How to build a custom pink Madone Gen 8 in 7 days 🩷
Trek takes winning seriously. When its athletes thrive on cycling’s biggest stages, The Bicycle Company gets to work making sure that they receive bikes worthy of their efforts — from world-class mountain bike wins, to road accomplishments of all types.
So of course Elisa Longo Borghini received a ride befitting a Grand Tour winner for her general classification win at the women’s Giro d’Italia on Sunday. But the delivery of her custom pink Madone Gen 8 was an even more impressive effort than most of Trek’s special paint jobs. After Longo Borghini won the Stage 1 time trial, the Trek Race Shop quickly sprung into action to find a frame and have it painted and delivered to her in Italy just one week later.
Elisa's custom Madone Gen 8 shimmers and shines.
Meanwhile, Trek’s designers, painters, and support staff held their breath as Longo Borghini held off the competition in a fierce battle to keep the Maglia Rosa. The bike was in Italy as she entered the final stage with just a one-second lead over second-place Lotte Kopecky. But Longo Borghini slammed the door on the competition on a difficult Stage 8, and earned the ultimate keepsake for one of the highlight wins in her already decorated career.
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As soon as Longo Borghini won Stage 1 on Sunday, July 7, Trek art director Micah Moran received an email from the Race Shop asking him to help finalize a design for the bike and push it forward into paint. Longo Borghini’s Maglia Rosa campaign had only just begun, and was far from certain to succeed, but if the bike was going to greet her at the finish line, work needed to begin immediately.
The bike was built on site in Italy after being sourced, designed, painted and shipped from Wisconsin.
Fortunately, Moran had already gotten a head start preparing for such an occasion.
“We’re prepared to take a jersey at any race at any time throughout the calendar,” Moran says. “Our preparations for how we might do something starts at the beginning of the season, and we have a library of colors that we have pre-developed to match all of the leaders’ jerseys for the three Grand Tours.”
Moran got in touch with Trek’s paint department, which assigned a painter named Caryl Richmond to the bike. Together, Moran and Richmond workshopped ideas for potential flourishes they could put on the bike using the Giro-approved pink.
IsoFlow design makes it both the fastest and prettiest bike in the world.
To calculate what was possible, they worked backwards from the end of the timeline. To be able to present the bike to Longo Borghini at the finish line in L’Aquila on Sunday, July 14, the bike would need to leave Wisconsin on Friday, July 12. The bike’s courier was Roger Gierhart, Trek’s vice president, who was already planning to fly to Europe. For the bike to be ready for Gierhart’s trip, it would need to be out of paint and boxed by Thursday.
Moran and Richmond decided to use a proprietary technique that gives the bike a soft metallic shine that shifts and shimmers in the light.
Custom SRAM components help make it shine.
“There are things you might do in design that you just don’t have the hours on the clock to get done,” Moran says. “Some designs and some paints are going to take a lot longer. Some can go faster. So it’s really just constant communication between the Race Shop, the designer, and the painter to make sure we formulate a plan that’s going to be able to be executed and delivered on time.”
The vast resources at Trek’s headquarters in Waterloo, Wisc., allows the company to do unique and detailed work on incredibly fast turnarounds. As an example, Moran sits near product graphic designer Kyle Doney. If Moran comes up with a new paint idea, he can show it to Doney, who can then walk across the hall to one of several booths reserved for Trek’s Project One line of custom paint jobs to try and replicate it. Trek keeps all of its paint mixing equipment on site, too. There is virtually no color or visual effect out of reach of the company’s paint team.
It took a big team effort to make Elisa's bike one of a kind on short notice.
“They’re excited to do those custom, fun projects,” Moran says. “And we’re always, always doing custom work here. I’d say most designers and most painters are always involved in some capacity on some type of special project.”
A spare frame was sourced from Trek’s Johnson Creek, Wisc., warehouse on Tuesday, July 9 — no easy feat, given the demand for Trek’s new Gen 8 Madone — and Richmond worked quickly and diligently to get the frame in and out of paint on Wednesday, July 10. Everyone involved with getting Longo Borghini’s bike painted and flown to Italy (and it truly takes a village) executed their roles flawlessly.
Everything in its right place.
There was no one more important to the process than Longo Borghini, however. And as much as Trek employees hate to entertain the thought, there’s always a chance that misfortune strikes and a rider relinquishes their lead in the midst of an unpredictable and competitive Grand Tour.
“It’s just a reality as a designer,” Moran says. “You start working on something and you think, ‘Man, I really want this to be in the real world. I want to turn on the TV and see that thing that was on my computer screen.’ So you’re invested, just like the rider is. You’re even more of a super fan than you already were of your home team and the riders that ride for Trek.”
Elisa receiving her custom painted Madone Gen 8 at the team bus.
If Longo Borghini hadn’t won the overall, building up her custom Madone would not have been in vain. According to Moran, Trek’s designers use these unique opportunities to test new ideas and techniques. Very often, “one-offs” continue to be developed until they become part of Trek’s growing Project One paint scheme offerings.
But Longo Borghini delivered. Emphatically so. And now the hard work of Trek’s designers and paint team get to shine on one of cycling’s biggest stages as well, right next to a rider who has cemented her legacy as one of the best to ever race.
Totally worth it.
Want your own custom painted Madone like Elisa? We can do that for you at our Project One paint lab in Waterloo. Your bike will receive the same care and attention as Elisa’s. Get started here to build your dream bike exactly as you imagined it.
