Designing a Time Trial Bike certainly is not simple. According to Sagan, Trek's senior designer and Technology Principal, understanding aerodynamics is paramount to designing the leanest and fastest racing bike in the world. Trek's Time Trial bike frames are made of a complex composite material called OCLV(R) HC Honeycomb carbon. Modifying the frame design, even millimeters, is a time-intensive activity. With only a month to make the TTx a reality, the Trek team had to collapse modification time down as much as possible and ensure the precision engineering demanded for a racing bike stayed intact.

That's where think3 technology came into play. "We used thinkiD to make changes to the frame, which took minutes, when it typically takes hours," said Hans Eckholm, an industrial designer for Trek who worked on the TTx. "This was beneficial not only in the time it saved us in making changes, but also in the rapid team review process that was constantly occurring." The technology driving this type of speed is think3's Global Shape Modeling, called GSM3. GSM3 automatically makes geometry calculations under a shape change while maintaining design integrity. This typically is a manual process for the designer.

Trek's own race against the clock paid off and the TTx was delivered on time. It is one weapon in a quiver of different Trek competitive racing bikes used by Lance Armstrong and the Discovery Team during their attempt to win a historic seventh Tour de France, which began on July 2 and ends in Paris on July 24. The new bike helped to propel Armstrong and his Discovery Channel team to a team time trial (TTT) victory