Trek Bikes: Spinning Gears
To a serious cyclist, a bike isn’t just a set of wheels. It’s an extension of bone and muscle, a projection of personality in motion. It’s not merely a machine, it’s personal. That’s why the design team at Trek built Project One, an online workshop where cyclists can fully customize their bikes — from parts to paint schemes — with a click of a mouse. “My personal bike is pink and black with white decals,” says Eric Lynn, designer and avid cyclist at Trek. “To me it says, ‘This is a fun ride, let’s take it easy and have a great time.’ Other people might want a stealthy monotone bike that says they’re in it for going fast. With Project One, everybody can figure out their own message.”
Lynn and a team of about 15 designers create most of the basic Project One designs at Trek’s home base in Waterloo, Wisconsin. They also crank out the graphics seen on every stock Trek bike (including Trek-owned brands Klein, LeMond and Gary Fisher), every Team Trek jersey and helmet, and many Trek-related websites, brochures and dealer catalogs. It’s enough work to make even Lance Armstrong exhausted. Still, the team gets it all done, pushing through project after project with MacBook Pros running Adobe Creative Suite.
“I would be handicapped if I wasn’t working on an Apple machine,” says Lynn. “All my applications run reliably and quickly. And as a creative person, my life and my work overlap a fair amount. I can have my music library and my personal images on one computer. This machine supports both my work and personal projects. It was designed to work with my life.”
Custom Rides
Trek has sold about 10,000 Project One bikes since it launched the program about five years ago. In the world of custom bicycles, that’s an astounding number. Most one-off bike builders turn out just a few frames a year. Six-month (or longer) wait times are common. Trek can deliver a Project One bike in about three weeks, sometime less. “We can do it because we make and paint the bikes here,” says Derek Deubel, brand manager at Trek. “The factory is right down the road and it’s easy for us to hand off new designs.”
Getting a Project One bike is fairly simple. Trek has an online interface that allows buyers to customize the company’s top-of-the-line road and mountain bikes. They can choose from several graphic schemes — from polka dots to flames to lightning to cobwebs — and about a dozen colors. Another option allows them to add a personal message or a name. Bikes are ordered and delivered through Trek dealers.
The project began with a few simple requests. “We had a lot of requests for customization,” says Lynn. “Customers would ask for bikes in different colors. We started doing some color customization, then moved on to more complex schemes. Then it grew into really sophisticated schemes with air brushing and complex designs.” Where do all those designs come from? Most are done in-house, but some are inspired by the great outdoors. “We’re big believers that the office is not the best place to experience things if you’re trying to create relevant products,” says Lynn. “We try to get out a little bit, whether it’s local retail visits or going to the local museum to stay fresh. The MacBook Pros go with us. Whether we’re taking a moment while we’re out and about and putting some thoughts down in the machine in Illustrator or typing out some notes or sketching something, we’re working on our MacBook Pros, visually taking notes.”
