On Saturday we got up close and personal with Lance Armstrong’s Trek Madone.  It’s a standard Madone frame with a totally custom one of a kind paint finish made especially for Lance to ride in the Giro.

The Texan has ridden a number of these custom bikes produced by various artists for him, this one by Shepard Fairey (you might know him from the famous Obama Hope poster).  Rather than paint the intricate design, the frame was actually painted yellow and then the design was hand cut from decals and laid over the paint before the top coat was put on.  This allowed Fairey to produce a really intricate design.

A number of interesting details are included.  1274 refers to the number of days Armstrong was absent from racing.  “WNW” stands for Winners not W@*kers and refers to Armstrong’s ambitions for the year.  Another cool graphic is  Obey on the head tube.

Armstrong’s bike is a fairly standard fit out.  A full SRAM Red groupset adorns the frame with only slight changes.  Cork Bontrager brake pads are fitted along with gold anodised alloy chainring bolts.  The two exceptions to the SRAM groupset are a Shimano Dura-Ace chain and a set of Dura-Ace SPD pedals.

As befits a Trek, the fit out is from Bontrager.   Aeolus 5.0 Carbon Bontrager wheels are custom painted and are wrapped in Hutchinson tubulars.  XXX lite carbon bars, stem and bottle cage complete the bike with a Selle San Marco Concor Lite saddle.  This was always Armstrong’s trademark saddle and when we met up with the managing director of San Marco in February Armstrong was riding a Bontrager saddle.  Seems he worked some magic since then.

It’s not as light as we thought, in fact its well above the UCI sanctioned weight limit but it is undoubtedly fast.  We rode a Madone last year on test and its a lightning fast bike.  Something tells us that Armstrong will do something this Giro as well.  When we saw him he was looking much fitter than at the start of the race and seems to be riding himself fit through the race.  All the indications are that the team will make a move at the time trial (which they may ride on their regular bikes due to the technical nature of the course) and then will have to work hard so they have been keeping something back.  Stay tuned…