LeMond bikes at Tour De France

There are some pretty nice bikes in the 2004 LeMond bike catalog. Team Saturn has been winning races on them for awhile. Between their carbon and titanium frame and their all titanium frame you would figure that LeMond would love to sponsor a pro team in the tour to ride his bikes. I believe the last pro team to ride his bikes was the GAN team in 95 who later switched to Eddy Merckx bikes in 96. Just wondering what any one elses thoughts were on seeing a team in the tour riding his bikes.

 

Isn't Lemond part of the Trek empire now...if that i so, I wouldn't expect to see Trek put the Lemond frames in the pro peloton above the Trek OCLV carbon frames. There's a ton of competition to get your bikes under a team that rides the Tour de France...because now only the very top elite teams get in these days(aside from a few french teams)...which means that you have to pay up to get a team like T-Mobile to ride your new Giant TCR framesets....or perhaps U.S. Postal to ride the Trek 5900 or Madone. Don't think that Lance rides a Trek because he loves the bike above all others. I am a big fan of Juan Miguel Mercado....and for the last few years he rode Pinarello's for Banesto. Now he's with Quick Step-Davitamon and I think they rid Eddy Merckx bikes???? Anyway...he wasn't able to bring his beloved Pinarello with him. It's a money game these days. Lemond bikes made it into the peloton in the early 90's for only one reason..Lemond himself rode for the team...and perhaps that was part of his contract agreement. Obviously he was thinking ahead to life after cycling by developing a 'branded' bicycle company...just as Hincapie is doing today with his cycle clothing line. Lemond later sold all rights to Trek just as Rolf did with his wheel sets...now called Bontrager.

 

I was under the impression that Trek bought out Keith Bontrager and Rolf as two separate companies. Guess I was a bit confused.

 

Lemonds have been TREKs since about about mid 90s

 

"Now he's with Quick Step-Davitamon and I think they rid Eddy Merckx bikes???? Anyway...he wasn't able to bring his beloved Pinarello with him."
I´m sure he´s not weeping on the sweet Time frame.

 

If I'm not mistaken...the bontrager wheels use some vital patents that came with the Rolf acquisition. So maybe the new Bontrager wheels are a hybrid of the two original Bontrager/Rolfwheels???

 

I thought Rolf had a falling out with Trek, he has some new wheels out that are still under his name. Having a team ride your bikes, especially in the tour is great advertisement for your company. Remember when Pantani won in 98. Bianchi's sales were really up the following year. I wonder if there has been some pros that love a certain brand so much that they ride it but have another brands paint scheme and decals put on it. Food for thought.

 

The Bontrager wheels are enough different,that they do not violate the patents. Trek did not acquire Rolf,but had a business partnership and Kicked him out when the had what they needed.

 

Lance for one has done it for one. (He has had A Litespeed painted and decal-ed). Ulrich did it with his TT bike last year. (Forgot the brand, but you will probably see him do the same thing this year).

 

Richard Virenque rode a Litespeed titanium frame in the '97 TDF...although it had Peugeot decals....as Peugeot was bike sponsor for Team Festina.

 

Didn't Gerolsteiner ride Kleins in the Tour two years ago, even though Klein had already been been bought by Trek? I doubt Trek wants to see Lemond, Klein, and Fisher, virtual sub-brands of theirs, do anything but excel. So long as Trek continues to supply OCLVs to the world's most media-exposed team, I wager they'd love to see Klein and Lemond earn more top level team deals.

 

Hmmm, interesting information. In all my video viewing I never caught that. When and where does he ride it? I'll take another look.

 

He doesn't It's ancient history.Trek made him a proper TT bike.

 

What Ullrich rode in the 2003 TDF appears to have been a Bianchi Crono with team color scheme. AFAIK, it became publicly available only fairly recently:

http://www.bianchiusa.com/crono.html

 

I knew Richard Virenque (spotty Dick) rode a Litespeed in 97. All you have to do is look at the curved seat stays on the bike. Every bike manufacturer wants to put that one special decal on their bike,"Tour De France proven". Imagine what a blow it would be for your bike company if during the Tour, one of your popular riders frame broke on him during a important part of a stage. I have seen on my tour videos where Boardmans bar extensions broke on his time trial ride. How embarrassing.

 

the bianchi TT bikes were made by a swiss comany called Walser

http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/kona2003/survey03/oddbikes.html

Ullrich:
http://www.letour.fr/2003/galerie/galerie_12_10.html

click on the picture in the upper right of this next link and you can see Lothar Leder on the same bike with still a different company's decals on it (Cube). he's also got that funky non-upturned aero-bar that Ullrich was using..
http://www.xtri.com/article.asp?id=1108

 

It looks to be a Walser Model 5:

http://www.walser-cycles.ch/indexx.htm

The frame is not cheap at around 3000 Euros.

 

there's Jan on their gallery page:

http://www.walser-cycles.ch/Spcial/index.htm

and they make skeleton sleds too!

 

Wait a minute...

The bike in the photo with Ullrich riding it is indeed a Walser Model 5.

However, I have a photo of what is unquestionably Team Bianchi Cronos that is apparently from the 2003 TDF (possibly lifted from Cycling News), but I am having no luck attaching it.

 

the picture i linked was the Stage 12 time-trial. maybe he used the Bianchi Crono in the final individual or team TT?