If someone wanted to encapsulate the shifting trends of race bikes over the past 20 years, there is no better example than the Trek Madone.
‘While the Madone has changed dramatically over the course of its lifespan, fundamentally we’ve always been trying to do the same thing, which is make the perfect race bike,’ says Jordan Roessingh, Trek’s director of road bikes.
Even the bike’s name hints at its racing roots: the Col de la Madone is a climb that sits just outside Nice on the French Riviera and is well known as a proving ground for pros to test their legs. Arguably the climb’s most (in)famous patron was Lance Armstrong. It was his use of the climb for training, combined with his relationship with Trek, that prompted the genesis of the bike. The Texan had won the first few of his
