Imagine having the resources of Trek’s Race Team R&D lab at your fingertips and the knowledge to use it. Then imagine how cool a bike you could build for yourself.
Ray Waxham is Trek’s staff race development engineer who’s solely dedicated to Trek’s racing teams, and he has both. The OCLV carbon Remedy 9.9 Waxham built himself is a pretty darn sweet trail bike. He did it with a little help from Trek’s Project One paint shop and a lot of his own sweat and knowhow.
Waxham’s 6in-travel trailbike has four custom mods to call out. First up is the custom paint, which harks back to the era when Scott Sharples and Travis Brown led the factory team aboard ‘Pro Issue’ painted Treks. Waxham did the pin striping himself. “I didn’t really have an idea of how hard pin striping is, especially when you’re using a complex shape,” he said. "I ended up spending six hours with our painters.”
The 'Pro Issue' paint features a blue side and a white side
The next two modifications work in tandem: the custom guide for the MRP 1.X chainguide and the outer chainring guard that Waxham CNC machined for his Shimano XTR crankset. While designing the MRP guide holder was relatively straightforward, Waxham had to get the architectural data from Shimano in order to CNC machine the chainring guard. The one-off piece matches the lines of the XTR drive side crankarm shaping perfectly.
Waxham was able to perfectly match his chainring guard to the drive side XTR crankarm
The last mod is a simple one that we can all steal from Waxham, should we desire; it’s a custom actuation lever for his CrankBrothers Joplin adjustable height seatpost. Waxham took an XTR shifter, stripped its guts and cut off the cable release trigger. He then ran a cable to the Joplin and voila! The XTR thumb lever now drops and raises his post.
Waxham's left XTR shifter isn't needed, so it's modified to actuate his Joplin seatpost
The last items to call out on Waxham’s bike are his Bontrager XR1 tyres. The XR1 tread pattern was developed in conjunction with the brand’s sponsored cross-country racers, but Bontrager went ahead and manufactured them in sizes from 2.0in to 2.4in.
Bontrager's high-volume XR1 2.4in tyre weighs only 580g
The voluminous 2.4in tyres on Waxham’s bike are said to roll just as fast as the smaller sizes and with the 120tpi Team Issue casing they still only weigh 580g. The good news: we can all have a set. Bontrager sell the tyre for US$51.99 each; the Expert 60tpi version weighs 640g and costs $46.99.
Ray Waxham with his pimped out Trek Remedy 9.9 trailbike