A closer look at the pearlescent paint scheme celebrating a women's cycling legend
How do you send off a legend?
Lizzie Deignan raced on Trek’s women’s road program from its inception. During her seven seasons she was one of the most dominant cyclists in the sport, winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2020), La Course (2020), and the first ever women’s Paris-Roubaix (2021), not to mention the 2015 World Championship and 2016 Tour of Flanders before her time with Trek.
Few people have done more to raise the profile of women’s cycling during a pivotal era for the sport. Celebrating a rider like Lizzie is no small task.
But at Trek, we do one thing supremely well: Make beautiful bicycles. Trek Art Director Micah Moran helps steer the brand’s Project One program, and has worked one-on-one with numerous athletes on one-off projects. He designed the icy blue Madone celebrating Ellen van Dijk’s clock-smashing career. And he put together Lizzie’s pearlescent farewell Madone to celebrate one of the most monumental careers that cycling has ever seen.
Lizzie's bike evokes the regal majesty of a queen.
A bespoke head badge logo -- a crown made of Lizzie's initials -- is another one of Trek's parting gifts to a legend.
For both Lizzie and Ellen’s farewell bikes, he needed relatively little input. He knew a few design elements that the riders liked, and he was able to create works of art from there.
In Lizzie’s case, Moran knew that she loved the Project One ICON Interstellar paint scheme. He then spun that information forward: Using Interstellar as a base, how could he create a paint scheme worthy of her regal reputation?
Lizzie is often referred to as Queen Lizzie for the way she led the team and the peloton both as a racer and as an outspoken leader. He came up with a pearlescent paint scheme, reminiscent of a queen’s pearls. It’s both stately and bold, just like Lizzie.
This bike is race ready. (Hey, you never know.)
To pull off the look, the Trek paint team had to develop new techniques. The bike needed a finish in between the matte and gloss options offered in Project One.
“If we did it in matte, it dulled all the luminescence, and if we did it in gloss, it was just too colorful,” Moran said. “We had to really tweak our recipe for a satin, also called semi-gloss, finish, and I think that’s one of the things that made it feel really tactile and nice.
“We aren’t bound by what we can do in production. We can take something new and do something even a little experimental for us. And that’s fun as a design and paint team, to stretch ourselves to create something.”
Lizzie's bike in all its glory.
Forever the first ever women's Paris-Roubaix winner ❤️
The details make every bike special. For both Lizzie and Ellen, Moran designed bespoke head badges — emblems that encapsulate their careers. Lizzie’s is a crown made from her initials, drawn in fine lines. It features on her seat tube, too, above the words “Forever the First Ever,” celebrating her stunning underdog victory at the first-ever women’s Paris-Roubaix.
“That branding on the front of the bike is typically a place we reserve for Trek, but Lizzie is such a big personality and meant so much to the brand, we can clear away the most special real estate on the bike and present it to her,” Moran said. “And that’s the gift that Trek can give its athletes: this piece of branding that they can use forever and own if they like.”
Some of the bike’s details aren’t readily visible. One of Moran’s favorites is a message on the back of the seat tube that will primarily be seen by Lizzie. You’d have to purposefully search for it to see it, and it’s Trek’s parting message to one of the greatest riders ever.
Four words: “All hail the Queen.”
