Trek Checkmate Gravel Race Bike Overview

Trek has an all-new gravel race bike, the Checkmate. Not to be confused with the Checkpoint, which continues on but now as an adventure bike with more upright geometry, a lot more tire clearance, and a whole lot more mounts. Lighter, faster, lighter, faster, lighter, faster. How many times have you heard that about a new bicycle? And that story continues here with this Checkmate. The Checkpoint was never accused of being the lightest gravel bike on the block, and this is one and a half pounds lighter than the previous top end. Checkpoint SLR. This is also considerably faster aerodynamically, taking not only the handlebar, but some of the tube shaping from Trek's new road race bike, the Madone. In this video, I'll give you all the pertinent details on this new bike, tell you what it's like to ride, tell you what I love, tell you what bugs me about it, tell you what questions I still have, and tell you how this compares to other so-called fast gravel bikes on the market. I've tested more than 70 gravel bikes at this point, including each and every one of Trek's gravel iterations. Going all the way back to the short-lived stopgap, the Domani gravel, on which I called BS some six years ago. I'll tell you about a major change in how Trek sells all of its bikes. I'll tell you about a big component story on all Trek's gravel bikes. And I'll tell you what's up with these new gravel bags. If you find this video helpful, please take a second to hit like and hit subscribe. That helps out the channel. If you'd like to learn about how I make money doing bike reviews on YouTube and my history... Of 25 years of cycling journalism, you can click that link in the video description below after you watch this video. Now, sit back and enjoy the ride on the new Trek Checkmate. If you've been watching my channel for a while you know I often do a bike review fresh after an event with a number plate still on there, usually from a gravel race, sometimes from a road event. Today was a ride of a different sort. It was the ride for Magnus, a memorial ride for Magnus White who was hit and killed by a driver last year. Magnus was 17 years old, he was a national champion, he was a member of the U.S. national team. Much more importantly, he was someone's child, he was someone's brother, and he was a friend. Too many. Today an estimated 3,700 of us did a memorial ride out to the crash site and back. Trek happened to be a sponsor of this. Normally when there's a sponsor on an event it's neither here nor there for me. Today it was notable that Trek president John Burke was at the start and a participant in the ride. So what does that have to do with the gravel race bike review? In many ways nothing but In other ways, quite a lot. The bicycle community is a small one around the world and we're all grappling with the safety question. No one has all the answers, but John Burke and the folks at the White Line Foundation, started by Magnus White's family, have some ideas that they've put a lot of time into and some money into, and I'll put a link below to some of those organizations if you want to check those out. But on a lighter note, let's talk lightness. Trek Checkpoint has long been a great gravel bike, has never been a very light gravel bike. The Checkmate takes 280 grams off the frame for a comparable size and a pretty hefty pound and a half off the top end bike. I should note that all the new Checkmates are top end race bikes starting with the new new 13 speed tram red Explorer AXS. There's a second tier which is still top end red 12 speed, and then the third tier bike is SRAM Force Axis. So all super high end, and now maybe not super light, but considerably lighter than before. Not only lighter in kilograms and pounds, but lighter in grams of drag. Trek has a few different ways to measure drag. They claim this new bike is 17.1 seconds faster an hour at speeds. 21.5 miles an hour, which I think is a realistic gravel race speed, than the outgoing top-end Checkpoint SLR. They've achieved this through a couple ways. One, the integrated one-piece bar and stem from the Madone, and two, from the Madone also from some of the frame shaping. Gone is the integrated storage that's still on the Checkpoint, but it's not found here. That was a way to shave some weight. Shave some grams of drag and also realizing that for racers digging into the frame is probably not the most expedient way to get to your flat fixings. All three models come with this one-piece barn stem. Notably, especially if you're looking at something like the Canyon Grail, you can specify at the time of purchase your preferred dimensions for the cockpit. And while this is the Madone cockpit, it comes stock, although you can specify, but their default setting is one size wider than it would be for the road race bike. So for instance, this is a 41. At the tops, flares to 44 on this size medium-large, which is basically a 56. If this was the road bike, that would be a 39-42. Trek expects the mass majority of these Checkmates to be built to order through Project One. They claim that those can be turned around in seven days from the four colors, and then your choice of cockpit dimensions, crank links, and chainring size. For the new, new SRAM Red Explorer, you've got... One and only one cassette option, that 1046. If you want to learn more about the new Red Explorer group, you can check out my video above on that. You've got top tube, ISO speed, D-shaped post. Comes with a 42 ring, but you can specify the size ring you like. Up to a 48, that's the total clearance on this. Total tire clearance is a 45 mil tire. It comes stock with a 38. The bike's got new gravel race geo shortening up a bit from the checkpoint which was crazy long in many aspects. This brings it in a centimeter, goes down a bit. The bottom bracket is now 80 mil of drop compared to the outgoing 76. Definitely puts it on the lower end of the gravel spectrum. Integrated bags of a sort. You've got three options. You've got top tube, you've got the triangle bag, and then a long frame bag. One thing I dig about these is that they don't need velcro. And you don't have to permanently affix them. They don't come off quite as quickly as that Canyon Grail magnetic attachment bag, but with three simple bolts with a nice fat head on them, you can pop these guys off and on. Now for the new Check Point. Some quick details there. It's interesting to me that Trek took two road bikes, mushed them into one. The Madone Aerobike, the Imonda climbing bike, are now one bike, the new Madone. On the other hand... Gravel's blowing up. All the kids are doing it. Trek took one bike, the Checkpoint, and pulled that into two. The Checkpoint being the adventure bike now. The Checkmate is the other bike, the race bike. Here's what's new with a Checkpoint. You've got 50 mil tire clearance, a little bit shorter, a little bit taller, about a centimeter per size. There are mounts everywhere. You've got some massive internal storage, bigger than last year. There are more affordable models. You've got a two-piece. cockpit on all the models. Those start with Force, go down to Rival, and then Apex. I'll do a separate video digging into more of the details of that new Check Point and comparing it to the Checkmate, but that's the brief overview. Enough spec talk. Let's talk about what this thing is like to ride. In a word, it's a blast. Now with gravel bikes or with road bikes, with bikes in general, it's all about matching up what your preferences are with a type of bike, right? Like if you like downhill mountain biking, this is not the bike for you. I like doing... Fast group gravel rides and races. Going uphill is fun, going downhill is fun, but I love doing flat to rolling rides in big groups where you can surf the energy and the draft of said group. And for that type of riding, this is a pretty sweet bike. For context, a couple of regular rides here. There's fast gravel on Thursday nights here in Boulder County, where it's basically like a VO2 workout, but in a play setting in that when we're on the dirt. It's game on. That goes anywhere from like two to ten minutes, then you hit the pavement, everybody eases off and regroups. Actually regroups, not like some rides where, oh we'll regroup and then they'll leave you for dead. Oh yeah. For that, the gravel down here is pretty darn tame. You know, we do the Boulderoo Bay road race on road bikes because the gravel allows that. So running 38s, these are the Girona Bontrager tires. It's kind of like Bontrager's version of the Pathfinder in that you've got a pretty close to a slick center tread with a bit of wee bite on the shoulders. It's a fast rolling tire. Another fun gravel ride out here is Wednesday Morning Velo. A group of like-minded folks get together and hammer each other silly for a bit and then regroup for pastries and coffee afterwards. I love the low BB on this. It just feels very centered and planted. 80 mil, like I said, is on the low end for sure. Another bike that has that is one of my favorites, the Giant Revolt. Another thing I love and another similarity in some ways to the Revolt is the forgiving rear end. The post probably has a bit of flex and then the ISO speed also has some give. Trek and Giant don't have monopolies on Comfiness in the back, you know, if you've ridden a Cannondale endurance bike like the Synapse, you're familiar with that feeling. The first time you hit a bump you think, is my rear tire going soft? Like it just kind of, that bump disappeared. But no, you can have fully inflated tires and compliance too. A difference with this design and the Revolt is that the Revolt has a much shorter frame and all the flexes in the seat post itself, where here are some of its in the post and some of its... you know, in the ISO speed. A benefit to this is that you've got more room for tall boys. Speaking of tall boys, you can move the cages in all sorts of different positions. Right now this is in the center one. You can also drop this all the way to the bottom of this elevated bottom bracket shell, so you can run liter bottles pretty easily on this. Or if you like, you can put this down, have a third bottle cage up there, another cage down there, your top tube bag, etc. Point is, backing of this bike is comfy and I like that. Is some of the comfiness due to the tires? Yes, of course. That's where a lot of your suspension is coming from in gravel. Is some of the forgiveness coming from the thermoplastic wheels? Maybe a bit. You can measure that in a lab. These are not thermoset like most carbon fiber is, but thermoplastic. The folks at Forge and Bond in Utah came out with this design, have sold it to a few others. You can watch my video on Forginball and above. Another key piece of the comfy coziness for me is that the cockpit feel is dialed. Some of that, yes, is an agreeable shape, but a big part of it is being able to specify exactly how I want this bike to be set up. So with this bike, a medium-large, which is effectively a 56, I specified I'd like a 110 please with the 41 bar. And so getting on that with Not just the length and width, but the whole stack and reach dialed to my preferences. That makes it feel like home. And yes, I can hear all you old heads saying, well, you know, it doesn't have to be a complicated thing. If you just had a two-piece bar and stem, you can do that very easily without the expense. Yes, of course you can. But here you're having your aerodynamic cake and eating your comforts too. Or some sort of horribly mixed metaphor like this. Or we don't want the bike to blow off the cliff. That would be a bad. Big Trek news. You can now buy bikes and have them shipped directly to your house. A lot of the big brands have been inching towards this. The big IBD brands, the independent bicycle dealer brands, were for years and years. You could only buy them in shops. Consumer direct brands like Kane have upended that apple cart. An interim step for Trek and others was click and collect. buying online and then picking it up in the shop, you can still do that. But now, as of July, you can buy a bike online and have it shipped to your house. Also, at least in most markets, you can buy online and have a Trek dealer assemble it and deliver it to your house. Now, unlike Canyon, of course, you're not getting the savings that comes with there being no dealer involved, but you can get that convenience factor. So that's big news for Trek. I need to go somewhere else which is not the edge of a steep cliff. Okay we'll shelter behind this big rock. Hopefully that won't keep us from blowing off the side of the mountain. Do some loves, do some bugs, do some questions. Loves, as I said, just the fit and feel of the thing for the type of riding I like to do, fast gravel, I think it's fantastic. Comfort, fit. Bottom bracket's plenty stiff for my meager output. And the gearing for that past flat gravel with a 42 ring, I feel that's more appropriate than the 40 that's come in stock. Your results may vary, of course. What bugs me? Having the same Madone cockpit means you've got the same plastic cap, which I've now broken twice. Once on the Madone, once on this guy. There's just little plastic bits that, for whatever reason, I often just... Grab the bike at this area and this comes off in the little nubs break. So not a structural problem but an aesthetic thing and one that I've done inadvertently twice. So I'd like to see that improved somehow. Another minor complaint with the cockpit is that while on the hoods it's super comfy. I love the shape of these red levers. I know I've been going off on this on every video but love the feel of the new levers and In the drops, these bars are super comfortable, and even on the tops, relatively comfortable. Just the transition from the hood to the skinny bar feels a bit narrow, and I'd like to have more purchase there. So, yes, that's a tiny thing, but one thing to keep in mind is that you can have whatever bar you like on all three of these models as long as it's this one. There, I believe it behooves you to put your hands on the thing before you buy, and advantage that trick. has over the likes of Canyon and that you, unless you happen to live in Germany, yes, and you can go to the Canyon shop there. Trek has shops in many places and you can go see if the fit and feel is good for you. And then questions, or primarily one question, which is, is 45 enough? You know, for probably three, four years, it seemed like we were settled on 40 as the Goldilocks size for all things gravel. And then... All of a sudden that's exploded in 45s and even 50s, sometimes 2.1s, 2.2s are even being used in gravel races now. So is that enough? I'd be curious to see what the Checkmate 2.0 version looks like in another year, two, three, down the line. I do think that 45 is good and plenty for the vast majority of races, but just curious to see your thoughts on that and the market's thoughts on that and Trek's thoughts on that in the future. Other questions for the future? What's the next iteration after Checkmate? Like that's the end of the game, that's the end of the line. Also why is the adventure bike called Checkpoint? Checkpoint's about racing, there's only checkpoints in races. If you're on an adventure ride there's no checkpoints. I know I'm just a word nerd, I can't help it, I play Wordle, I love Bananagrams. This is where my little word brain goes. These are the questions I have. For models you got three, all top-end. Tippety-top is Red Explorer 13 speed. Second tier is red 12 speed, and the third is SRAM Force Axis. I'll put prices and claim the weights in the description below. Now let's talk comparisons to other fast gravel bikes. Some are certainly aero like the BMC Caius, Canyon Grail, Ridley Kanso Fast. Some are just light and quick, so I'd put the Specialized Crux in the fast gravel category for sure. It's primarily about geo, right? A little bit longer, a little bit lower, and often with a little bit less tire clearance. than a beefier, bigger, bikepacking gravel bike. Of course, they're just bikes, right? You can race a bikepacking bike, or you could take a race gravel bike on a multi-day adventure. You can do whatever you want, but if you're optimizing, it's just like vehicles. A truck is not a sedan, it's not a jeep, right? So let's talk fast gravel bikes. Head angles are typically in the 71 degrees or steeper. This is 71.7, I want to say. The checkmate is not as light. as the crux, the world's lightest gravel bike. I like to give that one grief, but that's actually a fantastic bike, especially in the S-Works model. This, I feel, is kind of a blend of the BMC Kais and the Giant Revolt. The Kais in that it's optimized for aero for sure, but the Kais, you can have whatever handlebar you want as long as it's a 36 centimeter bar. Here, as I mentioned, you can specify your own dimensions. And then it's like the Revolt and it's got a low bottom bracket, I should say the Kyos also has a very low bottom bracket, and a nice amount of cush on the back end. Unlike the Revolt there's no internal storage and the frame has the UDH holes on the back, universal derailleur hanger, which means, you probably know, it works with a new Explorer group and works with any quote unquote old group as well with just a single derailleur hanger. Giant has stuck with its traditional derailleur hanger style so it can keep the flip chip at the rear to adjust for up to 50 mil of tire clearance, which is again more than this bike has. And then lastly with Project One you've got the four stock colors and then you can do custom colors as well. There's a new Icon colorway that is just out that I think looks pretty sweet. I also appreciate that Trek has scaled way back on the shouty logos. For a while it was running the whole length of the downtube and this is... Little more subtle. All in all, I'm pretty smitten with this bike, I have to say. I would race this at Steamboat Gravel next weekend, but alas, I lost a bet to my buddy Nathan Forbes at Schwalbe. So, I will be racing on this steed, a 2003 Giant Protégé. Stay tuned for my adventures on that. Let me know what questions you have in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer. If you found this video helpful, please hit like and subscribe, that helps me out. Take care of each other out there! It's a crazy world. I certainly don't have all the answers about road safety and neither do you, but let's do what we can, where we can. I'll leave you with this footage from the ride for Magnus today here in Boulder, Colorado.

How many times have you heard that about a new bicycle? And that story continues here with this Checkmate. The Checkpoint was never accused of being the lightest gravel bike on the block, and this is one and a half pounds lighter than the previous top end. Checkpoint SLR. This is also considerably faster aerodynamically, taking not only the handlebar, but some of the tube shaping from Trek's new road race bike, the Madone.

In this video, I'll give you all the pertinent details on this new bike, tell you what it's like to ride, tell you what I love, tell you what bugs me about it, tell you what questions I still have, and tell you how this compares to other so-called fast gravel bikes on the market. I've tested more than 70 gravel bikes at this point, including each and every one of Trek's gravel iterations. Going all the way back to the short-lived stopgap, the Domani gravel, on which I called BS some six years ago.

I'll tell you about a major change in how Trek sells all of its bikes. I'll tell you about a big component story on all Trek's gravel bikes. And I'll tell you what's up with these new gravel bags.

If you find this video helpful, please take a second to hit like and hit subscribe. That helps out the channel. If you'd like to learn about how I make money doing bike reviews on YouTube and my history... Of 25 years of cycling journalism, you can click that link in the video description below after you watch this video. Now, sit back and enjoy the ride on the new Trek Checkmate.

If you've been watching my channel for a while you know I often do a bike review fresh after an event with a number plate still on there, usually from a gravel race, sometimes from a road event. Today was a ride of a different sort. It was the ride for Magnus, a memorial ride for Magnus White who was hit and killed by a driver last year.

Magnus was 17 years old, he was a national champion, he was a member of the U.S. national team. Much more importantly, he was someone's child, he was someone's brother, and he was a friend. Too many.

Today an estimated 3,700 of us did a memorial ride out to the crash site and back. Trek happened to be a sponsor of this. Normally when there's a sponsor on an event it's neither here nor there for me. Today it was notable that Trek president John Burke was at the start and a participant in the ride.

So what does that have to do with the gravel race bike review? In many ways nothing but In other ways, quite a lot. The bicycle community is a small one around the world and we're all grappling with the safety question.

No one has all the answers, but John Burke and the folks at the White Line Foundation, started by Magnus White's family, have some ideas that they've put a lot of time into and some money into, and I'll put a link below to some of those organizations if you want to check those out. But on a lighter note, let's talk lightness. Trek Checkpoint has long been a great gravel bike, has never been a very light gravel bike. The Checkmate takes 280 grams off the frame for a comparable size and a pretty hefty pound and a half off the top end bike.

I should note that all the new Checkmates are top end race bikes starting with the new new 13 speed tram red Explorer AXS. There's a second tier which is still top end red 12 speed, and then the third tier bike is SRAM Force Axis. So all super high end, and now maybe not super light, but considerably lighter than before. Not only lighter in kilograms and pounds, but lighter in grams of drag.

Trek has a few different ways to measure drag. They claim this new bike is 17.1 seconds faster an hour at speeds. 21.5 miles an hour, which I think is a realistic gravel race speed, than the outgoing top-end Checkpoint SLR.

They've achieved this through a couple ways. One, the integrated one-piece bar and stem from the Madone, and two, from the Madone also from some of the frame shaping. Gone is the integrated storage that's still on the Checkpoint, but it's not found here. That was a way to shave some weight. Shave some grams of drag and also realizing that for racers digging into the frame is probably not the most expedient way to get to your flat fixings.

All three models come with this one-piece barn stem. Notably, especially if you're looking at something like the Canyon Grail, you can specify at the time of purchase your preferred dimensions for the cockpit. And while this is the Madone cockpit, it comes stock, although you can specify, but their default setting is one size wider than it would be for the road race bike.

So for instance, this is a 41. At the tops, flares to 44 on this size medium-large, which is basically a 56. If this was the road bike, that would be a 39-42. Trek expects the mass majority of these Checkmates to be built to order through Project One. They claim that those can be turned around in seven days from the four colors, and then your choice of cockpit dimensions, crank links, and chainring size.

For the new, new SRAM Red Explorer, you've got... One and only one cassette option, that 1046. If you want to learn more about the new Red Explorer group, you can check out my video above on that. You've got top tube, ISO speed, D-shaped post. Comes with a 42 ring, but you can specify the size ring you like. Up to a 48, that's the total clearance on this.

Total tire clearance is a 45 mil tire. It comes stock with a 38. The bike's got new gravel race geo shortening up a bit from the checkpoint which was crazy long in many aspects. This brings it in a centimeter, goes down a bit.

The bottom bracket is now 80 mil of drop compared to the outgoing 76. Definitely puts it on the lower end of the gravel spectrum. Integrated bags of a sort. You've got three options.

You've got top tube, you've got the triangle bag, and then a long frame bag. One thing I dig about these is that they don't need velcro. And you don't have to permanently affix them.

They don't come off quite as quickly as that Canyon Grail magnetic attachment bag, but with three simple bolts with a nice fat head on them, you can pop these guys off and on. Now for the new Check Point. Some quick details there. It's interesting to me that Trek took two road bikes, mushed them into one.

The Madone Aerobike, the Imonda climbing bike, are now one bike, the new Madone. On the other hand... Gravel's blowing up.

All the kids are doing it. Trek took one bike, the Checkpoint, and pulled that into two. The Checkpoint being the adventure bike now. The Checkmate is the other bike, the race bike. Here's what's new with a Checkpoint.

You've got 50 mil tire clearance, a little bit shorter, a little bit taller, about a centimeter per size. There are mounts everywhere. You've got some massive internal storage, bigger than last year.

There are more affordable models. You've got a two-piece. cockpit on all the models. Those start with Force, go down to Rival, and then Apex.

I'll do a separate video digging into more of the details of that new Check Point and comparing it to the Checkmate, but that's the brief overview. Enough spec talk. Let's talk about what this thing is like to ride.

In a word, it's a blast. Now with gravel bikes or with road bikes, with bikes in general, it's all about matching up what your preferences are with a type of bike, right? Like if you like downhill mountain biking, this is not the bike for you. I like doing...

Fast group gravel rides and races. Going uphill is fun, going downhill is fun, but I love doing flat to rolling rides in big groups where you can surf the energy and the draft of said group. And for that type of riding, this is a pretty sweet bike.

For context, a couple of regular rides here. There's fast gravel on Thursday nights here in Boulder County, where it's basically like a VO2 workout, but in a play setting in that when we're on the dirt. It's game on.

That goes anywhere from like two to ten minutes, then you hit the pavement, everybody eases off and regroups. Actually regroups, not like some rides where, oh we'll regroup and then they'll leave you for dead. Oh yeah.

For that, the gravel down here is pretty darn tame. You know, we do the Boulderoo Bay road race on road bikes because the gravel allows that. So running 38s, these are the Girona Bontrager tires. It's kind of like Bontrager's version of the Pathfinder in that you've got a pretty close to a slick center tread with a bit of wee bite on the shoulders.

It's a fast rolling tire. Another fun gravel ride out here is Wednesday Morning Velo. A group of like-minded folks get together and hammer each other silly for a bit and then regroup for pastries and coffee afterwards.

I love the low BB on this. It just feels very centered and planted. 80 mil, like I said, is on the low end for sure. Another bike that has that is one of my favorites, the Giant Revolt. Another thing I love and another similarity in some ways to the Revolt is the forgiving rear end.

The post probably has a bit of flex and then the ISO speed also has some give. Trek and Giant don't have monopolies on Comfiness in the back, you know, if you've ridden a Cannondale endurance bike like the Synapse, you're familiar with that feeling. The first time you hit a bump you think, is my rear tire going soft?

Like it just kind of, that bump disappeared. But no, you can have fully inflated tires and compliance too. A difference with this design and the Revolt is that the Revolt has a much shorter frame and all the flexes in the seat post itself, where here are some of its in the post and some of its... you know, in the ISO speed. A benefit to this is that you've got more room for tall boys.

Speaking of tall boys, you can move the cages in all sorts of different positions. Right now this is in the center one. You can also drop this all the way to the bottom of this elevated bottom bracket shell, so you can run liter bottles pretty easily on this. Or if you like, you can put this down, have a third bottle cage up there, another cage down there, your top tube bag, etc.

Point is, backing of this bike is comfy and I like that. Is some of the comfiness due to the tires? Yes, of course. That's where a lot of your suspension is coming from in gravel. Is some of the forgiveness coming from the thermoplastic wheels?

Maybe a bit. You can measure that in a lab. These are not thermoset like most carbon fiber is, but thermoplastic. The folks at Forge and Bond in Utah came out with this design, have sold it to a few others.

You can watch my video on Forginball and above. Another key piece of the comfy coziness for me is that the cockpit feel is dialed. Some of that, yes, is an agreeable shape, but a big part of it is being able to specify exactly how I want this bike to be set up.

So with this bike, a medium-large, which is effectively a 56, I specified I'd like a 110 please with the 41 bar. And so getting on that with Not just the length and width, but the whole stack and reach dialed to my preferences. That makes it feel like home. And yes, I can hear all you old heads saying, well, you know, it doesn't have to be a complicated thing.

If you just had a two-piece bar and stem, you can do that very easily without the expense. Yes, of course you can. But here you're having your aerodynamic cake and eating your comforts too.

Or some sort of horribly mixed metaphor like this. Or we don't want the bike to blow off the cliff. That would be a bad.

Big Trek news. You can now buy bikes and have them shipped directly to your house. A lot of the big brands have been inching towards this.

The big IBD brands, the independent bicycle dealer brands, were for years and years. You could only buy them in shops. Consumer direct brands like Kane have upended that apple cart.

An interim step for Trek and others was click and collect. buying online and then picking it up in the shop, you can still do that. But now, as of July, you can buy a bike online and have it shipped to your house.

Also, at least in most markets, you can buy online and have a Trek dealer assemble it and deliver it to your house. Now, unlike Canyon, of course, you're not getting the savings that comes with there being no dealer involved, but you can get that convenience factor. So that's big news for Trek.

I need to go somewhere else which is not the edge of a steep cliff. Okay we'll shelter behind this big rock. Hopefully that won't keep us from blowing off the side of the mountain. Do some loves, do some bugs, do some questions.

Loves, as I said, just the fit and feel of the thing for the type of riding I like to do, fast gravel, I think it's fantastic. Comfort, fit. Bottom bracket's plenty stiff for my meager output.

And the gearing for that past flat gravel with a 42 ring, I feel that's more appropriate than the 40 that's come in stock. Your results may vary, of course. What bugs me? Having the same Madone cockpit means you've got the same plastic cap, which I've now broken twice. Once on the Madone, once on this guy.

There's just little plastic bits that, for whatever reason, I often just... Grab the bike at this area and this comes off in the little nubs break. So not a structural problem but an aesthetic thing and one that I've done inadvertently twice.

So I'd like to see that improved somehow. Another minor complaint with the cockpit is that while on the hoods it's super comfy. I love the shape of these red levers. I know I've been going off on this on every video but love the feel of the new levers and In the drops, these bars are super comfortable, and even on the tops, relatively comfortable. Just the transition from the hood to the skinny bar feels a bit narrow, and I'd like to have more purchase there.

So, yes, that's a tiny thing, but one thing to keep in mind is that you can have whatever bar you like on all three of these models as long as it's this one. There, I believe it behooves you to put your hands on the thing before you buy, and advantage that trick. has over the likes of Canyon and that you, unless you happen to live in Germany, yes, and you can go to the Canyon shop there. Trek has shops in many places and you can go see if the fit and feel is good for you. And then questions, or primarily one question, which is, is 45 enough?

You know, for probably three, four years, it seemed like we were settled on 40 as the Goldilocks size for all things gravel. And then... All of a sudden that's exploded in 45s and even 50s, sometimes 2.1s, 2.2s are even being used in gravel races now. So is that enough?

I'd be curious to see what the Checkmate 2.0 version looks like in another year, two, three, down the line. I do think that 45 is good and plenty for the vast majority of races, but just curious to see your thoughts on that and the market's thoughts on that and Trek's thoughts on that in the future. Other questions for the future? What's the next iteration after Checkmate? Like that's the end of the game, that's the end of the line.

Also why is the adventure bike called Checkpoint? Checkpoint's about racing, there's only checkpoints in races. If you're on an adventure ride there's no checkpoints. I know I'm just a word nerd, I can't help it, I play Wordle, I love Bananagrams.

This is where my little word brain goes. These are the questions I have. For models you got three, all top-end.

Tippety-top is Red Explorer 13 speed. Second tier is red 12 speed, and the third is SRAM Force Axis. I'll put prices and claim the weights in the description below.

Now let's talk comparisons to other fast gravel bikes. Some are certainly aero like the BMC Caius, Canyon Grail, Ridley Kanso Fast. Some are just light and quick, so I'd put the Specialized Crux in the fast gravel category for sure. It's primarily about geo, right? A little bit longer, a little bit lower, and often with a little bit less tire clearance.

than a beefier, bigger, bikepacking gravel bike. Of course, they're just bikes, right? You can race a bikepacking bike, or you could take a race gravel bike on a multi-day adventure. You can do whatever you want, but if you're optimizing, it's just like vehicles. A truck is not a sedan, it's not a jeep, right?

So let's talk fast gravel bikes. Head angles are typically in the 71 degrees or steeper. This is 71.7, I want to say. The checkmate is not as light. as the crux, the world's lightest gravel bike.

I like to give that one grief, but that's actually a fantastic bike, especially in the S-Works model. This, I feel, is kind of a blend of the BMC Kais and the Giant Revolt. The Kais in that it's optimized for aero for sure, but the Kais, you can have whatever handlebar you want as long as it's a 36 centimeter bar.

Here, as I mentioned, you can specify your own dimensions. And then it's like the Revolt and it's got a low bottom bracket, I should say the Kyos also has a very low bottom bracket, and a nice amount of cush on the back end. Unlike the Revolt there's no internal storage and the frame has the UDH holes on the back, universal derailleur hanger, which means, you probably know, it works with a new Explorer group and works with any quote unquote old group as well with just a single derailleur hanger. Giant has stuck with its traditional derailleur hanger style so it can keep the flip chip at the rear to adjust for up to 50 mil of tire clearance, which is again more than this bike has.

And then lastly with Project One you've got the four stock colors and then you can do custom colors as well. There's a new Icon colorway that is just out that I think looks pretty sweet. I also appreciate that Trek has scaled way back on the shouty logos. For a while it was running the whole length of the downtube and this is...

Little more subtle. All in all, I'm pretty smitten with this bike, I have to say. I would race this at Steamboat Gravel next weekend, but alas, I lost a bet to my buddy Nathan Forbes at Schwalbe.

So, I will be racing on this steed, a 2003 Giant Protégé. Stay tuned for my adventures on that. Let me know what questions you have in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer. If you found this video helpful, please hit like and subscribe, that helps me out.

Take care of each other out there! It's a crazy world. I certainly don't have all the answers about road safety and neither do you, but let's do what we can, where we can. I'll leave you with this footage from the ride for Magnus today here in Boulder, Colorado.

Transcript for:Trek Checkmate Gravel Race Bike Overview

Transcript for:
Trek Checkmate Gravel Race Bike Overview