Need help identifying this Bike (Audi Litespeed?)

[Ronibat]

Hey everyone, hope someone can help, i'm looking for any info people may have on my bike

I recently contacted the retrobike team regards a bike i have owned from new for the past 16-17 years, and they advised me too post it up on the forum, because if anyone will know what it is you are the best guys to ask.

Back in 1995 whilst i was a salesman for Audi we had a bike in the dealership.

The information i can remember was Audi had these bike's made to celebrate winning a Pikes Peak hill climb event
The Bike is Titanium and came with full Shimano XT which as you will see from the pics has been updated through the years
In 1996 I imported a set of RockShox Judy DH forks from the USA
The rear brakes were a BMX canti design which i hated at the time so had the rear brake brackets moved which was very costly as the bike was Titanium, I then fitted XT V brakes front and rear
In 1997 I fitted Middleburn Cranks and a new stem

from what i can find on the internet Audi have used Litespeed to make frames for them in the past

onto the pics

Below is a picture of the welds on the frame as i am told this can tell you a lot about who or where it was made

Thanks in advance
Andy

 

[hamster]

I'm no expert on the specifics but the welds don't look nearly as good as those on my Litespeed road bike.

 

[mikee]

I'm no expert on the specifics but the welds don't look nearly as good as those on my Litespeed road bike.

+1 on that
of asian origin ?
tho in the mid 90's there was a lot of easten block ti stuff kicking about
tho they were usually nicely welded
some more pics might help

when you say you had the bmx brake mount removed , do you mean
a u-brake mount ?

 

[JeRkY]

A Ubrake would suggest the frame is much older than the 1995 date you suggest. It would take it back to 90/91 at the very latest I would of thought. Agree the welds don't look tidy enough to be from any of the better known US Ti builders.

 

[T'boo Ted]

last time audi won the pikes peak was like '87...

is it just me or does it not look very happy with those forks on it?

 

[hamster]

Looking at it more closely the dropouts look wrong for Litespeed - my road bike is a 94, and the dropouts don't have that radius over the thickness as appears in the photo.
Litespeed also shot-in the seatstays to the back of the seat tube, not obliquely to the side IIRC.

 

[stevec1975]

If that's a Litespeed, I'll eat my hat..

Welding looks dodgy to say the least..

 

[Ronibat]

Wow guys great response, I'm not trying to say it is a litespeed just that all google searches have come back with litespeed

The rear brake sounds like the above u brake if any specific pics would help just let me know.

The bike was being displayed on some of the cars in the dealership at the time, your right the could have had it for 3+ years before selling it to me

Any more help would be great

 

[hamster]

I think its safe to assume it's late 80's /early 90's, which would fit with a U-brake (few around by 1993) and the M730 XT bits.

At that time there was a lot of Ti stuff coming out of Russia (ex-military Ti fabricators for example) and it was before the Chinese got in on the act.

So my suspicion is that it is Russian. There ware a lot of nice frames being built there at the time. The attention to detail on the dropouts fits with that, along with the decent but slightly untidy welding is typically Russian: functional but a slightly rough at the edges finish.