![\"Estimated](\"https:\/\/www.bicycling.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/fre\/static\/icons\/clock-regular.4ddebeb.svg\")
7 min read<\/p>\n7 min read<\/p>\n
High-end bikes have gotten more expensive. Range-topping models from major brands now routinely cost well above $10,000, and they\u2019re often marketed with the same technology and performance claims that define pro racing. But what I\u2019ve always been most curious about is the actual performance difference between a Tour de France-level race bike and the kind of road bike most riders are far more likely to own.<\/p>\n
To answer that, I needed two versions of the same bike. Luckily, after I reviewed the latest Trek Madone<\/a>, Trek was also willing to send me the base model to test against the top-of-the-line version I had already reviewed.<\/p>\n Here are some basic details of the two bikes. The range-topping Madone SLR 9 AXS, which is essentially a replica of the bike Lidl-Trek races on, costs $13,500 and weighs 15.61 pounds. The base Madone SL 5 costs $3,700 and weighs 19.33 pounds. That weight was taken on my scale, without pedals, but with bottle cages and computer mounts on both bikes.<\/p>\n For the extra $9,800, you get a bike that is 3.72 pounds lighter, thanks to more premium parts and a lighter carbon frame that is identical in shape. But what does that actually mean in terms of measurable performance? How much faster is a pro-level race bike than the bike most riders actually have in their garage?<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n Speed Uphill<\/p>\n This question is relatively easy to answer when it comes to uphill performance, because uphill performance is quite easy to model mathematically. On a 1.26-mile climb that averages 10.7%, riding at 4.3 watts per kilo, the effect of a bike that is 4 lbs lighter will result in a saving of 13 seconds on that climb.<\/p>\n What about on a climb that\u2019s a bit more substantial? If you rode the two bikes up Sa Calobra ( 5.85 miles at an average of 7.2%) at 4.3 watts per kilo, the lighter bike would save you 40 seconds. Nothing earth-shattering here. A lighter, more expensive bike being faster up a big hill (when all other rider-related factors are kept the same) should come as no surprise.<\/p>\n Testing Speed On The Flat<\/strong><\/p>\n But what about the performance difference on more typical flat and rolling terrain? Here, I decided to conduct some real-world testing because modeling aerodynamic and rolling resistance performance is complicated, and I wanted to test for myself the potential gains an extra $9,800 buys. For that amount of money, the difference should be measurable in the real world.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n I tested on a closed 1-mile cycling loop near the Trexlertown Velodrome. This means I don\u2019t have to worry about traffic or hitting the brakes. I used a set of Favero Assioma Pro RS-2 power meter pedals<\/a>, transferring them between the two bikes to maintain a consistent effort of 280 watts or 4.3 watts per kilogram. Since both bikes have identical frames, I replicated my fit as closely as possible on both bikes, setting my hoods to the same width and height to minimize variations in body position.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n For our baseline test, I used each bike with its stock setup, setting the tire pressure using Silca\u2019s tire pressure calculator and a digital inflator. I wore a vented Prevail 3<\/a> helmet, bib shorts, a jersey, standard cotton socks, and rode in a neutral position on the hoods. We tested the bikes with water bottles, but kept them empty to maintain consistent weight throughout the testing. After running through all the tests, I conducted another set of baseline tests for both bikes to ensure that environmental changes didn\u2019t exceed the power meter’s margin of error of 1%. Thankfully, they did not.<\/p>\n The $13,500 Madone SLR 9<\/p>\n The $3,700\u00a0Madone SL 5<\/p>\n So, how much faster is a bike when it costs an extra $9,800? In my test, the Madone SLR 9 was 1.2 mph faster over the cheaper Madone SL 5. This worked out to about 8 seconds per mile, or a saving of 1 minute and 20 seconds over ten miles.<\/p>\n More Testing <\/strong><\/p>\n After doing the baseline bike comparison, we tested various individual aero interventions on the Madone SL5. Swapping in things one at a time to see what kind of effect they would have. We tested riding in a flat back aero hood position. Then riding in the drops. We swapped the vented helmet for an aero one and tested a skinsuit instead of using bibs and a jersey. Then we tested the set of aero wheels from the top-of-the-line model, as well as just putting nice cotton tires and latex tubes on the base model. Finally, we also tested aero socks and aero bottles.<\/p>\n All in on the Madone SL 5 made for a speedy bike that\u2019s still much cheaper than the pricier Madone SLR 9.<\/p>\n Then we tested all of these things combined to see how much faster we could go. Stacking every aero intervention into the base model proved quite effective, resulting in the fastest set of runs in the test, with a 2.5 mph speed gain over the baseline Madone SL 5 and 16 seconds saved per mile. Over ten miles, that would add up to over two and a half minutes.<\/p>\n Caveats and Thoughts on Aero Testing <\/strong><\/p>\n Aerodynamics are complicated and important.<\/p>\n They\u2019re complicated because many factors can affect the precise result of any aero testing, whether it\u2019s conducted in a wind tunnel, modeled using CFD, or performed in the real world. It\u2019s also worth pointing out that aero interventions rarely stack linearly, since as you start to go faster(or slower), the aero interactions change at different speeds.<\/p>\n All of that being said, I\u2019m confident in our rankings being broadly accurate. However, the specifics of time saved or speed gained will vary from rider to rider and day to day, depending on a range of factors, including environmental conditions and how well a tester can maintain power and hold position on a bike.<\/p>\n Ranking the individual aero interventions <\/strong><\/p>\n For this, I will provide you with the results in order from least effective to most effective.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n In last place, we have aero socks, which showed no measurable improvement over a pair of cotton socks. The major caveat here is that aero socks are one of the most challenging interventions to get right. Different fabrics work better at certain speeds, and it\u2019s entirely possible that a pair of socks from a different brand would have shown a measurable increase in speed. It\u2019s also entirely possible that the 22.7 mph that I was doing at 280 watts was not fast enough to measure the aero gain for these particular socks on me.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n In 4th place, we have a four-way tie between the aero helmet, skinsuit, aero wheels, and aero bottles. All four things recorded a 0.3 mph increase in speed and saved 2 seconds per mile. The surprise here was actually how well the aero bottles performed; I had expected a bit more speed from the skinsuit and the aero wheels.<\/p>\n The wheels were the most expensive piece of gear we tested, with a retail price of $3,000. The Bontrager RSL 51 wheelset comes stock on the more expensive Madone SLR 9. At 51mm deep front and rear, I expected this to be the most impactful piece of gear in the test. Instead, it saved me the same 30 seconds over 10 miles at 280 watts that the much cheaper skinsuit, helmet, and aero bottles did.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n Next on the list and coming in 3rd place was the entirely free intervention of riding in the drops. Yup, simply riding in the drops will save you more time than a wheelset or an aero helmet. In our test, the drops saved 4 seconds and were about 0.5 mph faster over the baseline Madone SL 5, or about 40 seconds over 10 miles.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n The most impactful single gear change (and 2nd place overall) was swapping out the stock Bontrager wirebead tires and butyl tubes on the Madone SL 5 for a pair of Specialized Turbo Cotton tires and Vittoria latex tubes. Just doing that one thing bumped our speed up by 0.8 mph, saving 5 seconds per mile.<\/p>\n My natural (or upright) position on the hoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n Compared to my \u2019aero hood\u2019s\u2019 position.\u00a0<\/p>\n In first place was yet another completely free intervention, which was riding in the flat back aero hoods position. If you look closely at the photos, my neutral position on the hoods isn\u2019t particularly upright to begin with, but bending in my elbows and getting my back flatter completely erased the speed advantage of the Madone SLR 9 compared to the SL 5. It was 1.2 mph or 8 seconds per mile faster. Meaning that if I could hold this position for ten miles, it would save me about 1:20 at 280 watts.<\/p>\n This makes sense when you consider that the rider is responsible for the largest portion of the overall drag on a bike. The rule of thumb figure I’ve heard referenced most often is that the rider is about 80% of the overall system drag, while the bike is about 20%. Meaning that a cheaper bike with a dialed and optimized fit will nearly always be faster than a more expensive bike that doesn’t fit the rider correctly.<\/p>\n Speed per Dollar<\/strong><\/p>\n How much do you need to spend on the Madone SL 5 to make it as fast as the Madone SLR 9? If you exclude the body position changes, which you should, since a theoretical rider could use the more aero position on both bikes.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n I have to give kudos to Trek here because the Madone is one of the few bikes where, if you opt for the more expensive builds that use the one-piece bar and stem, Trek will actually let you specify touch points, such as stem length. Otherwise, the cheaper Madone SL 5, with its more standard two-piece bar and stem, would have a significant advantage in \u2018functional aero\u2019. Simply because being able to achieve a fast position on the bike is worth so much in real-world speed gains, and that can be much easier to do with a traditional two-piece cockpit.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s still worth pointing out that gear does matter, as a 1.2 mph speed increase was observed due to variations in just parts between the two bikes. Additionally, it\u2019s not always possible to maintain an aero position throughout the entire ride, making gear upgrades valuable.<\/p>\n Trevor Raab<\/p>\n In terms of upgrading the Madone SL 5, opting for a fast set of tires and tubes<\/a>, along with an aero helmet, is a no-brainer as the best bang-for-your-buck speed upgrades. The Evade 3<\/a>, a helmet that consistently tests fast on many riders, retails for $300. A set of Vitoria Latex tubes and Specialized Turbo Cotton tires will cost you an additional $210. That $510 will put you very close to closing the $9,800 performance gap between the two bikes observed in this test.<\/p>\n Get Exclusive Training Programs and Digital Issues Test Editor Dan Chabanov got his start in cycling as a New York City bike messenger but quickly found his way into road and cyclocross racing, competing in professional cyclocross races from 2009 to 2019 and winning a Master\u2019s National Championship title in 2018. Prior to joining Bicycling in 2021, Dan worked as part of the race organization for the Red Hook Crit, as a coach with EnduranceWERX, as well as a freelance writer and photographer.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7 min read High-end bikes have gotten more expensive. Range-topping models from major brands now routinely cost well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1110462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[104088,2000,299,36,257359],"class_list":["post-1110461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-carousel","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-supes"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116980569403772960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1110462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"cyclist](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1375-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d17c1.jpeg\" "\\"cyclist")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/socks-aero-testing-1490-68d1791a6850f.jpg\" "\\"Dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1323-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d17cf.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1340-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d17d2.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
Trevor Raab<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1455-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d17d6.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
Trevor Raab<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1693-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
Trevor Raab<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1478-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d1839.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1564-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d183c.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1591-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d1840.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1639-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1628-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d184d.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1520-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d1860.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1666-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1340-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18a2.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
Trevor Raab<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784981679_337_aero-testing-1693-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
Trevor Raab<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1703-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
<\/p>\n![\"dan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/aero-testing-1653-1-preview-maxwidth-2400-maxheight-2400-ppi-300-quality-80-embedmetadata-true-68d18.jpeg\" "\\"dan")
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