Westward Ho! – Bike Snob NYC

It’s never easy losing a testcycle, and this morning I bid farewell to the LeMond, which is beginning it journey westward to Bainbridge Island, WA where it will rejoin its siblings at Classic Cycle:

I received the bike back in March of last year:

And I have very much enjoyed what in many ways represents a high water mark in the evolution of the road racing bicycle. (Apart from the relative paucity in the tire clearance department, of course.) When this bike was brand new, which was in 2003, I was still very much a Racing Fred, but a bike like this was beyond my meager means. So for Classic Cycle to make the dream bikes of the era available to me for my delectation has been of a dream come true.

Yet alas, all dreams must come to an end. I had a hard time returning this fine bicycle, and on numerous occasions I seriously contemplated not returning it at all and formally acquiring it. But like an ice cream cone, the LeMond is something of a fair-weather confection, and it’s that much easier to resist such a temptation in the dead of winter. When the days are short and the temperature is frigid, boxing up the bike finally seems like a reasonable alternative to riding it.

This of course is not the first time I’ve bid adieu to a fine early-aughts titanium bicycle:

It’s probably foolish to compare two bicycles with different geometries and parts that I never even rode back-to-back. However, my aesthetic preference for simple decals and all-metal frames notwithstanding, my overall impression is that the LeMond had a more pleasant ride quality even than the Litespeed. I try to avoid princess-and-the-pea attempts to parse the way a bike feels, and I know all the reasons frame material has little to do with it, but the LeMond is one of those bikes that makes me think they’re really is something to it, and that the way they used the carbon and the titanium together really worked. Is it the the magic mix of frame materials coupled with the much-vaunted “LeMond geometry?” Or is it largely psychological?

Either way, in returning another fine titanium bicycle, and one I probably liked even better than the first, I can’t help wondering if I’m making the same mistake twice–though I also admit it’s easy to be cavalier when I know I’ve got this:

No doubt when it’s shorts-and-jersey weather once again I’ll feel the urge to ride a racy bike with skinny tires and miss the LeMond, but at least I’ll have this:

I never thought I’d keep the Y-Foil this long. However, unlike the LeMond, which makes itself apparent immediately, the Y-Foil is an enigma, and one that contains multitudes, and so I must continue to plumb its depths. The suspension fork was only the beginning, and somehow I suspect that to truly understand this bike is to unlock the secrets of the universe:

Or, if you prefer, the bike industry sure did some wacky stuff before they figured out road bikes should be able to fit wider tires. It’s easy to confuse workarounds and profundity.