trek madone sl 7 disc

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2022 Trek Madone SL 7 eTap review: Speedy and comfy, but seriously heavy

Unusually good ride quality and the handling is brilliant, but it’s hard not to notice the heft when you point it uphill..

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Story Highlights

What it is: Trek’s second-tier aero road bike, built with a more affordable carbon blend and less integration than the flagship version.|| Frame features: OCLV 500 carbon fiber construction, truncated airfoil tube shaping, Adjustable Top Tube IsoSpeed “decoupler”, almost fully internal cable routing, T47 threaded bottom bracket, built-in chain watcher.|| Weight: 8.59 kg (18.94 lb), 52 cm, without pedals or accessories.|| Price: US$7,030 / AU$n/a / £6,900 / €7,400.|| Highs: Superb aerodynamics, comfy ride, excellent handling, accommodating cockpit design, threaded bottom bracket.|| Lows: So-so front-end ride, so heavy.

Aero above all else

Trek’s Madone SLR flagship aero road bike is undeniably fast and efficient when it comes to slicing through the air, but the significant amount of complication that goes into its design also results in a lot of cost. For riders that are chasing every last watt of drag — but are on more modest budgets — Trek introduced two years ago the Madone SL collection, which uses the exact same shaping, but with a less-fancy carbon fiber blend that shrinks the price tag at the expense of an additional 240 g or so of weight.

Indeed, if you were comparing on the design alone, the Madone SL is a literal carbon copy of the SLR. The deep-profile Kammtail truncated airfoil cross-sections are present and accounted for, there’s the same ultra-sleek seat cluster treatment with that no-cut integrated seatmast, an identical hourglass-profile head tube, and the same aggressively shaped fork blades. 

Up top is the same ace-in-the-hole found on the Madone SLR, too: Trek’s incredibly effective Adjustable Top Tube IsoSpeed “decoupler”. While clever surfacing suggests the seatmast is all molded together with the rest of the frame, it’s actually an L-shaped piece with the base extending underneath the top tube, and an aluminum axle and two cartridge bearings at the seat cluster. As a result, that seatmast can pivot rearward on rough roads far more than appearances would suggest, with the lower section of that “L” acting as a leaf spring. 

Even better, a hidden slider between the base of that “L” and the top tube also allows you to fine-tune the spring rate to your liking.

In addition to the different fiber blend, Trek reduces costs further by using a standard stem and headset on the Madone SL as compared to the more heavily integrated two-piece carbon fiber cockpit on the Madone SLR. Cable routing is still fully internal with lines entering the frame through a proprietary upper headset cover, though, and down below is a slightly tweaked version of the T47 oversized threaded bottom bracket standard. 

Whereas many disc-equipped aero road bikes have surprisingly generous tire clearance for narrower all-terrain tires, Trek is clear on what the Madone SL is meant to be, with room for 700×30 mm-wide rubber and not really much more. In terms of geometry, you get a notably aggressive rider position with a long reach and low stack, together with classic stage race handling and trail dimensions in the mid-to-high 50s.

Our Madone SL 7 eTap model comes outfitted with SRAM’s mid-level Force eTap AXS 2×12 wireless electronic disc-brake groupset — including a crank-based dual-sided power meter — and Bontrager’s 51 mm-deep Aeolus Pro 51 carbon clinchers wrapped with 25 mm-wide Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite clinchers. Finishing kit is sourced from the corporate parts bin, too, including a Bontrager Elite Aero VR-CF aluminum bar with flattened tops, a Bontrager Pro forged aluminum stem, and a Bontrager Aeolus Comp saddle.

Weight weenies will want to turn away for a moment as this next part will come across decidedly ugly. 

Actual weight for our 52 cm test sample is a rather hefty 8.59 kg (18.94 lb) without pedals or accessories, and yet despite that, retail price is a still-expensive US$7,000 / AU$NA / £6,900 / €7,400.

As well as other bike types can sometimes mimic the performance of a dedicated road bike, there’s simply no substitute for the sort of free speed you get out of a full-blown aero model. Despite being several years old at this point, the Madone is still one of the fastest bikes on the road. It’s a difference you can actually feel, and this second-tier Madone SL is no different.

It’s legitimately easier to hit higher speeds on the Madone SL as compared to bikes that are less aerodynamic, and easier to hold those speeds, too. It’s particularly obvious on descents, where both CyclingTips social media editor Mike Better and I noted we were going faster than usual on our everyday routes.

Further adding to that sense of speed is the frame’s superb stiffness, which perhaps should come as no surprise given all that carbon fiber and the massive tube cross-sections. The Madone SL is efficient through the air, but also efficient in terms of how the structure translates pedaling effort to the rear wheel. Even sprinting feels better than usual given the excellent front-end torsional stiffness. 

Basically, the Madone SL is all about going fast, and feels every bit of it.

Handling is also superb, and exactly what I’ve come to expect from Trek’s long-running Madone family. It’s quick to turn in and can readily change its line mid-corner, but it’s also confidently stable at very high speeds. Simply put, it just does exactly what you want it to do while on the road, all the time, every time. The traditional stage-race road geometry of course has plenty of toe overlap, but it’s not an issue in the vast majority of riding situations. 

Ride comfort is yet another high point for the Madone SL, at least out back. That Adjustable Top Tube IsoSpeed thingamajig may seem like a gimmick, but it absolutely works as advertised, which is especially amazing given the depth of the seatmast. There’s tangible movement when you hit bumps, and I’d argue there’s even a handling benefit since your weight isn’t getting bounced around as much as usual on less-than-perfect pavement when attacking corners and descents. 

The motion isn’t overly bouncy, either. In fact, I found it to be quite well damped and controlled, and it’s easy to firm things up if desired by moving the slider fore and aft under the top tube. It’s literally a three-minute job, and one you could do roadside with a multi-tool.

One downside of the Madone SL’s fantastic aero efficiency, however, is its susceptibility to crosswinds. Between the deep tube profiles used throughout and the 51 mm-deep front and rear rims, both Mike Better and I noted how it was sometimes a little unnerving to ride the Madone SL in blustery conditions. Predictable handling or not, all that surface area gives the wind plenty to push on, and lighter riders should particularly take note. 

Unfortunately, the excellent ride quality out back isn’t mimicked up front. Trek doesn’t bother to include its Front IsoSpeed mechanism here, and those deep-section fork blades and the massive head tube area aren’t exactly conducive to flex on bumps. The flattened tops of the standard carbon fiber handlebar are almost certainly more forgiving than the more aggressive integrated setup of the Madone SLR, but it still makes for a very firm, and somewhat disjointed, feel. 

The Madone SL 7 eTap’s biggest performance drawback by far, however, is its weight — essentially, that there’s an awful lot of it.

Even with last year’s weight loss, the Madone SLR has never been renowned as a particularly light frameset, and this Madone SL is only heavier yet. Adding to the heft is the SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset, which — as well as it works — is anything but light. The bare weight of 8.59 kg (18.94 lb) hurts enough as is, but once you add pedals and accessories, you’re looking at around 9.5 kg (19.5 lb) for a road bike that still costs an awful lot of money.

On flat roads or moderately rolling conditions, that mass honestly isn’t incredibly noticeable; here, the bike’s superb aerodynamics will play a bigger role. But once the road turns uphill in a more significant way, it’s a different story. Both Mike and I had a hard time not feeling like the bike was dropping anchor a bit when climbing. Try as you might, there’s just no fighting gravity.

SRAM’s Force eTap AXS wireless electronic groupset may be heavy, but it’s functionally hard to fault. Overall shift performance is excellent, with smooth and reliable chain movement at both ends, and more range than we’ve historically expected from traditional road transmissions (although Shimano’s new 2×12 Dura-Ace and Ultegra groupsets are now roughly on par). It’s still not quite as quiet as what you can get from Shimano or Campagnolo, but SRAM’s eTap shift button actuation is the best in the business — and certainly the most progressive-thinking — and while the lever aesthetics are polarizing, the ergonomics are hard to beat. 

The hydraulic disc brakes are also excellent with a gentler initial grab than Shimano calipers, and arguably more user-friendly modulation, too. And kudos to Trek for specifying 160 mm rotors front and rear given the higher speeds people are likely to be hitting on this thing, along with the stock dual-sided power meter.

Similarly, the array of house-brand Bontrager stuff that fills out the rest of the spec sheet is all solid kit as well. 

Topping the list are the Bontrager Aeolus Pro 5 carbon clinchers, which — much like the frameset — offer virtually identical aerodynamic performance as the higher-end Aeolus RSL versions , just with more weight (and, in this case, a less-fancy hubset). Our test bike arrived with Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite tubed clinchers, which aren’t necessarily our favorites in terms of outright performance, but are a good option nonetheless for everyday racing and training. Should you decide to ditch the tubes at some point, the rims are tubeless-ready and only require dedicated molded plastic rim strips and valve stems for the conversion.

Bontrager has done a particularly good job on the ancillary bits. 

The Aeolus Comp saddle is proving to be one of my favorites for its mix of all-day comfort and support, and I’m certainly a fan of the Elite Aero VR-CF bar with its semi-traditional drop bend and moderately flattened tops. Bonus points for the optional Blendr mounts that allow for clean integration of lights, computers, cameras, and other accessories on the stem and saddle. That said, despite what the name suggests, the bar is aluminum, and although the shape is excellent, it’s disappointing to not find a carbon fiber handlebar here for this kind of money.

Final thoughts

The debate over weight vs. aerodynamics has always been an interesting one when it comes to high-end road racing bikes, and one that has largely been settled. In almost all situations, aerodynamic efficiency is more meaningful than low weight when it comes to going fast. 

That said, it’s hard to ignore the emotional side of the equation when it comes to the Madone SL 7 eTap. It may very well be a super aero bike, and it may very well be faster than one that’s significantly lighter, but this is no modest increase we’re talking about here.

Whichever way you slice it, the Madone SL 7 eTap is an awfully heavy bike, particularly when you consider the price tag. It might get you where you need to go in less time, but it might not feel that swift in the process, and that’s something you’d just have to be OK with.

So when picking an aero road bike, do you shop with your head or your heart? And do some of those other Madone-specific benefits — that excellent ride quality, in particular — mean enough to you to overlook the weight? 

That’s unfortunately something you’ll have to answer for yourself.

More information can be found at www.trekbikes.com .

Our Field Test group bike tests are by no means paid events, but they’re still only possible with some outside support. CyclingTips would like to thank the following sponsors for this round of the Field Test:

• Rudy Project
• Pearl Izumi
• Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
• Lead Out Gear

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Trek Madone SLR 7 Gen 7 review - very fast and very expensive

The latest Madone may have a hole through the seat tube but we couldn't find any in its performance

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The Trek Madone is an absolute speed weapon. The deep-section tubes with the radical-looking cutout help, as does the newly designed handlebar, which is narrow and provides good wrist support for the ‘aero-hoods’ position. And then there are the 51mm deep Bontrager Aeolus Pro wheels. The handling is incredibly fast, responding to the smallest shift in weight and the tiniest tweaks of the bars, and ride quality is so impressive that it’s almost possible to overlook things like the narrow tires and ungenerous clearance - but you can’t ignore the price. If you have the budget and want a WorldTour-level race machine with exceptional handling and ride feel, this is the bike.

Super smooth ride

Light for an aero bike

Striking aesthetics

Limited adjustability

No power meter

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

• Construction

Value and conclusion

For this latest Gen 7 version of the Madone, Trek’s aero bike, the US brand removed the IsoSpeed Decoupler of the previous Gen 6 model and left, in its place, a big hole.

OK, it’s not the crude, reductionist approach it sounds like.

The old bike’s micro-adjustable suspension system at the top tube/seat tube juncture added weight and was mostly redundant since Trek discovered most riders would ‘set and forget’.

And by radically reengineering the frame Trek claims to have saved 300g, and says the new bike is almost 20 watts faster than its predecessor, which equates to 60 seconds per hour when ridden at 45kph. It looks radical, too - always a good thing for a new bike.

In our 2023 Race Bike of the Year grouptest we awarded the Madone 'best aero bike' against competition that included the Cervélo S5, the Canyon Aeroad and the Giant Propel.

However, over $9K / £10K for an Ultegra bike has to be unchartered territory - so how does it compare overall to the best road bikes ?

Trek Madone 7 Gen 7: construction

Let’s peer a bit more closely into that hole or, to give it its real name, IsoFlow. The aerodynamic explanation for it is: “It’s a way to direct some high energy flow into a low energy region of the bike.” What that means is that the seat tube area creates a disproportionate amount of drag and the hole helps to dissipate this by adding what Trek calls a “jet of fast moving air.”

It turns out that only half of the claimed watt saving comes from the IsoFlow hole. Trek has entered the integrated cockpit wars (along with Colnago, Canyon, Cervélo et al) with a completely new and very slick-looking design but it’s neither adjustable nor V-shaped: according to Trek it saves watts by changing rider position rather than via the aerodynamic properties of the cockpit itself.

A standard 42cm bar becomes 39cm at the hoods and 42cm at the drops and there’s a backsweep so that a flat-forearms aero position on the hoods becomes very aero indeed.

There are 14 different combinations available and, since the backsweep gives the bar a shorter reach, it’s important to get the right one - if you’re like those of us who rode this bike, you’ll need a longer stem. You can change this at point of purchase at no extra cost, Trek told us, or the 1 1/8in steerer is compatible with a non-integrated stem and bar (though the frame is electronic groupset only).

The same goes for the seatmast. The cutout in the seat tube leaves less room for a long seatpost and less adjustability (around 6cm minimum to maximum) so if you are long-legged but prefer a smaller frame you may need the tall version that comes with the size 56 upwards (as I ideally would have done). There are also two offsets available.

Our size 54 with a standard short mast could only manage a maximum saddle height of 74cm and the reach felt very short with the 90mm stem cockpit it comes with.

The latest geometry is called H1.5 (halfway between the old H1 race and H2 endurance). The reduced reach combined with the shorter reach of the swept-back bar works very well for that super aero hoods position, but it does feel surprisingly short. The kamm-tailed rear of the stem is much closer to your knees than you’d expect.

The new SLR bikes are all made from Trek’s 800 OCLV carbon - from the 105-equipped SLR 6 up to the flagship SLR 9 - and are impressively light, especially compared with other aero bikes such as the Cervelo S5. Trek says this is its lightest ever disc Madone.

There’s clearance for 28mm tires max, which is tight by modern standards. This model comes with Bontrager Aeolus Pro 51 tubeless-ready wheels, set up with Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite 25mm tires and inner tubes - again, surprisingly narrow.

Despite the fact that the fit wasn’t optimal - I could have done with the size up - the ride quality of the Madone is absolutely incredible. That’s the first thing that strikes you, or rather doesn’t strike you.

Aero bikes used to supply a harsher ride simply because deep, bladed tubing doesn’t flex like round tubing. This was undoubtedly the reason why Trek bolted the IsoSpeed decoupler onto the Madone two iterations ago. So you might expect that with its suspension system gone, the latest bike might have gone backwards in comfort. Not a bit of it.

It feels like a coiled carbon spring - full of potential energy and floating over bad road surfaces seemingly without any effect on its speed. And this is on 25mm tires that aren’t even the best (at this price they really ought to be).

The handling is also exactly right. The shortish 90mm stem section of the cockpit could have made it a little twitchy, but thanks to the sweeping shape I found my weight sufficiently over the front wheel in the hoods position, and steering was fast but balanced on descents and tight corners.

So it passes ‘comfortable’ and ‘fast’ with flying colors (actually Deep Smoke for this one).

At 7.5kg it’s light for an aero bike - or any disc brake bike - and it leaps up hills as if it weighs even less. I was so impressed with its performance that I kept forgetting Trek also has the Emonda climbing bike. The next Emonda has its work cut out (pun intended).

Finally, stability in crosswinds. There’s one particular gateway on my test loop where any bike not designed for big yaw angles will be gusted and the Trek was indeed blown sideways slightly - but not alarmingly considering the deep wheels and frame tubes.

This bike is incredibly good but it’s also incredibly expensive. It’s a full $1,000 / £1,000 more than the equivalent outgoing Gen 6 Madone SLR 7, and you’d have to look hard to find a more expensive Ultegra Di2-equipped bike from the other mainstream brands. 

The Canyon Aeroad CFR with Dura-Ace costs $8,999 / £8,799, while the Cervelo S5 with SRAM Force AXS costs $9,000 / £9,200. The Giant Propel Advanced SL1 also with SRAM Force costs $8,000 / £8,999.

You might also reasonably expect a power meter at this price - those three bikes all come with them - but it’s just the regular Ultegra crankset here.

So the price is stratospheric but compared with the current aero bikes I’ve ridden so far including the Colnago V4RS , Canyon Aeroad SLX , Cervelo S5, Tarmac SL7 and Pinarello Dogma F, the ride quality is superior.

• Frame: 800 Series OCLV carbon
• Fork: KVF carbon, tapered steerer
• Groupset: Shimano Ultegra Di2
• Wheels : Bontrager Aeolus Pro 51
• Tires : Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite 25mm
• Cockpit: Madone integrated
• Seatpost : Madone aero internal
• Saddle: Bontrager Aeolus Elite
• Weight: 7.5kg
• Contact: www.trekbikes.com

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Simon Smythe is a hugely experienced cycling tech writer, who has been writing for Cycling Weekly since 2003. Until recently he was our senior tech writer. In his cycling career Simon has mostly focused on time trialling with a national medal, a few open wins and his club's 30-mile record in his palmares. These days he spends most of his time testing road bikes, or on a tandem doing the school run with his younger son.

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Trek’s cheapest ever Madone is here

Two new SL Disc models revealed, starting at sub-$5,000

Mildred Locke

Trek has launched two new models in its aero-performance Madone range: the Madone SL 6 Disc and the Madone SL 7 Disc.

Both bikes carry forward many of the range’s advanced ride qualities while keeping the price in check, thanks to a lower-grade carbon and handlebar-stem setup.

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The Madone SL 6 Disc and SL 7 Disc both feature trickle-down technology, including hydraulic Shimano Ultegra disc brakes, an adjustable IsoSpeed decoupler, aero wheels and Di2 shifting on the latter model.

Currently, the Trek Madone SL 6 Disc and SL 7 Disc are only available in the United States.

Trek Madone SL Disc 6 and 7 overview

Trek madone sl disc frame.

The frame and forks are cast from the same moulds as the Madone SLR range, meaning they should offer the same aero performance.

In order to keep the price lower, Trek has chosen to construct the SL Disc 6 and 7 frames from 500 OCLV carbon. This is lower grade than the 700 OCLV used in the SLR range, but still offers a good strength-to-weight ratio.

At the rear it also features a micro-adjustable seatmast for fine-tuning the perfect fit.

Trek Madone SL Disc IsoSpeed

IsoSpeed is Trek’s own compliance tech that essentially separates the seat tube from the top tube at the rear of the frame, giving it the flexibility to dampen vibrations from the road. Both the Madone SL 6 Disc and SL 7 Disc feature an adjustable IsoSpeed decoupler with a slider that allows the rider to fine-tune the bike to suit their needs.

Trek Madone SL Disc cockpit

Rather than featuring a one-piece aero cockpit, Trek has opted for a more traditional handlebar and stem combination. This is what really allows them to offer a Madone at a sub-$5,000 price point, and riders have the option to attach clip-on aero bars.

Trek Madone SL 6 Disc price, spec and availability

• Sizes : 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62
• Claimed weight : 8.63kg (size 56)
• Frame : 500 Series OCLV carbon
• Groupset : Shimano Ultegra (mechanical)
• Brakes : Hydraulic disc
• Wheelset : Bontrager Aeolus Comp 5 Disc tubeless-ready
• Features : Adjustable IsoSpeed decoupler, Duotrap S compatible
• Price : $4,699.99 / International pricing TBC
• Buy the Trek Madone SL 6 Disc from Trek

Trek Madone SL 7 Disc price, spec and availability

• Claimed weight : 8.25kg (size 56)
• Groupset : Shimano Ultegra Di2 electronic
• Brakes : Hydraulic dis
• Wheelset : Bontrager Aeolus Pro 5 Disc carbon tubeless-ready
• Features : Adjustable IsoSpeed decoupler
• Price : $6,499.99 / International pricing TBC
• Buy the Trek Madone SL 7 Disc from Trek

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victor emanuel nature tours inc

Victor emanuel: back to nature.

Austin is home for world-famous nature tour guide..

A few years ago, Victor Emanuel was walking in Stacy Park near his Travis Heights home. He guessed in advance that there would be frost on the grass of the baseball field above Blunn Creek.

“I didn’t know that I’d be walking when the angle of the sun was perfect,” says the world-famed nature guide and bird lover. “The field was filled with jewels of blue, green, red and yellow. Most people walking by wouldn’t notice it. We notice things. That’s the great gift that birders have.”

Houston-born Emanuel, 74, has been helping people notice things for a long time. His Austin-based company, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, is among the largest of its kind in the world. His far-flung army of guides put people close to nature from Kazakhstan to Tanzania, but also closer to home in prime spots around Texas.

Emanuel, for whom the Travis Audubon Society’s annual awards are named, also promotes conservation through youth camps that have taught hundreds of kids about the value of the natural world.

“Based on solid science and decades of field experience, Victor tells the story of nature passionately and eloquently,” says George Cofer, director of the Hill Country Conservancy. “He was one of the first people to open my eyes to the extraordinary beauty of nature from a worldly, down-to-earth perspective. Victor was born to love nature and teach about nature.”

Emanuel has lived long enough to see bird-watching become one of the most popular outdoor activities in the U.S. In earlier eras, he points out, watchers sat in one place and waited for birds to show up. These days, birders, the systematic watchers, go anywhere the birds are.

“I am a birder and a bird lover and a bird-watcher,” he says of the three distinct roles. “Birds are very alert; they are aware of any movement. They are animals of sight and sound, which is the same for humans, with comparatively weak senses of smell. Watching them, we become more alert. We notice everything: the shape of clouds, a change of wind, drops of water that become more like prisms. It gives us a different life.”

The trail begins in Houston

Quiet, still and precise, Emanuel can weave enough enrapturing stories about his past to fill a long-form profile in the New Yorker magazine. Consider the following an extremely condensed preview of his promised memoirs.

His father, also Victor Emanuel, descendant of German and Austrian Jews, wrote about sports for the Houston Post.

“Dad was very intelligent,” his son says. “He started me on the intellectual path. He loved books and ideas, a man of very strong opinions. Somewhat of a curmudgeon. He would say things that offended people. He was not diplomatic or politic, but he was very kind.”

His father battled to keep the Houston Zoo free so that poor children could attend.

“He was interested in nature, but he was an urban man, so he liked animals in zoos,” his son says. “His favorite animals were snakes. He became a friend of the director of the snake house, who allowed us to watch the snakes be fed.”

The elder Emanuel had attended the University of Texas and served as sports editor for the Daily Texan.

“The three most important things in his life were his family, UT and the Democratic Party,” Emanuel jokes. “He became friends with a cub reporter named Dan Rather. At the time of my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary, (Rather) told me that my father taught him everything he knew about poker and Texas politics.”

His mother, Marian Williams “Nancy” Emanuel, came from an old Southern family. She worked as a secretary and an antiques dealer and had been in on the building of the San Jacinto Monument by the Works Progress Administration. She met Emanuel’s father in a Houston hospital where he was recovering from jaundice.

“She went to see him because she’d never seen anyone who had turned yellow,” Emanuel says. “She was as sweet and kind a person as you would ever meet. Like her mother, she had a great love of life. Her mother used to say when she woke up in the morning, ‘I wonder what good thing is going to happen to me today.’ ”

Both grandmother and mother sold antiques in Houston.

“My grandmother had the first antique shop on Westheimer Road, and my mother had her shop behind it,” Emanuel recalls. “Like my father, she was a big reader. She had no education beyond high school but had a great interest in current events.”

Absorbing nature and ideas

In south and southwest Houston, Emanuel was an active kid, engaged in the natural world from the beginning.

“There were open ditches everywhere,” he says. “My favorite thing was catching crawfish with bacon on the end of the string. Not to eat, just to catch. If you went into a vacant lot, you could pick up wood and find snakes: Texas brown snakes, bull snakes. The prize was a coachwhip.”

Emanuel kept his snakes in a terrarium and charged other kids 5 cents to see them. A natural gardener, he loved his grandmother’s stories about her family’s farm on the Sunflower River in Mississippi.

“She said they had so many watermelons, they ate only the hearts and threw the rest to the hogs,” Emanuel says. “That sounded to me like the definition of luxury.”

His parents moved to the bedroom community of West University so that he would receive a better public education. There, he won a spot on Bellaire High School’s vaunted debate team.

“We traveled all over in tournaments,” he says. “Some of the very best debaters were from Muskogee, Okla. You could see a little town in Texas could produce a Colt McCoy, but a little town in Oklahoma producing the best debaters?”

An interest in biology took Emanuel next to Rice University, where a teacher encouraged him to switch to a program like, say, UT’s, that included zoology and botany rather than a pre-med emphasis. That was exactly what he did. In 1962, the UT graduate wanted to continue his studies in ornithology at the University of California, Berkeley.

“That summer I had one of these moments of truth,” he says. “Looking at articles in scientific publications about birds, it became clear to me my interest in birds was their beauty and going out and enjoying them, but not at the scientific level. That was not what I was cut out to be.”

Always interested, like his parents, in public affairs, he applied to five graduate programs in political science. Emanuel chose to attend Harvard University on a Woodrow Wilson scholarship.

Earlier in his life, he had met many famous people — Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt — and therefore was never intimidated by asking famous professors out for lunch or tea. He hung out with future author Doris Kearns Goodwin, constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson and movie director Terrence Malick.

“I loved being at Harvard,” he says. “Although it was hard being in the Northeast. During winter, there’s little life, fewer birds, not enough light.”

The brilliant political theorist Judith Shklar treated him with motherly sympathy. “You’re from the Southwest,” she said. “This is not unusual. It’s called homesickness.”

Indeed, Emanuel had felt like an alien in New England, so when the time came to write a dissertation, his attention returned to his home state, where he intended to write about the contrasting political cultures of Dallas and Houston.

“I am as rooted in Texas as the plants that are indigenous,” he says. “I am adapted to where the weather comes from, where the birds are, like the creatures who evolved here. You become knowledgeable about your local area the way the ancient people did.”

Political guide switches to nature

Back in Houston, an old friend, George Oser, was running for the school board and asked Emanuel to run his campaign.

“There went seven years of my life,” Emanuel jokes about his next phase, as a political consultant. “In 1972, I informed Harvard I wasn’t going to complete the Ph.D. and took a master’s degree instead. I was doing it for my father, but my heart wasn’t in it.”

Before that decision, Emanuel had heard from Dean Gorham, an Illinois resident in town for a convention. Gorham offered the Houstonian $100 to cover a day spent spotting birds.

“I was 29, living in one room, and nobody had offered me money to take them birding,” he says. “The whole idea of bird tours was just developing.

Emanuel admired Peter Alden, who had started a nature tour program for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and wondered how he could do what Alden was doing for a living. Emanuel took out an ad in a birding magazine, offering personalized tours of the Texas and Mexico area.

When one hopeful group contacted him, Emanuel suggested a short trip to the Yucatan. His first group tour took off in the spring of 1975. All went well, but a bus trip arranged for mayoral wives turned into a complete bust: “Nobody wanted to go!”

Once president of the Texas Ornithological Society, he arranged to make Roger Tory Peterson, perhaps the country’s most famous birder, an honorary member. Peterson agreed to co-lead a trip from Houston to Brownsville and the Texas Hill Country.

“That gave a real boost to my young company,” Emanuel says. “I remember offering him $1,000 to be an associate. He said: You can’t afford that.”

He also befriended novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen, adventurous journalist George Plimpton and environmentalist Armand Yramatagui, of the eponymous Armand Bayou near Space Center Houston.

Way back in 1955, Yramatagui had suggested that Emanuel start a Christmas count of bird species in the Freeport area. Emanuel set up camp at a Surfside beach house.

“I started in 1956 with 11 people,” Emanuel says. “We saw 111 species. By 1972, we set the all-time record at 226. There was some Texas pride in that.”

(The record has since been surpassed.)

An article in Audubon magazine about the Freeport count led to the friendship with Plimpton, who introduced him to Matthiessen, who had written a sweeping book about Africa that Emanuel admired.

“I went up to meet him, expecting an old man,” Emanuel says. “That began one of the most wonderful friendships of my life. We took 30 trips together to all the continents.”

Life in Austin

“Victor has shown so many people amazing birds around the world, the importance of healthy habitats and how the two go hand in hand,” says Laura Huffman, Texas director of the Nature Conservancy. “He is deeply regarded by all in the conservation community as an expert and a friend.”

When Emanuel started his nature tour company some 40 years ago, he had few competitors.

“The timing was very good,” he says. “The first year, we offered 20 trips. Now it’s up to 140 a year.”

Emanuel, who moved his business to Austin in 1978, goes to great lengths to find the right tour leaders, then offers them professional salaries, benefits and a retirement plan, unheard of in most of the travel industry. Many of his employees have stayed with the company for decades.

“They need to know the subject, need to like people and be very good at relating to diverse kids, and need to be able to handle logistics,” he says. “Know how to get people in or out of a hotel, in or out of a restaurant, what to do when someone gets ill or the truck breaks down.”

Emanuel insists that clients receive top-shelf services.

“They must be treated in the best possible manner so that they have the most fulfilling and enjoyable experience on their vacation,” he says. “Some might have saved up for years to make this trip, or might be taking a break from a difficult situation in their lives.”

Some clients report that the trips were life-changing. One woman told her financial adviser that she needed enough income to live on — and to afford a couple of Victor Emanuel tours a year. Ninety percent of the clients have been on previous tours.

Since 1985, his company has also supported a summer birding camp for boys and girls interested in birds. The mother camp is in southern Arizona, but there are outposts in Washington, California and Central and West Texas.

“Part of my motivation was that, growing up, I had no friends who were interested in birds or nature,” he says. “Now this is doing remarkable things for their lives and deepening their love of nature. Some have discovered new species. Some are tour leaders or ornithologists. It’s more successful than I ever dreamed it would be.”

One of his campers later quit his job to bike around the country. He’s identified 583 types of birds and raised $26,000 for conservation.

Recently, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours has diversified into multi-thematic trips such as “Birds and Music” or “Birds and Art.” Also, it has added some more relaxed tours, without as much physical activity, shorter days, fewer hours in the field.

Meanwhile, Emanuel is writing his memoirs and contemplating a succession plan at work.

“I’m at a very good time in my life,” he says. “I feel good about creating this company, and it is evolving.”

A lover of classical music, he has depended on a series of hearing aids to overcome hearing loss from a childhood infection, an obvious obstacle for a birder.

Emanuel: “Luckily, I have good eyesight.”

Victor Emanuel on some of his favorite birds

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Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT) is one of the most highly regarded birding and nature tour companies in the world. Founded by industry pioneer Victor Emanuel in 1976, VENT sets the standard for excellence in ecotourism.

Founded in 1976, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT) is among the most respected birding and nature tourism companies in the world. VENT began as a business based on shared engagement with nature.

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A springtime tour to lovely Portugal features spectacular birding and beautiful landscapes with touches of history and culture. Europe & the Middle East - Bulgaria. Birding in Ancient Bulgaria May 3 - 19, 2025. After fifteen years away, VENT returns to a gem of eastern European birding—Bulgaria!

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If you cancel the tour 15 days or more in advance before the expected date and time of tour operations (local time, Moscow) there is no cancellation fee of prepaid service. If you cancel the tour 14-8 days before the expected date and time of tour operations (local time, Moscow), there is a 50% cancellation fee of prepaid service. If you cancel the tour 7 and less days in advance before the expected date and time of tour operations (local time, Moscow) or do not come to the tour, you will not receive a refund of prepaid service. The refund may take up to 30 days, usually about 3-5 days.

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