[Ryan Coke]

Agree, it is fast, I won a gravel race on mine a few weeks back. And the way bigger tires smooth out the road and give more confidence in corners it gives more confidence at high speed. It doesn’t match my road bike for pure speed on pavement, but it really only matters if you’re competing. And while one of the Trek’s selling points is it’s versatility, if I were to buy again I might move right up against the racing side of the spectrum of gravel bikes as that’s what much of my use case is, as opposed to riding single track or bike packing. But the Checkpoint is still a race capable bike, for sure.

Those stupid plastic boss plugs though! That’s a fail by trek. It’s a chronic issue for everyone with that bike. The plugs on the forks seem to stay in fine, but a bunch of the ones on the frame are terrible. You can get plastic nuts that weigh almost nothing, but they still have heads that stick out which I don’t like. The bike shop gave me a bunch of extra plugs they had laying around of different styles, and some of them did a better job of staying in. Trek really should just provide some better ones that don’t fall out.