Lemond ID help, please

[Rezillo]

I've recently bought an old Lemond frameset and am having trouble founding out just what it is. Its features most resemble a pre-Trek Lemond but don't match any particular frame that I can track down, either pre Trek or later. The overall paint scheme is very similar to the Lemond Team Gan replicas and the GL/GLXs but has a deeper blue and glossier lacquer, cheapish-looking surface-mounted decals and no Gan, GL or GLX logos.

The BB is Italian and lugged but no other joints are lugged. They are, however, very well finished. The seat post/stay junction seems different to other Lemonds. The brake bridge has no "hand made" or Silv stamping to indicate Bilato bros origin.

The top tube has internal brake cable routing.

The frame material is Excell Ultra. I can't find any reference to this type. The Gans and others of the period were Excell GLX. Excell appears to have been a rather eccentric small company that specced and sourced its steel tubing from Mannesman. It marketed a number of tubing variants but I can't find an Ultra one.

I did find references to team Lemonds having some lugged and some tig-welded frames but there's no mount for a team number and the logo finish is fairly cheap. The frame weight excluding forks is 1.96kgs, so it is neither particularly heavy nor light. I did find a reference to Lemond making a number of odds and sods from remaining components before Trek took over - perhaps it was a frame for evaluation that was built up and sold on?

Any opinion appreciated - thanks.

John

 

[lewisfoto]

Seems to me like you already have it figured out, some type of team Gan frame. The combination of lugged and fillet brazed construction is unusual but Lemond employed many different frame builders, including Roland Dela Santa, so maybe this was some prototype?

 

[Rezillo]

Thanks - I'm thinking it was a one-off, sprayed up to the colour scheme being used in the workshops at the time.

I'm curious about the tubing. The only reference I've found to Excell Ultra is a flickr photo of a very battered Lemond frame with the same sticker on it. The colour scheme of that frame is roughly similar but not the same and the frame itself is different as well.

I found a list of Excell types in a pdf of their product list but Ultra wasn't mentioned. Could have been tubing that didn't end up in production but then why go to the trouble of making tube stickers for a pre-production item? The firm's owner appears to have been a slightly odd character, according to some accounts.

 

[oonaff]

it s a well built frame ,looks neater with out so many lugs . ive got to get some forks built for mine . is that L in a triangle on the fork crown really engraved ?

 

[Rezillo]

The L and triangle are engraved, although the work is not razor-sharp. It does look nice overall - I paid far too much for the frame but liked it too much to let it go.

I will be building it up to ride but not to period, using mainly modern polished silver alloy parts. Unfortunately, for the brakes, cranks and derailleurs, all I've got to put on it for the time being is Ultegra-sl stuff in ice-grey Nice stuff but not what I'd like on this.

I did find a NOS Selle Italia Flite saddle in yellow and blue on Ebay, which I was pretty pleased with.

 

[David B]

I had no idea of the Excell/Mannesmann connection before now. Interestingly and by happy coincidence, around the same period Mannesmann also owned Sachs-Huret, and GAN were sometime users of New Success components at that time!

David

 

[Rezillo]

I had no idea of the Excell/Mannesmann connection before now. Interestingly and by happy coincidence, around the same period Mannesmann also owned Sachs-Huret, and GAN were sometime users of New Success components at that time!
David

I could be wrong - I'm only going by what I found on some other sites!

There are a few references to Excell and Mannesmann sourcing on bikeforums.net but they could just be repeating each other. Here's one from a poster there in 2009 "AKAIK, Excell didn't actually "make" any tubesets, but sourced them from Mannesmann according to their specifications. The whole Excell operation basically boiled down to one guy working out of his house".

John

 

[Rezillo]

Initial build is finished. As a Frankenbike, it's nothing like whatever this frame had originally but it will do me fine. I only had utlegra-sl spare but I swapped over some 6600 kit from another bike.

 

[oonaff]

saddle works well ! i thought of lots of shiny components for mine but now im pondering about black with gp4/s . fully rounded bar 's are my preferance . you prob have the rare'st steel , pre trek Lemond .