Trek Fuel EX 2020 - The Fuel EX Like Never Before

The 2020 Trek Fuel EX bears little resemblance to the previous model – we take a look at what’s new.

It certainly looks a stunner. The 2020 Trek Fuel EX

The 130mm travel 29er bike is set to be the battle ground of the top brands next year. With enough travel to take on chunky trails, but the potential to be light and efficient enough for a big day of climbing, this is an important part of the mountain bike world and the 2020 Trek Fuel EX is going to slot right into it.

Ready for the bashing

Trek Fuel EX – New v Old

The 2020 Trek Fuel EX bears little resemblance to the previous model. And while it’s obviously going to be longer and slacker to keep up with modern trends, there are some big changes with the suspension – gone is the ‘Full Floater’ suspension linkage that pushed on the rear shock from both ends, Trek reckons that modern shocks are clever enough not to need this fiddling with suspension curves and can get the same effect from a regular rocker-actuated rear shock.

Knock block keep the bars from spinning round (and the fork crown from smashing the straight downtube)

The 2020 Fuel EX has 130mm travel out back, with a 140mm fork up front, room for 2.6in tyres and, as mentioned a longer reach and a slacker head angle. The geometry changes slightly according to the Mino-Link setting chosen – bikes will come set with ‘High’ as a default. In High, you get a head angle of 66.5°, it’s joined by a steepened seat angle of 75° (which doesn’t change with Mino-Link adjustment).

The Mino-Link remains, allowing a small amount of angle and BB height adjustment

Geometry & Sizing

Standover on the bikes has been improved, which also allows for longer dropper posts across all the sizes. The Small and XS will come with 100mm droppers, while the medium and larges will get 150mm droppers. At the 9.8 and 9.9 spec levels, the large and XL sizes get a 170mm dropper. And talking of sizes, the small and XS sizes will come with 27.5in wheels, while the small will ALSO come in 29in too.

All the numbers.

Looks secure and tidy

Trek Fuel EX Suspension

Now, let’s talk suspension. The previous Fuel EX featured a lower suspension mount that was attached to the chainstays, so that as the suspension cycled, the lower link effectively moved from the top link as the shock was compressed, this allowed the suspension designers to tune the spring curve. Trek reckons that its new RE:aktiv With Thru Shaft shock can do all of that while being anchored to the downtube.

Engage the external thermal compensator, Scotty.

One additional feature of the new shock is the ‘external thermal compensator’ which acts like a tiny piggyback shock, giving the hot oil somewhere to go when things start heating up on repeated hits and long downhills. It’s the small cylinder in the photo above, to the right of the shock adjusters. And talking of adjusters – praise be! – the rebound adjuster is NUMBERED! This means no more ‘dial it all in and count the clicks back’ – this apparently is a pain in the arse for Fox as the shocks need to all be individually calibrated at the factory, but Trek has finally bullied them into it.

It’s small, but enough to make a difference. Plus, numbers!

Trek’s ABP remains the heart of the suspension

The Active Brake Pivot remains, which is where the rear pivot is around the rear axle. This is said to keep the suspension unaffected by braking.

Frame Burrito

What’s this? Apparently, while another large bicycle company pioneered using large, hollow carbon downtubes as a place to stash stuff, there wasn’t enough novelty in it to patent. Or Trek has found a way to sidestep its way round. Anyway, the upshot is that there is a removable panel beneath the bottle cage, operated by a lever, that reveals a hollow void of the downtube. Rather than leave it up to you to fill it with fun things (jackets, sausages, pumps…) Trek has made a neoprene burrito that holds just enough to get you out of trouble if you have a flat. There’s a tube, a CO2 and regulator and a pair of tyre levers, all wrapped in a neat package.

Lift lever and remove

Pull on the Bontrager burrito label

And here’s your get out of jail ‘Because flats happen’ kit

Reinflate, and then just ride into the sunset like an idiot…

The rest of the spec has also been looked at too. The frame is now all carbon on the 9-series bikes, so all bikes at the 9.7, 9.8 and 9.9 level get full carbon front and back ends. There’s been a move to Fox 36 forks on the higher end models, something that suits where this bike is aimed.

Not a chance of a front mech these days, though routing will allow Di2 rear mechs

Bontrager Line Carbon wheels will come on the upper spec levels

GX Eagle gives all the gears.

And now a few of the bikes…

How do you like this blue/blue fade? This is the nearly top spec Trek Fuel EX 9.8

Maybe you want a more subtle black/grey Fuel EX5?

Or a purple/black EX7?

We can see this matt-on-gloss Fuel EX8 being a hit

Pricing

Pricing is from £1,850 for the Fuel EX5 to £2800 for the EX8 and £3400 for the ‘entry’ carbon 9.8 up to a cool £8000 for the SRAM AXS equipped 9.9:

Trek Fuel EX 5 – £1,850
Trek Fuel EX 7 – £2,350
Trek Fuel EX 8 – £2,800
Trek Fuel EX 9.7 – £3,400
Trek Fuel EX 9.8 GX – £4,750
Trek Fuel EX 9.9 XO1 – £6,500
Trek Fuel EX 9.9 X01 AXS – £8,000

Ah. Dry grass.

And that’s the new 2020 Trek Fuel EX. Check out Trek’s website for further information and ordering.

Disclosure

Chipps travel and accommodation was provided by Trek

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)