

If the display won’t power up the bike, sticking an allen key or such into this hole may power up the bike. Oh, and did you notice this little hole in the battery lid? It’s a port for accessing the physical power button of the battery. Notice the tiny hole at the bottom of the battery lid? This is a nice detail that will matter to some of us. Getting the battery out is just as easy as on bikes with external batteries. But the Rail has been parked outside on several occasions, and I’ve come to appreciate the ease of installing and removing the 625 watthours Bosch battery. I can accept most kinds of battery integration as I usually keep the bikes indoors. 120mm can be too little, but that extra 10mm offered precious space so I decided not to complain. But I have to say there was never a situation where we felt the seat didn’t go low enough. I was going to complain that the dropper post is only 130mm on sizes medium and up. We swapped the front tyre for a Maxxis Minion EXO+ and left the rear tyre on, that worked perfectly fine for us.

I prefer a heavier tyre with taller knobs and softer rubber compound when my trails aren’t dry. The Bontrager XR5 Team Issue 29×2.6” is a proper mountain bike tyre, but it is on the lighter side. The tyres aren’t my favourite though, not for what I ride. Even though they’re not top of the line, they have a nice feel to them, and they’re pretty powerful. Brakes are the dual calliper Shimano MT520, which I really like. But it needs to be finely tuned to be smooth, and I adjust the wire tension surprisingly often. It is the only model in the line-up running the 12-speed Shimano drivetrain, shifter is SLX and derailleur is XT. The Rail 7 is an alloy bike that costs €5.499. Is it as good as the more expensive bike? Specs So, we were excited to ride the cheaper Trek Rail 7 this time.

But a carbon bike with great equipment comes at a cost. It was such a capable bike on the rough descents, and so nimble and fun on the flowy trails. Last year we rode the Trek Rail 9.8 and we were really impressed. The video can be found further down in the article. This article is a transcript of the EMTB Videos review.
