It’s time for me to come clean. I’ve been hiding a dirty little secret from you for about ten months now, dear reader. No, I haven’t been laundering money or smuggling illegal goods but I am only human and thus susceptible to the alluring forces of consumer marketing. Despite my best efforts to resist the many temptations blasted at me through the bicycle media, I have succumbed and purchased, yes, another bicycle. A brand new one, I’m afraid. And not just a practical, pragmatic beast of burden or creature of expedition. No, this bicycle is purely a plaything. A vessel of frivolity. Yes friends, I have dived headlong into the realm of the modern mountain bike.
Furthermore, this is no XC speed machine or overly chunky gravel crusher. No, this is a properly long, properly slack, properly fat modern trail bike. Dropper post, 29 x 2.6″ tyres and a 140mm Rock Shox fork sporting 35mm stanchions. This thing is afraid of nothing and virtually growls at anything that looks like a drop-off, steep, uneven descent or rock garden. Not bad for an aluminium hardtail. I didn’t sell out quite so far as to get myself onto a full suspension bike again (give that time though as I age a bit more) but for what this thing can do, it may as well be a full suspension bike. And so, please give a warm welcome to my Trek Roscoe 8 (cue the Norwegian black metal).
This is quite a change in direction away from the kind of riding I’ve been doing in recent years and a return to more the style of riding I did in my younger years. One difference being that now I have the luxury of owning multiple bikes meaning that the kind of riding the Roscoe is good at can (and will) represent just a portion of the mix of riding styles that I participate in.
So why, you’re probably not wondering, would I go in this direction now? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. My cycling roots lie in off-road riding. I started riding trails and fire roads around south-east Queensland in the 90s when mountain bike tyres were skinny and small in diameter and all trails were rough and hand cut. The people who invented Google Maps were probably still consuming liquids from a sippy cup. Nonetheless, we burned through the miles, launched ourselves off whatever we could find and whatever we dared. Bikes were broken, bodies were scared and property was probably trespassed but, hell, it was a good time. Later my riding came to be more what this website is about but the point is that it’s good to dip my toes in that kind of riding again. Especially because the opportunity to do so won’t be available to me forever. So it’s a throwback. Part of the reason for the Roscoe is nostalgia for me in a weird kind of way. Mmmkay?
That’s a lot of meat you have there, my friend
For someone whose mountain bikes consisted of 26″ duallies and 26″ hartails until about 2016 then a 29″ XC hardtail for the next eight (or so) years, the Roscoe is quite a different kettle of fish. Probably the first thing that struck me was how efficiently the thing pedals given that it has 2.6″ wide tyres with a definitively trail oriented tread pattern and what is actually a pretty beefy frame. Now, I’m not by any stretch trying to claim road bike level efficiency but the few kilometres from my home to the trail is absolutely no problem for the Roscoe. It could probably be set up for bikepacking too though the frame doesn’t have any rack or cargo mounts.
Then on the trail, the combination of the tyres, low gearing and frame geometry mean that almost no climb is insurmountable. It’s a different kind of climbing to the XC bike though. With the XC, it’s about gaining momentum then mashing til your heart pops out of your mouth whereas with the Roscoe, you find a nice big cog on the ample cluster, sit tight and just spin. There’s no traction loss and you plough over any obstacles like a tank. The tyres and the fork do all the negotiations for you.
I should point out also that while the 2.8″ tyres on my Bombtrack Beyond+ are even bigger than the tyres on the Roscoe, the Bombtrack is really an offroad tourer rather than a mountain bike and thus not really comparable to a mountain bike as I may have suggested when writing about it.
Then there are the descents. It’s pretty much a point and hold on kind of affair. Just make sure the bike is at the correct angle through the corners and that your body weight is in the right position to take the drops and jumps. For someone like me who is coming from a much less forgiving platform, there is little more nuance to it than that. The bike does the bulk of the negotiations on my behalf though I’ve yet to decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
Again, the tyres play a star role in the bike’s capability and comfort but of course descending is also where I started to see the 140mm fork really start to shine. I can’t really speak about details of preload, dampening and other such things because I’d be completely out of my depth. I had the Trek shop where I bought it set all that for me based on my weight. I just know that it all works pretty well. The fork also has a lockout feature for any long, smooth climbs that you feel you might need even more efficiency for. I used that a bit in the first few weeks but have pretty much forgotten about it now.
Framing the proposition
The frame naturally plays a big part in the bike’s descending ability as well. Arguably the most distinguishing feature being that super slack head tube (65 degrees according to Trek) which makes the whole thing so confidence-inspiring when you’re pointing in a downward direction.
The seating position comes close to being over the top of the bottom bracket and the back wheel is tucked quite closely to the seat tube. I’m told this combination makes the bike both “whippy” through the corners and more efficient to pedal. I can’t disagree with that claim.
As mentioned, this is an aluminium frame which is a material that often gets points deducted for being harsh to ride. I haven’t been able to detect any such problem. Maybe this is because humans have gotten really good at building aluminium frames or maybe the ample tyres and fork simply absorb any such harshness or maybe it’s just because my tastes are so unrefined – I’m a connoisseur of nothing unfortunately (I think instant coffee is delicious). And it is a pretty burley frame with hefty chain stays and seat stays to provide adequate ability to deal with hard knocks in the absence of rear suspension (the whole bike weighs in at just on 15kg).
Bizarro world
One of the unanticipated features of this bike that had this old retrogrouch a little discombobulated was the dropper post. At first, I really couldn’t see the point and I still kind of view it with a degree of perplexity but I am starting to warm to it a bit. When I first started trying to use the dropper, I would put it all the way down on the descents. That was frustrating because it just made my legs more tired and also sapped some of my confidence because I’m used to using some of weight on the seat to plant the back wheel through certain types of corners. Plus, on more flowing singletracks where the downs have a few ups as well, I found the need to raise the seat again to get my pedalling efficiency back a nuisance. For now, I’ve landed on lowering it maybe 30% – 50% on descents which performs at least some of its intended purpose of getting the seat out of the way of being able to hang off the back of the bike when taking drops and jumps. I am starting to see the benefits of the dropper but I’ll keep experimenting.
The other unplanned first for me on this bike is the tubeless setup on the tyres. That I have not made peace with. While there were no problems, I kind of just ignored the whole thing until one day I hit a rock sticking up out of the trail while going through a corner and punctured the sidewall of the tyre plus another little hole on the tread area. Not big holes and I even rode on for a while before I noticed sealant oozing from the wounds. I tried plugging but that didn’t work.
When I got home, I pulled the tyre off, emptied the sealant, dried everything off and tried patching from the inside. Once the glue dried, I added new sealant, pumped that thing up again but same story – sealant coming out of the holes, mess everywhere. By this time I had enough of the smell of sealant on my hands and of wiping the crap off everything so I emptied the tyre again, dried everything again, ripped out the tubeless valve and installed a tube. It’s stayed like that ever since.
Maybe some people have better luck with that stuff but I can’t be bothered and I don’t see the point. For years I rode with way skinnier tyres than the Roscoe and rarely flatted. On the few occasions I did flat, I would simply throw another tube in on the trail and keep riding. It would take me a few minutes to change and I probably wouldn’t have to think about it again besides replacing the punctured tube in my saddle bag when I got home. Now, the industry is telling me I need expensive plugs and expensive goop sloshing around in my tyres. Why? I see no benefits. And to keep that tyre I punctured the sidewall on as a tubeless setup, I’d have to replace the whole tyre. It’s a write-off for one tiny hole in tubeless land. With a tube, I can’t even tell there was ever a problem. Anyway, bottom line is I’m not wasting any more money or energy on tubeless.
Complaints department, you are number 684 in the queue
OK, one actual gripe. While the Roscoe frame is lovely and I’m happy with the geometry and other features, the paint quality is a little disappointing. In all the decades of riding mountain bikes, I’ve never had paint chip off a frame even after years of riding and yet the paint on the Roscoe started chipping after the first couple of rides. Not large chips but quite a lot around the bottom bracket and stays. Annoying on a new bike. Maybe it’s the big tyres throwing up big amounts of debris onto the frame or maybe I’m just a gnarlier rider than I thought (though probably not). Trek did provide me with some touch up paint which was nice to be able to fix the existing chips but touch up paint isn’t going to prevent new chips. I don’t know if this is just a bad batch of paint or if I just got unlucky but I ended up covering the problem areas with clear protective tape which seems to be working so far. We’ll see how that goes.
And finally
The Roscoe 8 is such a lot of fun to ride. It’s very capable and very forgiving as a trail bike and it’s also surprisingly efficient to pedal for a bike of its heft. I’ve taken it on various blue and black graded trails around Brisbane without any concerns. It comes kitted out with some nice components – there’s the Rock Shox 35 140mm fork, a Sram GX drivetrain and four piston TRP brakes. The Bontrager 29 x 2.6″ tyres do a great job on and off the trail. And aside from my gripe about the paint chips (which is really the only actual gripe I have about it), the finish really looks the part in the ultra-dark green with red stickers. The only extras I put on the bike was the mini Rock Shox front mudguard and the SPD clipless trail pedals.
That’s it.
Ride safe and see you out there sometime.