They agreed they would each make a list. Separately. It was, Bevil later said, a bright, exciting time. With funding from Roth secured, the future was wide open. But what were they going to call this thing?
They approached the question, as they often did, from opposite ends.
Bevil’s initial list leaned toward imagination: Kestrel, Odyssey, and others he would later describe as “moderately acceptable,” names that sounded like movement or myth. The list Dick was making at the same time spoke another language: United Bicycles, Eagle, National, American Bicycle Company.
The difference between the lists said everything about the men. Bevil thought like a storyteller; Dick, like a financier. One trusted feeling and beauty, the other leaned toward structure and reason. And yet, their two ways of thinking had found each other, and together they worked.
The story of how Trek got its name
How Trek got its name
Around that time, Bevil was spending long days with Tom French, the former Stella’s employee who was there the night Dick Nolan first showed how a frame could be built. French, who would later join Trek in sales and marketing, was the one who planted the seed: “Have you considered the name Trek?” he asked Bevil. “You know, it’s a South African word.”
Bevil had been born there, but he hadn’t thought of it. The word stuck with him. He added it to his list.
Later, Dick and Bevil met between Milwaukee and Madison, their familiar middle ground, at the Pine Knoll Supper Club in Lake Mills. They sat across from each other, lists unfolded on the table between them
Bevil read Dick’s first and — he couldn’t help it — he laughed. “You’re not serious,” he said. It was impossible not to see the contrast. Bevil’s list was romantic. Dick’s was pragmatic, unadorned, direct.
Between them on the table lay the gulf of two very different minds. Maybe, in that moment, they both understood it. Their partnership’s power would not come from agreement, but from the energy created by the different ways each saw the world.
Still, it was ultimately Dick’s decision. It was his money. As he scanned Bevil’s list, he stopped on one word: Trek.
The name was short, simple, and impossible to mistake. It may not have been on their minds then, but it was also international, a name that could be spoken in any language.
Dick’s instincts had favored something patriotic, something stable. But to his credit, and to his endless generosity, he chose Trek. At the Pine Knoll, he trusted something that went against every business instinct he had: a feeling that this was the right word for the road ahead.
The decision was quiet, but it carried weight. It was, in its way, a perfect compromise that bridged the distance between them. It carried Bevil’s creativity and Dick’s precision. Art and order.
It was a name that could travel anywhere. It meant forward motion. It meant journey. And that was exactly what they were beginning.