Admission, I do love a good road bike. I don’t venture over here as often as I do in the MTB section but I do love a good road bike. But this is my first one posted here, so be gentle!
As with all my bikes, I really love the ones that bring back memories, and as I started riding properly in the 80s, bikes from the late 80s onwards are the ones I really love. The one that sticks in my mind the most is the 1989 bike that Greg Lemond rode. Bright neon colours, strange Scott handlebars, beautiful delta brakes. It’s one of those bike, along with Boardmans Lotus or Obrees ‘Old Faithful’, that even non-bike people of my age will remember. First race I saw it in was the Giro that year, then the tour where Greg won, but it stuck in my mind ever since.
Always wanted to build one but finding a great build candidate is tough. I would have loved a team HM carbon one, but that’s never going to happen as most of those bikes died or were bought up by wealthy Greg fanboys. So, when an original paint TVT92 HR came up on retrobike, I grabbed it quick:
Came from @Jill67 , a bike that had been used and loved by her and one that she wanted to go to a good home. It came with a mix of parts, some Campa, some Ultegra 600, most of which would not be used but all of which have found a new life in new homes. It had a funky ‘Bespoke’ decal on the downtube, apparently the retailer of the frame in the 90s.
The bike had been used as it should, but that meant on thing…seized parts - stem to steerer, seatpost to seattube, bb to bb shell. Plenty of plus-gas, gentle persuasion and a dremel got the parts apart, eventually. It needed some light restoration of the paint once the ‘Bespoke’ decal had been removed as there was some UV burn around the decals which 80s neon paint is famous for. Fortunately safety paint is a perfect match, so a few coats blended in and you’d never know!
Most of these bikes get done up as 1989 Tour de France replicas but I didn’t want to do that, partly because that’s boring, partly because I first saw this bike in the Giro and partly because a number of parts from the tour replica bikes carry a serious premium. So I decide it was going to be a Giro replica:
Key parts: Time Titan Magnesium pedals (grey and red for the Giro, not the white ones used later in the year), ciclomaster computer (black in Giro rather than the pink Tour one. Altimeter version used on mountain stages), 2nd gen delta brakes and c-record part , Campa Sigma Strada Hardox rims, Girardi saddle with snake skin pattern, Scott drop-ins with benotto tape and single Scott decals but without the pads and shims of the Tour bike, Rohloff chain, Sachs block, a 3TTT record stem which was replaced with a Scott stem for the Tour and finally a T.A. silver bottle cage mixed with a yellow Cobra type cage.
Details of exact parts taken from the Greg fan site http://www.greglemondfan.com/bikes/Building/TVT90/TVT90.html with Giro parts substituted
Parts were a bastard to find, especially bottle cages and computer, even simple things like getting the right gen of the front and rear mech proved a challenge and I’d love to upgrade a couple of parts condition-wise as so many other parts are NOS. Every part came from a different country along with the challenge that involved. Had to buy two sets of rims after one set went missing in Germany, bought 2 sets of hubs when the seller of the first could tell the difference between 36 and 32, pedals from Japan were missing bearings… eventually I got there, finally building the wheels up at 2am on Sunday. Worth it though.
Some parts have been amended from Greg’s spec just to suit me; frame size, cassette ratios, chainring size, not using vintage tyres that can’t be ridden & brake levers on the correct sides(!)
The bike itself is so light and solid. It will get ridden, just maybe when the rain stops as I don’t trust these 23mm tubs after years of using 28mm.
Frame: TVT 90 HR. Original paint, part original decals, part replacement Z Lemond decals
Fork: TVT Original paint, part original decals, part replacement Z Lemond decals
Headset: Campagnolo Record
Stem: 3TTT Record 84
Handlebar: Scott Drop-in
Bar Tape: Benotto
Brake Levers/Brifters: Campagnolo C-Record 4th gen
Brake Calipers: Campagnolo Delta 2nd Gen, 5 lever
Brake Pads: Campagnolo Delta
Brake Cables: Campagnolo C-Record pearl white
Shifters: C-Record Syncros levers with 8 speed cog Model A221
Front Derailleur: C-Record 2nd Gen
Rear Derailleur: C-Record
Derailleur Cables: C-Record
Cassette: Sachs Maillard 7 speed
Chain: Rohloff SLT-99
Cranks: C-Record A040 2nd Gen with easy off bolts swapped out for standard 15mm bolts
Chainrings: C-Record
Bottom Bracket: Record
Pedals: Time Titan Magnesium
Rims: Campagnolo Sigma Hardox 32
Hubs: C-Record 32
Hub Skewers: C-Record
Nipples: DT
Spokes: DT
Tyres: Vittoria Corsa
Saddle: San Marco Regal Girardi snakeskin
Seatpost: C-Record 2nd Gen
Bottle Cage: T.A. silver, Cobra yellow
Extras: Ciclomaster Altimeter computer, Sprite 211 number plate
As with all my bikes, I really love the ones that bring back memories, and as I started riding properly in the 80s, bikes from the late 80s onwards are the ones I really love. The one that sticks in my mind the most is the 1989 bike that Greg Lemond rode. Bright neon colours, strange Scott handlebars, beautiful delta brakes. It’s one of those bike, along with Boardmans Lotus or Obrees ‘Old Faithful’, that even non-bike people of my age will remember. First race I saw it in was the Giro that year, then the tour where Greg won, but it stuck in my mind ever since.
Always wanted to build one but finding a great build candidate is tough. I would have loved a team HM carbon one, but that’s never going to happen as most of those bikes died or were bought up by wealthy Greg fanboys. So, when an original paint TVT92 HR came up on retrobike, I grabbed it quick:
Came from @Jill67 , a bike that had been used and loved by her and one that she wanted to go to a good home. It came with a mix of parts, some Campa, some Ultegra 600, most of which would not be used but all of which have found a new life in new homes. It had a funky ‘Bespoke’ decal on the downtube, apparently the retailer of the frame in the 90s.
The bike had been used as it should, but that meant on thing…seized parts - stem to steerer, seatpost to seattube, bb to bb shell. Plenty of plus-gas, gentle persuasion and a dremel got the parts apart, eventually. It needed some light restoration of the paint once the ‘Bespoke’ decal had been removed as there was some UV burn around the decals which 80s neon paint is famous for. Fortunately safety paint is a perfect match, so a few coats blended in and you’d never know!
Most of these bikes get done up as 1989 Tour de France replicas but I didn’t want to do that, partly because that’s boring, partly because I first saw this bike in the Giro and partly because a number of parts from the tour replica bikes carry a serious premium. So I decide it was going to be a Giro replica:
Key parts: Time Titan Magnesium pedals (grey and red for the Giro, not the white ones used later in the year), ciclomaster computer (black in Giro rather than the pink Tour one. Altimeter version used on mountain stages), 2nd gen delta brakes and c-record part , Campa Sigma Strada Hardox rims, Girardi saddle with snake skin pattern, Scott drop-ins with benotto tape and single Scott decals but without the pads and shims of the Tour bike, Rohloff chain, Sachs block, a 3TTT record stem which was replaced with a Scott stem for the Tour and finally a T.A. silver bottle cage mixed with a yellow Cobra type cage.
Details of exact parts taken from the Greg fan site http://www.greglemondfan.com/bikes/Building/TVT90/TVT90.html with Giro parts substituted
Parts were a bastard to find, especially bottle cages and computer, even simple things like getting the right gen of the front and rear mech proved a challenge and I’d love to upgrade a couple of parts condition-wise as so many other parts are NOS. Every part came from a different country along with the challenge that involved. Had to buy two sets of rims after one set went missing in Germany, bought 2 sets of hubs when the seller of the first could tell the difference between 36 and 32, pedals from Japan were missing bearings… eventually I got there, finally building the wheels up at 2am on Sunday. Worth it though.
Some parts have been amended from Greg’s spec just to suit me; frame size, cassette ratios, chainring size, not using vintage tyres that can’t be ridden & brake levers on the correct sides(!)
The bike itself is so light and solid. It will get ridden, just maybe when the rain stops as I don’t trust these 23mm tubs after years of using 28mm.
Frame: TVT 90 HR. Original paint, part original decals, part replacement Z Lemond decals
Fork: TVT Original paint, part original decals, part replacement Z Lemond decals
Headset: Campagnolo Record
Stem: 3TTT Record 84
Handlebar: Scott Drop-in
Bar Tape: Benotto
Brake Levers/Brifters: Campagnolo C-Record 4th gen
Brake Calipers: Campagnolo Delta 2nd Gen, 5 lever
Brake Pads: Campagnolo Delta
Brake Cables: Campagnolo C-Record pearl white
Shifters: C-Record Syncros levers with 8 speed cog Model A221
Front Derailleur: C-Record 2nd Gen
Rear Derailleur: C-Record
Derailleur Cables: C-Record
Cassette: Sachs Maillard 7 speed
Chain: Rohloff SLT-99
Cranks: C-Record A040 2nd Gen with easy off bolts swapped out for standard 15mm bolts
Chainrings: C-Record
Bottom Bracket: Record
Pedals: Time Titan Magnesium
Rims: Campagnolo Sigma Hardox 32
Hubs: C-Record 32
Hub Skewers: C-Record
Nipples: DT
Spokes: DT
Tyres: Vittoria Corsa
Saddle: San Marco Regal Girardi snakeskin
Seatpost: C-Record 2nd Gen
Bottle Cage: T.A. silver, Cobra yellow
Extras: Ciclomaster Altimeter computer, Sprite 211 number plate
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