Trek Madone
Even ‘the Texan’ couldn’t lance this model’s ground-breaking reputation
By separating the seat tube from the rest of the frame, the Madone added vertical compliance
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Trek made its first carbon fibre road bike in 1992 and the brand will forever be synonymous with the Voldemort – the He-WhoMust-Not-Be-Named – of the cycling world, Lance Armstrong. All of his nowdeleted Tour de France victories were achieved on Trek bikes, with his final two – 2004 and 2005 – on Madones, a bike Trek launched in 2003. Realistically the Madone didn’t di er that much from its Trek 5900 predecessor that Armstrong rode in 2003. And in one way, it was even a step backwards, as the 2004 Madone on which Armstrong rode every stage featured a frame that had increased from 980g to 1100g. But that was down to the UCI’s new minimum weight limit.
In 2007, the Madone lost its horizontal top tube and pitched for a semi-compact frame instead. The other major development came a few years later when, in common with a lot of race bikes, the Madone went aero. The 2012 model lost a little weight but, more significantly, Trek’s use of Kammtail Virtual Foil tubes was claimed to save you 25 watts at 40km/h.
Trek’s designers also had another trick up their sleeves. Aero bikes were seen as uncomfortable and so the 2016 Madone inherited the IsoSpeed decoupler from Trek’s Domane endurance bike. By separating the seat tube from the rest of the frame, the Madone added around 20mm of springy ‘vertical compliance’.
The result is a bike that still sets the standard for its balance of aerodynamics and comfort. In 2020 the Madone SL6 (now with disc brakes) was our aero road bike of the year. Senior Tech Ed Warren said that the IsoSpeed “dealt with high-frequency chatter wonderfully well, for a ride that balanced fast handling and comfort unlike any other aero road bike.”