Mansontm

Beauty from the past..
I have this Maillot Jaune designed by Calfee in Gold/faded purple color..

speedevil 

I have two Lemonds, and 1997 Zurich, and a 2001 Alpe d'Huez. The Alpe was my first complete restoration with a full Campagnolo Daytona group, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out. Both of these have a carbon unicrown fork, which isn't necessarily my favorite aesthetic, but the ride quality is superb. Climbing out of the saddle is not as cramped as some other frames I've ridden, and descending is confidence inspiring.

The Alpe is Reynolds 853 and it rides very well. The Lemond geometry tends to have longer top tubes than a lot of other frames, given the same seat tube length. The geometry seems to fit me quite well. I rode it in Chillicothe last year when we rode out to Tanner's Orchard for a donut.

The 1997 is just beginning the build process now. it will get a full DA 7800 group. Both of these will be at Coppi this year.

jamesdak 

Right now I've got 6 of them in here. One's out on loan. Gotta love a Lemond!

Kuromori

Since when were the Treks only made with 2 or 3 Reynolds tubes? 853 main triangle, and 525 or 725 stays, so that's 7 tubes right there.

calamarichris

I don't care if it's considered classic or vintage, I love my '96 Lemond so hard. (Seriously, Buffalo-Bill hard.) I try to save it for low-humidity days and clean it carefully after every ride. I always chuckled at people who said some steel frames feel livelier than others, but that's exactly how this bike feels. It looks odd IMO with the seat pushed so far forward, but the first time I got this bike above 40mph on a mountain descent, a lightbulb when off: Oooooohhhhh!
It's a magic bike. (Extra credit reading.) I have other bikes that I love, but they all feel a little sluggish and unrefined after spending a day on this Lemond.

verktyg 

James, there's one more calling your name. It needs love too.

My 1991 Greg Lemond 56cm TeamZ Billato built bike with a 1991 9 Speed Campy C-Record gruppo, Delta brakes and a Columbus TSX frame.



I bought a pair of these in 2009 from a well know LA collector. I've never ridden either one. The one pictured above has maybe 200 miles on it, the other one has never been on the ground.



These fall into my "too pretty to ride" category. I like the bikes that I do ride to have a little patina so I don't worry about them getting dirty or scratched.

Now that I've retired, I'm going to be thinning out the herd: N=Too Many.

Many of the Italian made Billato Lemonds imported into the US were painted by Ten Speed Drive Imports down in Florida. A woman named Sue supposedly painted a lot of those frames.

BTW, the Della Santa built TeamZ frames had dark blue on top, yellow in the middle and red on the bottom.



My ridding buddy has a 2005 or 2006 Lemond Croix De Fer. I rode it around the block one time and the rear end was probably the most responsive of any bike I've ever been on. I stomped on it and it sprung right back. The carbon fork... super dead feel. I have to say that was the first and only time I've ridden a bike with a carbon fork. (maybe last - Ned Lud)



verktyg

GrainBrain

A team Z would be amazing, but I love my Zurich built under Trek. Awesome to think it was production built in the Midwest now that everything has moved overseas.

silent_chief

I love them. I have a poprad converted to a flat bar with v brakes and a deore triple groupset. Great commuter and kid hauler. My ti victoire with a modern 11 speed 105 just feels like a weekend fighter jet. I'm a bigger guy and I think the longer top tube gives a more relaxed cruising feel. I also think the frames are so timeless and functional in style that the modern components don't feel at all out of place and they perform as good as they look.

jamesdak 

Yep, so love me some Lemonds. Here's what I see special about each one I have.

Trek Era:

2000 Zurich - Just fast and comfortable. Many of my PR's are on this bike. It's also been out on "loan" for a few years now so I may never actually see it back.

2003 Tourmelet - Picked this up locally from an old racer that had built it up with with a nice mix of Dura Ace/Ultegra 10 speed parts. This is my smallest one at a 53cm frame but flat out flies each time I take it out. I've been "testing" a set of Wickwerks 53/34 chainrings on this for the owner of Wickwerks for a few years now. This is one of my long climbing bikes.

2006 Versailles - Actually just picked this up this winter and haven't test road it yet. I'm planning on getting it out this weekend. I upgraded it with a Wickwerks triple chainrings setup on a FSA crank and then mostly Dura Ace 10 speed parts. It's also got my November Nimbus Ti wheels on it. It's currently the lightest in my stable...but barely.

1999ish Custom Lemond - I'm pretty sure this is a 1999 Zurich frame due to the chromed rear dropouts. It's one of a handful that Greg had done up himself for friends in the industry. The bike is also in a picture with Greg and the Gentleman's Poodle and Grouse Society guys in the 2000 catalog. I have the full rider history from the guy Greg gave it to until it got to me. This has been one of my fastest bikes since getting it.

Billato Built:

1989 Ventoux - Built up for comfort on long rides. Ultegra 9 speed with some nice fat Veloflex Tubulars on a set of Team Saturn training wheels. Brooks saddle and cushy bar tape. This one has kept me fresh on long rides and allowed me to post my century PR on it.

Early 90s Maillot Juane - A rocket ship. Sporting some sweet Campagnolo 8 speed gear. I upgraded this with a modern, light wheelset and modified a 9 speed cassette to work as an 8 speed on it. This one has my current PR for my usual 25 mile route. It's a TSX tubed bike and seems to respond under me better than anything I have. So late in the rides as I tire and as my concentration falls off this one is still able to carry me at a fast pace.

1995 (I think) GLx Team Gan version - Sporting a Campagnolo Racing T setup. Great little climber yet super fast on the flats too. Out of all the Lemonds this is the squarest frame with the top tube only being about 1/4 inch longer than the seat tube. This appears to be one of the limited editions of this frame but I have not been able to confirm that. It's also built with an Excell GLx tubeset vs the Columbus tubings of the other Billato bikes.

And some pics!











This was taken before the upgrade.

jamesdak 

Maybe we can talk soon if the tax man is nice to me.

Johnnybikes

I bought this a few months ago, it looked like it had been lingering on craigslist for a while, surprisingly. I made the guy an offer because there was no price and he took it. It's seems to be a 93-94 team gan. It's equipped with Mavic FD,RD, crankset, and seatpost, Miche headset and those funky Greg Lemond handlebars. The shifters need attention, the FD is a lever shift and the RD is an 8sp RSX brifter. It's a 58cm, just my size

jamesdak 

^ Nice!!

bark_eater 

Cough... cough...

59mm Lemond Tourmalet

Sorry must be all the dust this bike is collecting.

nlerner

I really like riding my '97 Lemond Buenos Aires. I bought it for cheap on local CL, converted it to 650B x 38mm wheels w/ some homebrew chainstay dimpling, set it up with a Shimergo drivetrain and just have ridden the heck out of it in the last several years. One problem at the start, which might be getting worse, is that there might be a crack on the downtube coming from the water bottle braze ons. Here are a couple of photos from both sides, taken a couple of months ago:





I don't know how deep that crack goes or if it's propagated over the time I've had the bike, but now at least I have these pics for reference. I also picked up a Lemond Zurich frameset from around the same year, and the plan is to move all the component over to the Zurich when/if the Buenos Aires experiences catastrophic failure.

embankmentlb

jamesdak 

Dude, retire that frame. It's not worth the medical bills you're gonna have when it breaks on you.

GrainBrain

I had read somewhere that my '96 Zurich has the 853 main but the stays aren't even Reynolds? I thought I had seen them labeled as just chromo. Doesn't bother me at all.

DiabloScott

Indeed Greg won the 83 Worlds on a stock Gitane, and finished with a rear wheel from Campagnolo neutral race support.

Kuromori

Frame tubes are ~0.6mm thick in the middle, not thick enough for a crack to be just on the surface. Even then surface cracks are stress risers and lead to bigger cracks down the line. It looks unsafe and a disaster waiting to happen.

Kuromori

It was only the first couple of years when the 853 Zurich was sold alongside True Temper frames so they got True Temper stays. By 1998 when Trek-Lemond had gone full Reynolds across the board it was 853 main tubes and Reynolds stays until they had supply chain issues and went with True Temper across the board.

gugie 

I've seen that bike twice in the past year and a half, and it sure seems like the crack is getting bigger - and I'm pretty sure it's a crack.

nlerner

Wow, thanks for the concern about my well being! But, really, if that tube fails, it would likely not mean total separation, just enough for the two halves to move independently, and I don't imagine that would mean much more than a certain amount of instability and lousy front shifting. Then again, this is also my gravel bike, so it does tend to get ridden hard!

verktyg 

During Gitane's glory years - late 70's early 80's - ALL of the steel team frames were custom built in house. That included bikes for Hinault, Lemond and Fignon. That info is straight from the horses mouth's.

Here's my 1984 Gitane Team Pro with Spidel components. The frame is Columbus SL tubing. I used 105 cranks instead of the correct 106/107 cranks so that I could use a 37T small chain ring. The 106/107 cranks were 144 BCD so a 42T (rare 41T) was the smallest chain ring with those cranks.




@DiabloScott "Indeed Greg won the 83 Worlds on a stock Gitane, and finished with a rear wheel from Campagnolo neutral race support."

With the possible exception of domestiques, all of the team bikes were custom built to fit the riders - maybe not to their specs - but Gitane was into aero in the early 80's so ergonomics was a big issue for them.

@embankmentlb Lemond had Della Santa build a lot of frames for him, even as late as the TeamZ era.

1977 US Junior Championship



1978 Cat's Hill Crit in Los Gatos, CA where he blew off National Senior Champion Wayne Stetina. Lemond was Junior World Champion at the time.



Here's a Della Santa 1990 TeamZ build sheet for the last frame Roland built for Lemond. He took the first 12 frames. This would have been frame #13 and was built right when Della Santa had a falling out with the Lemond clan.



I had a chance to buy that frame back in 2009 from the same collector that I bought the 2 Billato TeamZ bikes pictured above from. It was unpainted but with all of the decals and provenance. He wanted $700 for the frame plus it would have cost me another $700+ to have Joe Bell paint it in the Della Santa TeamZ colors. I had just blown my mad money plus I had too many projects in the works so I passed.

verktyg

verktyg 

You don't want to be a candidate for the Darwin Award do you?

.6mm tubing has a wall thickness less than 1/32"....

I've seen down tubes fail on bikes with thicker tubing than yours - the whole frame can twist and the top tube fails too. Less than 3/4" of 1/32" thick tubing is all that's holding the frame together!

This is an aluminum frame but it can happen with steel too.



If you decide to continue riding this frame, at least find an ER with good a orthopedic surgeon, neurologist, reconstructive plastic surgeon on call plus you may need to find an oral surgeon too.

It's like playing Russian Roulette with a loaded Colt 45!

Hey! Watch this!

@nlerner We're gonna miss your 11,936 posts....

verktyg

nlerner