Testing outdated crap the bikes of yesteryear is a dangerous endeavor:
That is true whether or not the bike is a 1916 Mead Ranger, or a 2003 LeMond Tete de Course:
I used to be reminded of this when, on a latest journey, I seen a wiggly sensation in my proper pedal:
At first I assumed my cleat was worn or one thing, however once I lastly stopped to analyze I found I’d loosened the threaded insert within the crankarm with my large energy output:
Following Outdated Crap Take a look at Pilot protocol, I lit flares and referred to as for help, and inside quarter-hour a chopper arrived and airlifted me to security:
Simply kidding:
I used to be capable of journey it dwelling, it was superb.
As I’ve what some would possibly think about “too many” highway bikes for the time being, I made a decision this was an indication that I ought to lastly field up the LeMond and return it Traditional Cycle. So I took the bike outdoors and hosed it down. Then I retrieved the field it had arrived in and bought able to pack it up. I laid out all of the protecting foam and the bubble wrap. I seemed on the bike. I seemed on the field. Then I seemed on the bike once more.
And I simply couldn’t do it.
What can I say? Regardless of my affinity for metal bicycles I’ve been seduced by this delightfully decadent vélo de dentiste and I’m not but prepared to offer it up. Certainly, I’m nonetheless unhappy concerning the Litespeed, and the LeMond is form of prefer it got here again in to me in a lighter, extra spectral kind and I used to be capable of really feel its light caress as soon as extra:
Its contact is so light it will probably solely be measured in DFUs:
[BKJimmy]
So as an alternative of boxing it up I re-installed the backup crank:
As at all times I used loads of Dumonde Tech lube, and right here’s some gratuitous product placement:
It’s nice stuff and it rhymes with the bike!
As for why I just like the bike a lot, it’s laborious to say. Is it the fragile dance of the carbon and titanium? Is it the biting-into-a-baby-carrot crispness of the Dura-Ace 7700 shifters? Or is it the fabled LeMond geometry?
[PDF]
As a Rivendell rider I’m actually a believer within the energy of lengthy chainstays, however the “barely longer” chainstays on the LeMond are precisely three (3) millimeters longer than those on the Litespeed, so I can’t think about it’s making an enormous distinction right here, not to mention the figuring out think about conserving you recent on the finish of a Tour de France stage. Right here’s some extra on the LeMond geometry:
Once more, I’m undecided the 72.5 diploma seat tube angle on the LeMond versus the 73 diploma angle on the Litespeed is in any method detectable by the human scranus, or that it even means something once you take note of the fore and aft adjustment vary of the saddle (or put a zero-setback seatpost on it):
Then once more, I do love the bike–a minimum of as a lot because the Litespeed, and perhaps extra–so maybe Crabon + Titanium + Three Further Millimeters of Chainstay = Scranial Bliss. And regardless of being fairly an unique bike for its time, there’s completely nothing proprietary about it, and in that sense it’s traditional in spirit:
It even has a standard threadless headset, and the “customized LeMond headset” they consult with was a function on the all-titanium Victoire:
I believe this could possibly be the final time we’ll see a serious American bicycle firm throw this a lot right into a highway bike–and it’s positively the final time a serious American bicycle firm may have a devoted titanium manufacturing facility in it (all whereas additionally making bikes themselves out of crabon, aluminum, and metal). Trek in 2003 was mainly Willy Wonka’s chocolate manufacturing unit, they usually have been so flush because of Lance Armstrong’s success they might open their very own non-public Moots on a whim. It doesn’t matter what you might consider it, we will by no means see its like from a mainstream bike firm once more:
It’s really the Nice American Dentist Bike.
