the confines of hyper-restrictive UCI regulations that govern race bike design. It’s an endurance road bike that you can race or take on gravel adventures.
Trek made the Domane for pros to race in Classics like Paris-Roubaix. Like other endurance road bikes, it excels on rougher roads and puts the rider in a slightly more comfortable position. But unlike most other bikes in the category, this one is quick and lithe, highly efficient and energetic. It has an aerodynamic frame, yet is as pleasing and enjoyable to ride as any road bike I’ve tested. Trek sells it in seven configurations that cost between $2,900 and $12,000. It’s made for elite racers, but you don’t need a pro contract to afford one.
Even among similar endurance road bikes, the Domane feels extraordinarily smooth, thanks to Trek’s IsoSpeed decouplers, which allow additional flex in the bike’s seat tube and fork. The technology adds high levels of comfort without sacrificing any of the punch and speed we expect from a performance bike. The Domane is crisp and stiff at the bottom bracket, and it responds efficiently. It moves like a race bike, but it glides across bad roads like no other race bike.
The Domane’s ability to suck up bumps improves traction and control, and its relatively long wheelbase gives it a lot of composure over rough stuff. The steering is quick and reactive, but the bike flows—instead of darting too excitedly, the way some bikes can—from the apex of one turn to the next. Less-experienced riders will gain confidence on this bike; fast riders can pedal harder and brake less in tricky conditions. It weighs more than some similar bikes, but you really only feel it on long, sustained climbs. For most riders, the gains in comfort, control, and speed across most surfaces make the sacrifice worth it.
Of all the changes this version gets, I’m most excited about the extra tire clearance. The frame now accommodates treads up to 38mm wide. Creating space for tires that wide on an aerodynamic, bump-smoothing frame is exactly the type of ambitious design that’s been missing from road bikes. Most pros will opt for narrower rubber, but you don’t have to. A tire swap transforms the Domane from a fast road bike to something ready for the hardest gravel races and routes. And unlike the skull-rattling experience of riding other road bikes on dirt, the smooth, well-balanced Domane is a joy to ride.
The bike also gets hidden fender mounts and a hatch in the down tube that lets you store a repair kit, food, and even a light jacket inside the frame. All this without any weird proprietary mounts, fixtures, or doodads. It even has a threaded bottom bracket.
This year has been challenging and unpredictable in ways few others have. But this bike is one of the disruptions we can get behind, shaking up and bringing creative ideas to the road bike category. The high-performance and versatile Domane is the bike for this moment. It lets us enjoy the kind of road rides we love, but is ready to take us someplace new when we need a change.—Matt Phillips
