Crystalline – Project One ICON premium bike paint scheme

Crystals are a rider’s best friend

The one-of-a-kind Project One ICON Crystalline paint schemes are created organically by fusing thousands of tiny crystals into lattices that sparkle in any light. Inspired by a paint technique commonly used to customize motorcycles, muscle cars, and tricked out hot rods, Project One currently offers three Crystalline schemes — Red Viper Frost, Prismatic, and Arctic Haze. 

Just like the natural phenomena they replicate, each Crystalline bike comes with a story and palette of its own. While Red Viper Frost’s warm hues turned ice into fire at its Tour de France debut, Arctic Haze plays it cool with a majestic, multi-colored linear fade, and Prismatic stuns from every angle with its tiny, light refracting prisms. 

Available on all Trek premium road bike platforms.

The process

All the variables needed to perfect the Crystalline process are extremely temperamental. The temperature needs to hold steady in the low 70s. The activating agents need to be carefully applied by hand after the initial base coat has dried and the frame has been washed in warm water. Then, the frame needs to oxidize for just the right amount of time to allow crystal growth. And after all of this, there’s still no guarantee each crystal will form completely.

So, before this colorway could be introduced to the Project One ICON Series, painters had to figure out a way to consistently produce premium results with so many factors at play. 

First, they had to create their own crystal-forming activating agent and find special suppliers to source high quality paints that could withstand the concoction. Then, when crystals didn't form naturally in every spot on a bike, they had to hand-paint each one to complete the scheme and make sure every Crystalline bike meets Project One's premium artistic standards. 

All ICON Series paint schemes

See more from Project One