When the Discovery Channel Team's management announced that they were ending operations after the 2007 season in August, Trek bikes was left without a top level professional team and Trek dealers (myself included) began to wonder whether anyone would be riding the bikes we're selling next season.
I started to suspect that they might be a match for the Astana team after BMC Bikes dumped the team late in the summer due to the doping scandals that hit the team during and shortly following this year's Tour de France. There were very few other teams at that level that didn't already have a bike supplier and Trek's options seemed pretty slim. Shortly after that, Johan Bruyneel (former director for US Postal/Discovery Channel) took on responsibilities for Astana and the possibility of Trek becoming the official bike supplier seemed a much better prospect.
That possibility finally became reality with the announcement of the partnership last night. Astana (including last year's Tour champ Alberto Contador and podium finisher Levi Leipheimer) will be perched atop the all new Trek Madone 6.9 Pro model and Trek dealers everywhere can look forward to having the bikes represented at the biggest races in the world. Trek will also be the clothing supplier which hopefully means that their clothing line will step up in a big way after being pretty lackluster in terms of quality up to this point.
Now let's just hope that no further drug scandals crop up for the team or the sponsor...
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