My 2017 Trek Boone 7

Few things in my world are as exciting as New Bike Day, even when that new bike is “new, old stock.” Trek recently marked down its unsold 2017 Boone 7 cyclocross bikes to $1,800—they were $3,000 originally—and my neighborhood shop, Pedal Moraine, was able to make the deal even sweeter. It was the right time to take the plunge. With the purchase of this bike, I have committed to cyclocross at a deeper level than ever before.

In most ways, the 2017 Boone 7 is the same bike as the $4,000, top-of-the-line, 2018 Boone 7 Disc: same carbon fiber frame, same tires, same shifter, same single-ring crankset, same bottom bracket, same seatpost. If you’re looking for the big difference, the name of this year’s model is a dead giveaway: like most other manufacturers, Trek has gone all-in with disc brakes for cyclocross. My Boone has TRP RevoX cantilever brakes. So, the bikes have slightly different forks and slightly different wheelsets—the new Boone also gets a carbon handlebar and a “better” saddle, though I have always found saddle comfort to be unrelated to price—but without the extra hardware required by disc brakes, my Boone is half a pound lighter than its younger sibling. (It’s something like 5-6 pounds lighter than my 2011 Diamondback Steilacoom, the aluminum bike the Boone will replace at the races!)

My Boone has everything I ever wanted in a cyclocross bike ... except for disc brakes. But when this deal was taking shape, I had to rethink why I wanted disc brakes in the first place. The answer was something like, “Well, that’s where the industry is heading.” And that wasn’t a good enough answer. It certainly wasn’t a $4,000 answer! Like thousands of riders before me, I have always used cantilever brakes for cyclocross. My choice of brakes has never been a limitation. It’s not what keeps me in the bottom half of the Masters Cat 3 field. Sticking with cantilever brakes makes my new cyclocross bike compatible with all of my existing wheelsets, two of which are tubeless-ready like the stock wheels on the Boone. In the last couple of years I have been transitioning out of the Mavic Ksyrium/Aksium line in favor of Shimano Ultegra. My Boone is now outfitted with one of those Ultegra wheelsets. The Bontrager Race Lite wheelset that came with the Boone now will be the primary wheelset for my BMC road bike, allowing me to relegate a well-worn set of Aksiums to backup duty.

There’s something to be said for mechanical simplicity, too. My canti-equipped Boone has fewer moving parts than a disc-equipped cyclocross bike or even my old Diamondback. No more front shifter or front derailleur … 11-speed, but less to maintain, less to break, less to replace. The Diamondback will live on as my gravel and rail trail bike, and as my backup road bike—it has a 46/36 double crankset, giving it more top end speed and more climbing gears than the Boone—and it’s still a capable cyclocross bike if the Boone needs a repair. I still love the Diamondback, but the Boone is on another level and I think the new bike will allow me to get the best out of this season and many more.