Testing outdated crap the bikes of yesteryear is a dangerous endeavor: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 trip, I observed a wiggly sensation in my proper pedal:

At first I believed my cleat was worn or one thing, however after I lastly stopped to research 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 known as for assist, and inside quarter-hour a chopper arrived and airlifted me to security:

Simply kidding:

I used to be capable of trip it house, it was high-quality.

As I’ve what some may take into account “too many” highway bikes in the mean time, 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 received 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 in regards to the Litespeed, and the LeMond is type 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 may possibly 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 exhausting 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 maintaining you contemporary on the finish of a Tour de France stage. Right here’s some extra on the LeMond geometry:

Once more, I’m unsure the 72.5 diploma seat tube angle on the LeMond versus the 73 diploma angle on the Litespeed is in any means detectable by the human scranus, or that it even means something whenever 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–no less than as a lot because the Litespeed, and perhaps extra–so maybe Crabon + Titanium + Three Additional 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 basic in spirit:

It even has a standard threadless headset, and the “customized LeMond headset” they check with was a characteristic on the all-titanium Victoire:

I think this may very well be the final time we’ll see a significant American bicycle firm throw this a lot right into a highway 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 facility, they usually have been so flush due to Lance Armstrong’s success they may open their very own personal 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 actually the Nice American Dentist Bike.