All those people who tought the Madone paint job was bland,

[Superlite]

Check this, new paint job for 05, extra $500 though

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id= ... 5/dsc_1087

[OLver]

[ShinyBaldy]

Check this, new paint job for 05, extra $500 though

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id= ... 5/dsc_1087

kinda ugly...

I own a Trek and visit the LBS that sells Treks quite often.

I have to say Trek has the worst finish on high end bikes out of the entire industry. Decals that aren't even aligned - basically those stickers we as kids glued on plastic models from Tomaya and then a thin later of clear coat to protect the carbon fibre. So poorly done a blind man can feel where the sticker ends and the joints are so obvious too..

inconsistencies on the frame finish is really clear... now they provide this ugly paintjob for ONLY extra of 500 dollars?

[Frankie - B]

I think the paint job is cool. only the bike looks sjitty because of the high stem and the backwards leaning saddle.

Pic from Cyclingnews.com

[Ivan]

Paintjob is a monster in my opnion, sorry.
A bike needs to be classy, not painted like a racecar.

[Frankie - B]

The point is that the red of the X branded parts of Bontrager doesn't fit the red used in the bike. This bike needs a shipload of black parts with some small bordeaux hints like a tiny stripe on the bartape and a bordeaux saddle.
There are various options to optical tune ths bike...

BTW. what i really dislike is the big width of the DA outerring

[C-40]

Off topic but isn't the Madonne going to be replaced by the Madonne SL for the 2005 model year........ or am I dreaming?

My opinion? Well Trek's have always been a bit too bold and this one is no exception...... Yes, tuning would help- Newton flat stem/bars, removing the red stickers and a custom colored seat- but that would be asking too much.

[limba]

Ugly.

[Ti22]

Trek held a contest on their website for some design ideas for the "Project One" series. The winner would receive a 05' Madone with the new paint design. Here is a sample of the design I sent.
I guess I didn't win.

[asphaltdude]

I like the flame design...... but except for the xXx - Light wheels those Bontrager parts are ugly....

[martin]

I think the paint job is cool. only the bike looks sjitty because of the high stem and the backwards leaning saddle.

Pic from Cyclingnews.com

I think that if the radius of the seattube and the radius of the rear wheel don't align properly, it looks *plain ugly*

And the paintjob looks like the kind of design the suburb kids like on their 15 year old VW or Opel coffee racer cars.

[danielgillett]

I think the worst part of those Madone's is that they have an aero seat tube, but the wheel sits so far away from the seatube it's not really worth it!

(one way to tell a well engineered race bike - how close they're willing to put the wheel to the seat tube)

[Bruiser]

If they:
shorten the chainstays.
Find some more attractive wheels,
Give it a level saddle and stem,

then that frame could be very attractive.

Apart from the chain stays, it's not the frame's fault that it looks cheap.

[NS]

There is an opportunity to make quite a horrendous expensive balls up of a frame on the project one website, theres no way you can get a feel for what the colours will look like IMO when you are looking at a computer screen.
Believe me its an awful feeling when you have an image of your paintjob in your head and its totally different when you get it back.

Who sets these bikes up for photo shoots though, its not uncommon that bikes are poorly set up for them is it.

[Racing Aardvark]

for an extra $500 for a paint job, I'd rather go for this deal:
http://www.cervelo.com/hottubes.html