On the heels of the Tour’s opening Prologue, the time trial bike is a hot topic. After the short but important Prologue start, two huge time trial loom even larger than the mountains this year, and teams are counting on their TT bikes for any sort of advantage.

The Trek Speed Concept 9.9 is another installment in Trek’s emergence in the TT market. Once incapable of providing a decent bike for their US Postal Service team (Lance rode a Litespeed with tape over the logo for his first two Tour wins), Trek is now pumping out one of the nicest bikes in the peloton. The time trial discipline is the most telling for equipment, and the fact that teams not sponsored by Trek have been spotted with Speed Concepts painted over in their stable is a testament to Trek’s progress.

The Speed Concept 9.9 is the top of the line in the 9 series and is the weapon of choice for Fabian Cancellara, who’ll be looking to take another stage win in the longer time trials still ahead. It’s also served Andreas Kloden well thus far, with the German sitting 11th place overall. Those boys can enjoy the bike without worry, but the rest of us will only dream of them, unless you’ve got an extra $10,000 burning a hole in your pocket.