The bikes that won the Tour Down Under: Ruth Winder’s Trek Emonda and Madone
A week before donning the winner’s jersey at the Women’s Tour Down Under in Australia, Ruth Winder was training through the thick of winter on her local roads of Boulder, Colorado.
The 2020 Women’s Tour Down Under featured four stages, and Winder raced both the aero Trek Madone SLR and lightweight Emonda SLR during the week. However, it was Winder’s Emonda that she used during the first three stages, including when she won stage three and gained the leader’s jersey. The aero Madone made an appearance on the final stage – a flat and fast criterium. Here, we take a look at these bikes of the current USA national road champion.
The bikes used in Australia are Trek-Segafredo Women’s team-issued rides. These are much the same bikes as used throughout the 2019 season, and the women’s Trek-Segafredo team are likely to continue on these for a few more months yet.
While travelling to the other side of the world presents obvious logistical issues, Trek-Segafredo still made sure to bring two bikes for each rider, and each rider got to choose which ones they were. Some brought two Madones; some two Emondas. Winder requested one of each.
Trek-Segafredo brought Winder both the Emonda and Madone for the Australian racing season.
Winder’s bikes feature nearly identical fits, but the geometry is ever so slightly different, with the Emonda featuring Trek’s most aggressive H1 geometry, and the Madone the subtly taller H1.5. But for the measurements that count – the handlebar reach and stack, the saddle height, and so on – both bikes are essentially the same.
The 1.63m-tall (5’ 3”) rider rides a 50cm frame size in both the Emonda and Madone, each with a 670mm saddle height, 55mm saddle setback, and 170mm crank arms.
Similarly, the key components are the same. Both are fitted with the same 48/35T chainrings and 10-28T 12-speed cassettes, shifted by SRAM Red eTap AXS derailleurs. Both bikes feature SRAM hydraulic disc brakes, with the latest two-piece SRAM Red brake calipers that are said to offer more pad clearance and a tad more power than the original one-piece units.
The Bontrager handlebars feature a subtle flare at the drops.
Although the handlebars differ between the two bikes, they each share a similar profile. Winder rides with 38cm bars and prefers Bontrager’s “VR-CF” flared compact drops. Winder’s saddle of choice is the somewhat stub-nosed Bontrager Aeolus Pro in a 155mm width.
Winder’s go-to wheels are the Bontrager 47mm-deep Aeolus XXX 4 Disc tubulars, which have a claimed weight of 1,330g for the set. These are shod with 25mm-wide Pirelli PZero Velo tubulars.
Number plate holders bonded on to the frame are oh-so-pro.
As team-issue frames out of Trek’s Project One program, all team bikes feature race number plate holders that are integrated directly into the seat tube.
In terms of what bike Winder chooses on any given day, though, she usually ends up with the lightweight Emonda for most races given her petite build. That Emonda, even with its disc brakes, power meter, and 47mm-deep wheels, weighs a rather respectable 7.05kg, including a Garmin computer. Her Madone is significantly heavier at 7.88kg (without the Garmin head unit), but with its superior aerodynamic performance, is still the better choice for flatter and faster roads – and, notably, it’s the machine that Winder rode to the stars-and-stripes jersey last year.
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