It is no secret that I have been excited to see the new 2008 Trek Madonne for a while. I have now seen the 5.5 and 5.2 in the local shop. They say they will get a 6.5. I am still hoping that is true. It took a long time for the production bikes to show up in the shops. They are beautiful to look at. I was OK with the wait because I wasn’t planning on buying a stock bike anyway.
Trek has a Project One system that let’s you build up a custom bike. You can paint it how you like and add on the components that you like. I was fine with waiting out the fall because Project One with the new Madonnes was supposed to turn on on January 1st.
Then I got an email stating that the launch was delayed until later in January. I figured that I could wait another few weeks no big deal.
Not so very many weeks ago Trek dropped the bomb on their biggest fans – the guys who held out for Project One. Trek isn’t going to turn on Project One until late summer.
End of summer is end of riding season in this area which means I would be putting off a new bike until spring 2009. I have to admit that my bike lust is turning away from Trek and back towards Strong or Calfee. I might even go with a Time since the shop in Salt Lake will build it up exactly like you want.
The thing is, they could release the site. They could give their fans something to cling to even if they put in bold letters on the site that they would not be able to ship until the later part of summer. They could at least let us see the bikes. They could let us build up a 10k monstrosity and then spend the summer trying to figure out which car/organ to sell to pay for it. Instead they leave us waiting once again only this time I am not sure I have the patience.
Way to screw up a great thing.