Monday, November 2, 2009

Lance Armstrong's Giro Bikes Auctioned



Lance Armstrong's custom designed bikes used at the 2009 Giro d'Italia, the 100th anniversary of the race, were auctioned at Sotheby's in New York City yesterday to raise money for his LiveStrong cancer foundation. With Armstrong having said that he will skip the Giro this year in favor of the Tour of California this could become the only bikes ever used by him in a Giro d'Italia.

"So incredibly humbling," Armstrong wrote on Twitter after the auction.

The Giro d'Italia bikes were designed by artists SHEPARD FAIREY (the man behind the Barack Obama 'Hope' poster )and KENNY SCHARF.

For Lance’s Trek Madone road bike, Shepard Fairey had created a vibrant homage to Lance’s cancer fighting foundation while including ancient patterning in honor of Italy’s rich architectural details. Sold at auction for $110,000.

NYC Pop Art legend Kenny Scharf took a totally different approach to Lance’s Trek TTX time trial cycle and created a “lightspeed” space bike. Sold at auction for $45,000.

Five other bikes were on the auction block, with all seven bikes raising a total of $1,255,000! The highest bidding was for the Damien Hirst designed bike that Armstrong rode on the final stage of this year's Tour de France. The butterfly decorated bike sold for $500,000.

Photos: Scharf TT bike, Fairey road bike; both used in the 2009 Giro d'Italia. A video of the making of the Fairey bike is in this previous blog entry.

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal welcome; contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 1,000 stories in this blog; the search feature to the right works best for finding things in the blog.

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