Trek 6000 MTB > Reviews > A good buy if you can still find them

Author's product rating:   

Value for money
Durability
How does it compare to similar products?

Advantages:	Lightweight, Good componentry, Reliable
Disadvantages:	A little front - heavy

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Trek 6000 is part of Trek's year 2000 range, and as such is still selling in the shops now, often at a knockdown price. I managed to find mine in a sale close to the end of 2000 at £500, dropped from £625.

For your money, you get an Aluminium hardtail frame, In-Sync forks, Dia Compe brakes, a chainset which is half LX half LX Deore and a smattering of Bontrager components for various other things.

The frame, being an aluminium hardtail (no suspension) is nice and light and is forgiving enough to take some of the sting out of the trail. The only real criticisms here are fairly minor, there's no rear disc brake mount and on the smaller frames, it can be difficult to use a water bottle as the bottle mount is a little too far up the downtube.

The In-Sync forks are OK. There's a few inches of useable travel, they don't bounce around too much when you don't want them to, and so far I've not been able to bottom them out. This comes at a price, though. They go to make the entire bike very front heavy, something especially noticeable on the occasions when you've got no alternative but to shove it on your shoulder and run.

Braking is a little spongy at times, and can be quite difficult to set up. Experience has shown that the times when the brakes start misbehaving due to grit on the mounts, they are simple to strip down, and once you get used to it, both brakes can be back on the bike, fully working within half an hour.

The chainset and gearing is where this bike seems to excel. The LX groupset has really come of age, and is really sturdy. I'm unsure exactly what sort of cabling has been specified for this bike, but I've never had to touch it in the four months that It's been in fairly constant use, unlike most bikes where the gear cables need adjusting after about a month.

The Bontrager tyres are fairly adept, coping amicably with tarmac through to small amounts of mud. As would be expected, they start to experience trouble in thick mud though.

In use, the Trek is a dream. It handles many types of terrain easily and should the need arise, it is fairly easy to get it off the ground.