Hold tight, surely its price will shock you! Imagine you’re ordered to make a luxury bike like that, how would you design your product?

How expensive do you think a bicycle would cost? We assume the number is somewhere under N200,000, even the ones of expensive brands.

How about a bicycle that is also an artwork? N1 or N5 million. Well if that’s the case, all those 3 numbers did not even come close to the real price.

Believe it or not, this bike costs a whopping 200,000,000 Nairas! Just outrageous! What kind of the world am I living in?

To give you a perspective, the money used to buy this bike could cover at least 2 brand new Audi

And yes, the story is no lie. Called Butterfly Trek Madone, assembled and decorated by the artist Damien Hirst, it was sold to an auctioneer with exactly 500,000 dollars. The name was inspired by the process of making it in which they stick every single butterfly wing onto its rims and frames. To justify this wild price, the owner offered Lance Armstrong to take a ride in 2009.

Trek butterfly Madone

Lance Amstrong & Butterfly Trek Madone

To our judgment, this was actually a brilliant move from the creator. By attaching butterfly wings onto its frame, the owner, in a way, provoked the PETA organization, which is notorious for their open hostility towards anyone that they deemed doing harmful practice to animals. This, in turn, drew huge publicity for both PETA and the bike. One activist even called this bike a, quote, “barbaric” invention.

However, the creator stated that this is a symbol to welcome Lance Armstrong back to professional cycling. All of it added up and contributed to the final price of the bike, N200 millions, more than double that of the second most expensive bike – N80 million.

Sticking butterflies’ wings onto the bike is considered a provoking action to PETA

The image of the bike was released long before the auction, which proved our points of drawing publicity intention. This auction claimed to raise money for the cancer patient and consequently raise the awareness and advocacy for the disease. All the money gathered will be collected and contributed to Lance Armstrong’s fund.

In the end, the auction was considered a success, with the creations from more than 20 artists sold at a total of 1.25 million dollars, and the butterfly bike alone accounted for almost half of that. During the auction session, Lance Armstrong could not contain his excitement and went on Twitter to share the news with his fans right away.