I have heard whisperings that the quality of Litespeed cycles has gone downhill. A contributor to another forum, a bike shop owner, said he stopped carrying them because of this.

Yesterday, when I visited this absolutely great LBS in Frederick, MD, the owner and I talked about bike for about thirty minutes. We were talking about the merits of the new LeMond hybrid steel/ti-carbon frames. I voiced concern that buying something new in the first year might be risky because all the bugs have not been worked out of the process.

He obviously knew his stuff, as he told me about how the frame components were formed, how they were joined, and the quality control and testing that went in to the process. He then made the following statement (paraphrasing) "The Zurich and Victoirre are built on exacting standards on a par with the better bikes, like Merlin, and far and away better than lesser bikes, like Litespeed."

When I asked about this, he, too, said the quality has gone down in recent years.

Anyone else heard this?

From other things he said, he is obviously a cylcling traditionalist. The one thing above others that indicated this was his ranking of frame materials in order of ride and overall quality. "Steel is better than aluminum. Carbon/steel is better than steel. Full carbon is better than carbon/steel, and ti is the best of all."