The complete history of the Trek Madone

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 Tours de France aboard various versions of Trek’s 5000-series bikes but, by introducing an approach that Trek still employs today, the brand used feedback from its sponsored pros to develop a successor, and the Madone was born.

‘The Madone was properly introduced in 2003 and represented a big change over the 5000-series bikes, as it was our first to consider aerodynamics,’ says Roessingh. ‘Although all that really amounted to was a fin on the seat tube, which seems quaint these days.’

Trek tasted success immediately with the Madone when Armstrong won the 2003 Tour using it. While that victory has since been struck from the record books, such a performance still proved that Trek was onto something. That said, in 2007 it gave the Madone a complete revamp. The horizontal top tube was replaced by a sloping top tube in the same vein as the compact Giant TCR, which along with other design innovations saw the new Madone drop 250g.

‘Our design team would say the second-generation Madone was an engineering marvel,’ says Roessingh. ‘It was the first Trek to use a tapered head tube and the BB90 bottom bracket standard, and all bearing bores in the frameset were moulded carbon surfaces rather than bonded-in aluminium ones.

‘This Madone also pioneered our seatmast design, which we still use today. Integrating the seatpost makes the frame better structurally, but by using a mast we retained the adjustability of a conventional seatpost, in contrast to other designs at that time.’

Fittingly, Trek introduced its Project One custom programme during this Madone’s life cycle, where bikes were built to order and users could spec custom paint.

‘Even today, most of our Madones are sold through Project One,’ says Roessingh. ‘Their graphic design is as much a part of their story as their performance features.’ 

Evolution then revolution

In contrast to the previous update, 2009’s third-generation Madone was a little more iterative. Further advancements in Trek’s OCLV (optimum compaction low void) carbon fibre fabrication technique produced an 890g frame.

‘The main goal was to optimise 2007’s design,’ says Roessingh. ‘The bike used many of the same features but was more structurally efficient thanks to a huge amount of FEA [finite element analysis]. Race bikes at this time had to be light and stiff above all else. Internally, this is one of our favourite Madones because it was the inspiration for what would become the Émonda a few years later.’

In an excellent illustration of the capriciousness of bike tech trends, three years later the Madone had come full circle, as aerodynamics were back in vogue.

‘By 2012 we had this super-light and stiff bike, but we wanted to reintroduce aerodynamic efficiency so it could be fast too,’ says Roessingh.

‘The fourth generation brought in kamm-tail tube sections and a rear brake mounted under the bottom bracket. This Madone was the first bike in the industry to use direct-mount brakes. We worked in partnership with Shimano to develop the new standard, which other brands then adopted.’

Trek says Madone number four was 25 watts more efficient than the previous bike at 40kmh, despite it still retaining somewhat of an all-rounder focus. However, after officially launching the lightweight Émonda and splitting its race offering into two options, Trek was freed to pursue a more singular focus when it came to designing the fifth generation of the Madone.

‘The most radical change came in 2015. We committed to aerodynamics and went all-in on integration,’ says Roessingh. ‘It was the first bike we’d done that had fully hidden cables. We even designed our own brakes.’

The new Madone also included a version of IsoSpeed to improve compliance: ‘One of the reasons we hadn’t fully stepped into the aero bike realm before 2015 was that other aero bikes rode like crap,’ says Roessingh.

Trek’s IsoSpeed system has been deployed on the Domane endurance bike since 2012, and works by effectively decoupling the seat tube from the top tube, allowing it to flex along its entire length.

‘For the Madone, though, we made a tube-in-tube version,’ says Roessingh. ‘We had a skinny internal seat tube for 20mm of compliance at the saddle, and the external seat tube connected to the rest of the frame to essentially provide a fairing for the internal structure, although we didn’t tell the UCI that’s what it was.’

If the bike fits

The next Madone in 2018 was similar in nature to the move from second to third – refining a bold design. Disc brakes arrived, as did adjustability: the IsoSpeed device became tunable and the one-piece cockpit became separate bars and stem – an aero bike isn’t very fast if the rider doesn’t fit comfortably onto it.

The 2022 update to Madone generation 7 flipped that script, to an extent, however. Adjustability was reduced in favour of simplicity, with Trek reasoning it knew best when it came to dialling in comfort, and providing a plethora of one-piece cockpit options so riders could still find a setup that was right for them, albeit one that couldn't be tinkered with.

‘Maybe more so than others, the 2022 Madone was the direct result of us going to our teams and saying, “How can we make it better?”’ says Roessingh. ‘The feedback was to keep as much as we can, but make it lighter.’

So just as it had been more than ten years ago, weight was again a key driver, although that shift in focus had to be reincorporated alongside the gains made previously in stiffness, aerodynamics and comfort. 

‘That meant going back to a one-piece cockpit, but one with altered ergonomics and plenty of options so as not to hinder fit, plus replacing IsoSpeed with IsoFlow,’ says Roessingh. Crudely speaking, IsoFlow is a hole just under the seat tube cluster. It creates a cantilevered seatpost, recreating IsoSpeed’s flex to a degree despite being much simpler and lighter.

‘IsoFlow helps aerodynamics too by funnelling air into the low-pressure wake behind the rider,’ says Roessingh. ‘The switch to IsoFlow and a one-piece cockpit helped us save 300g over the old Madone module. It’s always really telling – we watch our pro riders’ bias when we launch a new Émonda or Madone.

'There was an Émonda bias prior to that one, but then a lot more riders started choosing the Madone a lot more frequently. To us, at least, that was a clear indicator that after all this time the Madone recipe was still pretty damn successful.’

Trek doubled down dramatically on this rationale in 2024 when it killed off the Émonda entirely, and replaced both it and generation seven Madone with a new design.

'Generation eight is as fast as the last Madone and as light as the last Émonda,' says Roessingh. 'Thanks to a new OCLV 900 composite blend that is stronger and lighter, plus new thinking around how the frameset and rider interacts with the airflow, we got to a place where we could achieve the best of both worlds.'

If ever there was a better testament to the success of the Madone platform, we're yet to find it.

Trek Madone timeline…

The Madone’s best moments

2003: First-generation Madone launches as Trek’s first bike with aero considerations.

2007: Second generation adopts a compact frame design and an integrated seatpost as well as pioneering Trek’s BB90 bottom bracket standard.

2007: Riding the new Madone, Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel) wins his first Tour de France.

2008: At the Giro d’Italia, Contador wins another Grand Tour on the second-generation Madone.

2008: On the same bike, Contador follows his Giro win with victory at the Vuelta a España.

2009: The Madone’s third generation takes the existing model and makes it stiffer and lighter, serving as the inspiration for Trek’s Émonda design.

2009: Alberto Contador again proves the design, winning his second Tour de France aboard the third Madone.

2009: Damien Hirst’s ‘Butterfly’ Madone, used by Lance Armstrong (Astana) at that year’s Tour de France, is sold for $500,000 at auction.

2012: Trek adds kamm-tail tube sections and direct-mount brakes to reintroduce aerodynamic performance.

2015: The Madone’s aerodynamic attributes are maximised in the bike’s fifth-generation overhaul. Comfort is improved thanks to the inclusion of the IsoSpeed decoupler.

2018: Disc brakes are added to the bike, along with an adjustable IsoSpeed design and a two-piece bar/stem.

2019: Danish rider Mads Pedersen wins the World Championships Road Race aboard the Madone.

2022: Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) notches up one of the sixth generation Madone’s last wins, at Gent-Wevelgem.

2022: IsoFlow frame structure replaces IsoSpeed device to drop weight while preserving comfort.

2023: Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) wins Stage 8 of the Tour de France aboard seventh-generation Madone.

2024: Madone gen 8 maintains speed of previous bike while dropping enough weight to render Trek's lightweight Émonda design obsolete.

• This article originally appeared in issue 143 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe