Testing previous 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 after I lastly stopped to analyze I found I’d loosened the threaded insert within the crankarm with my huge energy output:
Following Previous Crap Check 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 in a position to journey it residence, it was wonderful.
As I’ve what some would possibly take into account “too many” street bikes in the meanwhile, I made a decision this was an indication that I ought to lastly field up the LeMond and return it Basic 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 present it up. Certainly, I’m nonetheless unhappy concerning the Litespeed, and the LeMond is type of prefer it got here again in to me in a lighter, extra spectral type and I used to be in a position to really feel its light caress as soon as extra:
Its contact is so light it will possibly solely be measured in DFUs:
[BKJimmy]
So as an alternative of boxing it up I re-installed the backup crank:
As all the time 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 definitely 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 consider 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 manner detectable by the human scranus, or that it even means something while you take into consideration 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–at the least as a lot because the Litespeed, and possibly 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 seek advice from was a function on the all-titanium Victoire:
I think this might be the final time we’ll see a significant American bicycle firm throw this a lot right into a street bike–and it’s undoubtedly the final time a significant 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 had been so flush because of Lance Armstrong’s success they may open their very own non-public Moots on a whim. It doesn’t matter what it’s possible you’ll 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.