Trek Bicycle Corporation signed a long-term licensing agreement with Greg LeMond, the 3-time Tour de France champion and the first American to win the Tour—to design, build, and distribute LeMond Racing Cycles. 1995 was also the year Trek opened a state-of-the-art assembly facility in Whitewater, Wisconsin, leaving the Waterloo location free to focus solely on frame production. In 1997, Trek helped sign former world road race champion (1993) Lance Armstrong to the Trek-sponsored United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team. Armstrong won his first Tour de France in 1999 aboard a Trek 5500, becoming the first American to win the Tour on an
Trek Bicycle Corporation subsidiary of Roth Corporation, a Milwaukee-based appliance distributor. In early 1976, with a payroll of five, Trek started manufacturing steel touring frames in Waterloo, Wisconsin, taking aim at the mid to high-end market dominated by Japanese and Italian made models. Trek built nearly 900 custom hand-brazed framesets that first year, each selling for just under $200. Later that same year Trek Bicycle was incorporated. In 1977, Penn Cycle in Richfield, Minnesota became the first Trek dealer in the world. Within three years, Trek sales approached $2,000,000. Hampered without additional manufacturing capacity, Trek sales plateaued in the late 1970s. In just