The 2021 Trek Domane AL 2 (rim-brake) is an entry-level endurance road bike with an alloy frame, carbon fork and endurance geometry.
It features Claris R2000 shifters and derailleurs for 2×8 gearing (50/34 chain rings, 11-32 cassette), Shimano RS200 cranks and a UN300 bottom bracket (with 110mm spindle).
The stem is a 100mm Bontrager Elite (7 degree), the handlebars Bontrager Comp VR-C with 100m reach, 124mm drop and 44cm width. It rides on 17mm wide Bontrager rims (tubeless ready) paired with Formula QR hubs (100mm wide front, 130mm wide back) and officially has clearance for up to 28mm wide tyres (although the previous owner had fitted some 32mm wide ones that cleared fine).
I purchased this bike second-hand in August 2026.
Maintenance/Adjustments
Since it was a second-hand bike bought privately (from a student) it needed some maintenance and adjustment straight away.
- Wheels
- Front wheel – For some reason the front wheel had been clamped without having been settled straight in the drop-outs so it was slightly at an angle vertically (I noticed it wasn’t centered in the top of the forks. Someone had adjusted the brake centering to compensate for this! I undid the quick release, settled the wheel in the drop-outs under the weight of the bike and reclamped and then adjusted the brake centering and all was good.
- Back wheel – when I checked the bike over I didn’t notice any lateral play in the hub and a quick spin of the wheel while lifting the rear seemed fine, but once I got it on the stand at home I realised the wheel felt like it had a little drag on it. The rear QR clamp was done up quite tight so I loosened it and that improved the drag. Removing it from the bike and the hub felt grindy – it reminded me of when I’ve been servicing my Marin wheels and get the preload a little too tight. It still didn’t feel entirely smooth and I had some spare 1/4 inch bearings around so I serviced the hub (cleaning, replacing the bearings and grease). On dismantling I’d found fairly new grease on the non-drive side (light in colour and very sticky) and black thinner grease on the drive side so my guess is a previous owner attempted to service the hub, just did the non-drive side and overdid the preload.
- Steerer
- Riding the bike home it felt like there was a little knocking from the steerer and getting it home I could feel a little. I undid the stem bolts, gave a quarter turn to the top cap, re-tightened the stem bolts and that seems to have solved it.
- Drivetrain
- Rear derailleur – On the ride home there were a couple of gears where it seemed to skip a cog on down shift and up shift and another with hesitation – I could see the cage was slightly off centre from the cogs so it just needed use of the barrel adjuster.
- Front derailleur – The limit screws looked fine, but I didn’t check the cage carefully enough when buying as it shifted fine but while checking the indexing on the stand at home I spotted the front top of the cage has split with a slight gap and rust either side of the gap (not sure what could have caused this!). This doesn’t seem to affect shifting as the rest of the cage has enough strength so I may just clean and glue with a little epoxy steel at some point while keeping an eye out for a replacement on ebay.
- Pedals – It was fitted with metallic light blue alloy flat pedals (likely from Aliexpress) which span freely and smoothly. After about 3 miles on the ride home I started getting clicking when pedalling even slowly/low effort and both sitting/standing (and 2-4 clicks per rotation). On the bike stand there was no clicking turning the pedals from either the pedals or bottom bracket and no play either. I checked the seat post clamp, tried flexing the frame statically (pulling/pushing sideways on seat post, standing hard on the pedals etc) and couldn’t reproduce. If I had the bike on a slope with my right foot on the ground and pushed on the left pedal to go forward then relaxed on the pedal to roll backward before stopping with force on the left pedal I got the click, didn’t do the same on the right. Given I was intending to swap pedals at some point anyway I put on a different set and, touch wood, that cured the issue!
- Tyres
- Rear tyre – There was an oval red sticker on the back tyre sidewall which turned out to be covering a 1mm puncture hole which the inner tube would bulge slightly through without the sticker. The tyres were both budget Triban tyres from Decathlon and 32mm wide – the max clearance officially is 28mm due to brake and fork crown clearance rather than width I think but these cleared fine. My intention was to swap over some better tyres I had around from my now scrapped hybrid, so I swapped both.
- Brakes
- Reversed controls – I bought the bike from a Canadian student who must have reversed the brake controls (as it’s a UK-spec bike – in the UK we use left for front right for rear, in many other countries it’s the other way around). The bar tape is tired so I when I retape them I’ll fit new cable inners and swap them back.