Trek’s New Slash 29 Enduro Weapon

Holy dooley, say hello to Trek’s new Enduro destroyer! The Slash 29 is a purpose built Enduro machine, and it has us in a violent headlock of love.

Key points:

• Slash is now 29er only!
• Bikes don’t get more bad-ass than this
• 150mm travel rear, with 160/130mm travel-adjustable forks
• Stiffest dual suspension bike Trek have ever made
• Will destroy any Enduro track on the planet

We actually first saw this bike back at the Trek Fuel EX and Remedy launch a number of weeks ago, but threats and blackmail have kept us quiet till now. Trek kept this beast up their sleeve until right at the end of the launch, and it sure got a big response when Trek’s Casey Brown rolled it into the seminar room! The new Slash 29 has got to be one of the most menacing, sensational looking bikes we’ve clapped eyes on, especially in the bold team paint job.

Let’s get this out of the way: this bike is 29er only. That’s right, in contrast to the trend towards 27.5″ wheels in the Enduro category, Trek have opted to go for big hoops on this monster. Why? Well the Slash is designed as an Enduro race bike, and Trek feel that for the job of winning races, a 29er is the best format. They didn’t go into this decision blindly, we might add. Over the past few years Trek have had two of the most successful Enduro racers on the planet on their EWS team (Leov and Moseley) both of whom opted for the Remedy 29er, not the 27.5 Slash or Remedy 27.5.

And so Trek has taken that feedback, combined the big wheels of the Remedy 29 with the travel and laid-back geometry of the Slash, and created a weapon of mass destruction. This clearly isn’t going to be a bike to take for a rip around your local cross country loop, but we are itching to give it a run on the roughest trails we can find.

Like the Remedy, the Slash gets the new Straightshot down tube, but the focus on frame stiffness doesn’t stop there with this bike. Trek claim the new Slash 29 is way stiffer than any dual suspension bike they’ve ever made, even the Session downhill bike, and when you look at the single-ring specific chain stays on this thing it’s hard to imagine they’re telling porky pies.

The keen eyed out there will have noticed the Slash has a different suspension configuration to other Trek full suspension bikes – there’s no Full Floater system (Trek’s usual ‘floating’ shock mounting). Instead, the shock is mounted to the down tube in a more conventional kind of design. This is a bit of a surprise move, but Trek have their rationale:

“We developed Full Floater years ago to address performance constraints associated with the air shocks that were available at that time. Since then, mountain bike shocks have evolved. More dynamic and responsive dampers, along with more refined air springs like EVOL and Debonair, offer the performance benefits our engineers sought to achieve with Full Floater.

“Using a fixed lower shock mount opens up the lower frame area, giving us more opportunity to design stronger, stiffer frames and chainstays. This also gives us more flexibility to accommodate larger, more capable shocks. All of these effects are experienced most dramatically on long travel bikes, like the Slash.”

There are going to be two models of the Slash coming to Australia, both using the same carbon frame. The 9.9 pictured here, with SRAM Eagle 12-speed and a FOX X2/36 suspension package for $8999, or for $6999 you can pick up the Slash 9.8 with a RockShox suspension package and SRAM GX drivetrain.