To those of you riding a Trek OCLV 5200 or 5500.....

How are your decals holding up? Any decals peeling off?

Do you have any regrets?

no peeling,no regrets, 98 5200.

Have an '03 5200, purchased in September. The more I ride it; the more I like it. Smooth ride & climbs great. Some minor peeling of decals. Wish I would have gone Project One. But, no regrets.

'03 5200 in Team colors.

no decal peeling. the clear coat over the decals seems to protect them very well.

no regrets at all, this is a fantastic bike. a little overboard on the decals but that's no big deal. I like this bike so much that were I to do it again I would say to hell with the $$'s and go with the custom paint (project one?), 5500 frame and triple Dura-Ace. The new custom flame paint jobs are nice (check out the re-vamped Trek website). Cant wait to see one up close on the road this year

Careful how you go about using Project One, especially if you "downgrade" any components. As an example Trek (and maybe your LBS) will be happy to charge you the extra $250 for the second listed identical bike just to have 5500 listed on the invoice.

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Unfortunately, if you want Dura Ace for a custom "Project One" bike you have to specify the 5500. The 5200 options only allow Ultegra. Could order the frameset and built the bike myself I suppose. Barring misfortune, my '03 5200 should last another 8 or 9 years. Who knows what Trek (and Shimano) will be offering by then...

And now someone who had a Trek and other frames from different brands (Italian)... To compare things.

The decal's on my '99 5200 held up great, until I peeled them off. Quite frankly, I got tired of the darn postal stickers and peeled them off one afternoon. While it took sometime - because I wanted to make sure that the clearcoat peeled only at the edge of the sticker - the result was well worth it!! I am much happier with my no logo version, not to mention it looks great with just red bar tape.

Aren't the 5500 and the 5200 the same frame, just Dura Ace vs Ultegra components?

Yep. As noted though, if you order a Project One using the Trek web page, you'll only be able to specify 5500 and will pay more just for the frame.

Greg

Oh, got you. Well, those 5500 decals....There must be some added value there.

the 5500 frameset comes with a Bontrager Race X-Lite fork upgrade over the 5200 frameset. dont know if this is worth the extra $250

Only about a $70 difference in the MSRP, but at least that does explain some of the discrepancy combined with the s-6 aheadset. Strange that the Trek net-reps didn't know that even though it is now listed on the web site. Thanks for the info.

After a 30 mile ride in the rain, my 5200 frame was filled with water. Is this normal? If not, what maintenance steps should be taken after rain rides (I live in Pittsburgh, So ther will be a lot of rain rides)?

'01 5500. I opted for the solid blue as opposed to the Postal scheme. No problems with decals peeling, the bike has been great.