teterider

Take a look, this is a company photo of the 2003 Tete De Course, the first year the "spine" frame with OCLV and titanium came out. Prior to 2003 the Tete De Course was all titanium in 2001 and 2002. The model name is forthcoming in the Triomphe series all carbon frames.

Look at the carbon seat stays. They are not the standard wishbone design that we all know from the spine design frames, but appear to be separate all the way to the seat tube.
I looked at the 2003 Saturn Team version and it used the normal wishbone stays.

Has anyone seen this design in person, or did it only exist in pre-production versions?

mike9903

Ask Rad he may know. . .

55/Rad

I've never seen one with the split stays - mine is an '04 with the wishbone. I wonder if that is just a mocked up photo?

55/Rad

cycle17

A guy in my club has a tete with the spilt stays....it's all titanium. He bought it from my LBS a few years back. It doesn't have that color scheme on it though.

NealH

Nice looking bike. I much prefer split stays on modern race bikes because for one, they look better (this is a preference thing) and, they often will take larger tires than the wishbone stays will allow. And, tires are everything when it comes to the ride.

But that's nice looking bike there.

head_wind

If I recall right, when I bought my '01 Victoire the Tete De Course existed.
The only differences were Ultegra vs. Dura Ace.

teterider

OK, let me straighten out the confusion. "Tete De Course" has been a model name Lemond has used since 2001, across 3 design changes including the forthcoming triomphe carbon model. As clearly shown by the picture, I am referring to the OCLV/Ti "spine" design, which was offered from model year 2003 through 2006. I will edit my post to more clearly point this out.

Serpico

I've never seen a spine bike with that typeface on the downtube. Looks like a preview/demo bike possibly, or as someone above said, a photochop.

teterider

Well I thought I'd throw in another rare Lemond just for nostalgia, the V2 Boomerang.

This is the only pic (not stock obviously) I could find of it, unless I scan the magazine ad I have.

teterider

Here is a pic of Chris Honer's 2003 bike, with the old all caps typeface.