Trek Madone SL6 Gen 8 RSL Carbon Bar and stem upgrade install and review

Today I’m upgrading my cockpit with the ultra-sleek Trek RSL Aero Carbon integrated bars. In this video, I’ll show you the installation process, share my initial ride impressions, and chat about how it changes the feel of the Trek Madone SL6 Gen 8.

If you’re thinking of upgrading your aero setup or just curious about what these bars feel like in real-world riding, this one’s for you.

🛠️ Bike: Trek Madone
🖐️ Bars: Trek RSL Aero Carbon Integrated Cockpit
📍 Filmed at: Trek Manchester

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BIKES
▶ Road Bike – Trek Madone SL6 Gen 8 Gen 3
▶ MTB – Giant Trance 2 29er 2019

hello welcome to an exciting video so any of you that have seen my review video on the Treadone SL6 Gen 8 that I’ve got I talked you through the upgrades that I’ve got and I also mentioned in there that one upgrade that I did have me eye on that I wanted to get done or was considering getting done was the one piece bar and stem anyway um my thoughts got the better of me and I spoke to Dylan at the store in Manchester and basically it’s being done today and I’m really excited i’m excited to see what difference it makes i’ve never rode with a one piece carbon bar and stem before those people who I know who have have all said that it gives more comfort better ergonomics cleans up the cockpit which we can all see when you see a one piece bar and stem on a bike it does look really clean and also it makes it that little bit more arrow and because it’s carbon also makes the bike a little bit more lighter so this is the current setup um which is a 40 mil bar alloy bar with a 44 and it is a clean lock and keeps the cables to a minimum but it ain’t no one piece B in stem which I think just looks it looks super nice on this bike um and out of interest I’ve gone for a 41 on the top i’m 43 across the top here so 41 will give me a good a good feel when I had a bike fit he recommended that I have 40 to 41 mil wide bars with 100 mil stem so that’s what we’ve gone for um and yeah honestly so excited about getting this done and uh testing it out on the road for that extra comfort i was hoping that we could have had them fitted for the Fred but the shop’s just been really busy so if you are considering any kind of upgrades or out like that come down to the shop and get booked in and uh let the boys down here look after you right anyway um yeah we’ll come back to you in a minute when we start stripping this down right so the M’s in the stand and we’re starting by pulling off the old bar tape it’s been on a while so it’s a bit stubborn but it doesn’t matter since the old cockpit’s coming off anyway I’m helping Paddyy where I can cuz I want to pick up a few tips we’re cutting the brake hoses close to the levers so with a bit of luck we won’t need to run new ones and because the levers are wireless it’s just a case of unbolting them ready for the new RSL bars so just to show you is the weight saving it’s a massive one so these are the old bar and stem and there’s this as well so I’ll just show you what it weighs so all in that’s 499 g so we’ll tear that look at this big weight savings 174 g weight saving there um but there’s more to the story than that it’s just look at it it just looks sick right let the uh time lapse continue with some nice music with the old bar and stem off it was time to start fitting the new bars first job fresh headset bearings before we pop them in I gave the headset cup area a good clean to make sure there was no grime or old grease kicking about in there with that done the new bearings slotted in nicely and we were ready to move on now for one of the trickier jobs threading the brake hoses through the bars because it’s all internal Paddyy used a really smart trick he ran some gear cables through first to guide the hoses and it worked perfectly they went straight through no messing honestly this guy is an absolute genius with a bike then it was time to fit the new barbs and olive the rear rose was easy loads and loads of length to work with but the front was a bit tighter so Patty had to unbolt the front caliper and move it up so we could get more length at the bars on the front hose bit of a squeeze but we got there in the end so steering next so we used the maximum number of spacers on the stereo tube so I’ve got the same upright position I had before i’m not ready to cut the stereo just yet in case I want to adjust the fit later on so for now I’ll keep it as it was right leave a time since they’re wireless because I’ve got a D2 system it’s just a case of bolting them on and connecting the hoses then once we dialed in the lever angle Paddyy did a quick bleed at the lever to clear any air from where we disconnected things then the brakes felt spot on So last step bar tape so I’ve gone with a super cast sticky kush one of my favorites especially for wet northern rides and one that I’ve used for years so it’s tried and tested i asked Paddyy if he could do a reverse wrap to keep the clean look on the bars patty hadn’t done it before but after a quick look online he nailed it i’ll let him finish the second side on his own didn’t want the filming to interrupt his flow well it’s all done and this is the finished product honestly Patty’s done an absolute superb job on this um so we’ve put Super CAD bar tape on and he’s also it’s the first time he’s done this he’s done a reverse wrap on there on the handlebar tape which I just think looks really nice and there’s also we’ve gone for the K Edge uh Garmin mount which when I get home I’m going to put on my Garmin front light i should have brought it with me today but I’m an idiot um but yeah really really impressed with it i cannot wait to get out on the road and give it a go i’m going to ride home with it now which I’m not going to film um but then I’m going out into being the next scene i’m going to film something i’m going out with Acub on a bike who you’ll have seen in my last video for Fred Whitten which at this point is still not edited but edited it’s almost there so it’s been about 3 weeks i did go for a ride with a and I did film a segment but the weather was shocking uh real bad winds raining yeah so I didn’t get to film much but I thought now it’s been 3 weeks so I thought I’d uh Now I’ve been editing the video and I did edit the end but I feel like I did a disservice to the bars i only speaking about them after 20 30 mile which I thought they were great still do uh but yeah I’ve done uh I’ve done quite a few more miles on them now so just going to get here and get pulled over and I’ll uh I’ll tell you my thoughts on the bars uh changed one thing since I got these and I’ve gone for the Trek ion 200 light which I think is absolutely brilliant uh for summer daylight rides i won’t be using over winter i’ll jump back on the Garmin i’ll save all that for another video uh but the bars well first off as you can see it’s a super clean look like really clean i love it the only thing which is driving me mad and it’s nothing with the bars is this but it keeps that safe so first thing the 1 cm extra wider on the bars now when I first rode them I did notice it but now I’ve been riding it for 2 or 3 weeks it’s uh it’s become it become second nature it just feels like it did previously the distance on the on the stem the 100 mil that feels exactly the same one thing that I really do like is when you’re descending you’re in the drops because I’ve got that 44 wide uh drop the distance from here to here that’s actually 2 cm wider it feels so much more better more comfortable when you’re at high speed and you’re in the drops and you’re going downhill it feels super com confident inspiring confidence inspiring can’t get the words out it’s bloody quart to 5 in the morning quart to 6:00 in the morning not walk up properly now the carbon that thing has been an absolute game changer so when you’re hitting bumps it it’s hard to explain but if you can imagine like when you’re on a when you’re on an alloy bike and you’re hitting potholes if you had a graph which showing like the the measurement of bumpiness is that even a word i’m sure it’s got a proper word the graph would go like it’ be a sharp spike on alloy on carbon it kind of like rounds off it smooths it off uh and you don’t notice the bumps and stuff in as much at all i’ll give you one prime example so when I went on the ride with a we come and did the descent down from umh if you go up and over dust stones if any of you know it’s a long descent which takes you down to home and when we were coming down there there was a puddle up there up up ahead in the road were a big one but I didn’t have enough time to react cuz I was just in my own world my own thoughts and I hit this uh this bump I thought here we go anyway it I went over it and barely noticed any any vibration through the bars at all it just felt it felt great felt really good and that’s one thing that I really do like is that when I’m descending on these bars it’s really is confidence inspiring i know I’ve used that word before but it really is they are super super comfortable another thing I’m loving is this reverse wrap that Patty done it’s uh it’s holding up pretty well i’ve done maybe 300 mile on them two 300 mile i don’t know what the number is but yeah I’ve done quite a few rides on them now and yeah it’s holding up really well i know it’s Super Cas as well now by the way and uh that’s owned by Specialized but yeah I really do like this bar tape i’ve used it I’ve used it loads over the years then there’s also the weight difference it’s dropped quite a bit of weight from the bike uh well I say quite a bit of weight depends how you judge uh dropping grams from your bike for me is it weren’t that were a deciding factor in going for these bars for me it was the comfort that I wanted in these bars couple of things that I do want to change well one thing that I want to change is that I want to tuck these in an extra 2 or 3 mil uh I need to get a long Allen key so I can set it properly put it in the bolt hole there and then you can get the perfect distance between the two but yeah loving the bars think they’re great real great addition and in terms of looks it just completes the bike i can’t think of anything else that I’d want to upgrade on it uh I’d like to upgrade the group set only to have satellite shifters on the top there but other than that it’s uh I think it’s the perfect bike now i think it’s absolutely it’s great it’s fast it handles well it climbs well it descends well it gets lots of comments when you’re out on rides people do like the look of it when I was on the Fred um yeah I got a fair few comments on the bike but yeah that’s my installation quick review on the Trek RSL bars any questions as I’ve already said put them down below or you can send me a message over on Instagram um and yeah till next time ride safe and I will see you in the next one oh please consider pressing that subscribe button it helps massively i’ll see you soon bye