Vintage Lemond, what year?

[crimgrey]

Greetings, I was referred to you to possibly help identify the year of my bicycle.
I don't have personal pics, however, I managed to find an identical photo of the same bike I have... it's the only picture I've seen of another of this type.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.ph ... +what+year

Some details are as follows:
Columbus TSX tubing
Shimano 600 head
Brake bridge engraved 'hand made' and 'Greg Lemond'
'SILVA' engraved underneath brake bridge
Serial # is 6 numbers, stamped underneath, with 58 and TX stamped as well

Thanks for your help

 

[lewisfoto]

There were a couple of builders making Lemond frames including Roland Della Santa. I asked a well informed friend if there was any way to tell the Della Santa frames and he basically said no. You could try contacting them directly.

 

[matthew71]

Columbus tsx was not made for many years, a quick google search came up with 1989,so about there I guess.pro level tubing a bit better than SLX if I remember correctly

 

[Matt_wood55]

Late 1990, early 1991 for me. Like the chap in the link says, the decal details 2 TdF victories, so post July 1991 it would have been 3!!

 

[Penfold6290]

Surely that would make it post July 1989 and pre July 1990 as Greg won his third TdF in 1990?

 

[oonaff]

like a lot of frames bianchi inc the serial numbers werent really recorded and if they were , where ?
i would say billato brothers built ,but im not sure about the carbon fork.
all the other tsx's ive seen the forks were steel with GL engraved on the side of the crown.
having said that if they are carbon they must be early to be threaded?can you thread older 1" carbon forks ?
plus i have never seen that colour sheme.[pardon' thats not even his frame in the pic, he does not
mention a fork]
Shimano rear drop outs ? i would like to see a pic please
i read del a santa made some [explanation shimano drop outs?] i also read a while ago scapin in california ?
or was it just that paint scheme that was meant for the american market ?
greg whats with the lower body cast ? did you have spinal surgery ?

 

[crimgrey]

The bike has Campy drop outs... the original fork (when I purchased in 1999) did have 'GL' down the sides, but these were replaced by Winwood carbons. Been reading that Lemond's importer was in Florida, 'Ten Speed Drive' or something to that effect, and all the U.S. Billato-made frames passed through this shop. Greg didn't like the quality of the paint in Europe (at least Italian) so he had the frames sent over and thus several different paint schemes were born, including this rare baby blue fading into yellow specimen. It's also my understanding this particular frame was a follow up 'replica' to the Team Z bikes, of which very few were produced. I do believe rBoTMWinner might be correct in guessing the year produced, with only two tours mentioned on the TDF decal (w/out years, the decal also lists the Jr. & World Championships w/out years). Perhaps one day there will be a reference online regarding vintage Lemond serial #'s, in the meantime it's a bit of a guessing game. However, not sure the Billato operation would still have serial # history on every frame produced.

 

[oonaff]

hi thats ok then. you got your year of make and i continue learning about gregs steel bikes
I wanted to get back into road cycling and dug out my old steel racer[1993/94 lemond gan glx i replaced my veloce 8 sp ergo and chorus hubbed wheels and fitted a time carbon fork with a head stem and centaur 10sp with chorus carbon ergos. i then joined retro bike forum and realised that i may have made a mistake and that building it with correct/year of use parts[a gan team issue] would be more satisfying.mavic zap with bespoke lithium battery,s would have been brilliant!
recently here a billato bike came up and was a great thread! they also made steel frames for' look' &
marin'
billato brothers are no longer buiding bikes unfortunately....but we got ours !