Steve Whitlatch 

I picked this up today. No decals. Marked Greg LeMond on the seat stay and Greg LeMond Hand made on the brake bridge. Columbus fork ends. 27.2 seat post. Shimano Tri Color drive train and head set, not sure if that is original to this bike? RSX STI levers.

The guy I bought it from said it was made by Cinelli but I want to be sure? I would like to know anything I can about the frame, like what Columbus tubing and the year? Do you think the paint is original? I would love to know the model so I can research what it looked like new. Is it high end? Yes I do plan on parting this bike out and selling the frame. It is too small for me. I just want to know what I have? I also just want to make sure it does not end up a fixed gear hipster cruise.

Thank you for any info given.

Steve Whitlatch 

How can I determine the tubing? Is Alle very light weight, because this bike seems very light?

verktyg 

Made by Cinelli??? FA-GITTA-BOUT-IT! I don't know where those creative minds get their misinformation?

Looks like you got a nice bike. Does it fit you?

It's most likely a Bilato made Lemond frame. Probably not top tier but very good quality.

The Bilato brothers were one of the largest frame builders in Italy and a contract builder of note. They made most of the pre Trek Lemond frames plus Ciocc, Concorde, Conti and a lot of other famous marques.

The tubing is almost certainly some flavor of Columbus - SL, SLX, TLX. If you pull the BB, reach in with your finger and feel for ribs inside the chain stays, seat and down tubes... That would indicate SLX or TLX tubing.

10 Speed Drive was located in Florida and imported those bikes and frames. They painted most of the Bilato Lemond Team Z frames and may have painted other models too.

Here's what I wrote last year about Bilato and Team Z bikes:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...l#post17238581

verktyg

Chas.

calamarichris

Belato Bros. Good to know, thanks.

Here's what your bike looked like when new, most likely.
I just finished building this up, after drooling over it Marcel's shop for about 7 years. Paid too much for it, but the heart has reasons which even reason cannot fathom, (which is a very C&V way of saying I have more dollars than sense.)

nesteel 

Judging from the pics, you're a fairly tall individual, aren't you? Nice looking bike BTW.

Steve Whitlatch 

Thanks for the info. The bike is too small for me. I can use the parts on it, but was planning to sell the frame to someone that will appreciate it. I still need to strip it down and clean it up. These pictures are taken after a 15 minute wipe down I did to see what I was working with. Thick layer of grime covered everything.

verktyg 

Columbus Alle was their economy level tubing for mid range bikes. It was developed to compete against similar quality tube sets like Vitus variations plus Tange and Ishiwata Manganese steel tubing and maybe Reynolds 501.

It probably wouldn't have been used on a Lemond badged frame.

Here's a link to the 1992 Lemond catalog showing two model frames - one made of Columbus TXL and the other SL.

A little Lemond Catalog reading for the weekend ~ tears for gears

verktyg

Chas.

Steve Whitlatch 

WOW!! That is sharp!! Yours has a fancy fork crown and chrome on the chain stay. What are the fork ends stamped? Mine are stamped Columbus.

Steve Whitlatch 

Thank you for the link. Mine is probably the SL frame. From poking around the internet a bit I have gathered that the TSX frames had the internal cable routing like the white one above. Looking at the catalog, my frame looks like the SL version.

Fahrenheit531 

@Steve Whitlatch: Shame is doesn't fit. Cool find though.
@calamarichris: NICE. As "more dollars than sense" goes, I'd say that's a winner.

Stev8del8

I ordered my Greg Lemond Cromor frame in the early 90's, from Mike's Cyclery in Vero Beach Florida. Columbus Cromor tubing with Columbus chrome faced dropouts and chromed right chainstay. It really is a sweet ride.

On the underside of the rear brake bridge, it is stamped "SLV". That means that it was hand brazed by Silvano Billato, one of Silvio's sons.

I had to wait two months for the importer, Ten Speed Drive, to apply the paint and decals.

miamijim

To add to what verktyg was saying, look in the seat tube from the top, TSX tubing will be splined the entire length, SLX will be splined only down near the BB, SL will have NO splines.

puckett129

Also could be Columbus Cromor. I have a lugged Lemond frame that is Cromor would be identical to yours... it's from 1989. IIRC from this forum Cromor is seamed SL. I also think mine was a Bilato built frame.

Steve Whitlatch 

Pulled the BB. No ridges so it will be SL or Cromor? How do I tell the difference between SL and Cromor?

verktyg 

The term "seamed" is misleading in the case of quality tubing. Also, seamed tubing is not always bad... Look at all of the steel street light, traffic light, highway sign and flag poles. They're all made with seamed tubing!

Here's a picture showing the seam in steel pipe. It would be the same in unworked steel tubing except for a thinner wall thickness.



The "best" quality tubing is called "DOM" - drawn over mandrel. This hot or cold rolling works the steel to reduce the wall thickness while increasing the strength.



In the case of Cromor, Reynolds 501, TrueTemper and other types of high quality "seamed" tubing, rather than starting out with a solid billet and piercing a starter hole through it, the process starts off with thick plates that are rolled into a cylinder and then electro-welded at the joint using the same kind of steel for a filler rod.

The rolling process creates an homogenous tube which eliminates any weakness in the tube at the welded seam. Unless you did a metallurgical examination, you couldn't tell if it was seamed or not. It's just cheaper to start with a pre-pierced hole!

Cheap seamed steel pipe or tubing needs to have thicker walls to compensate for the lower strength of the material. That's why frames made of so called gas pipe tubing weigh a lot more that an alloy steel frame (see pipe picture above).

Cromor tube sets weigh 265g (~9.5 oz) more than SL tube sets. The down tube is 1.0mm x 0.7mm thick vs. 0.9mm x 0.6mm for SL. Also the seat stays are 0.9mm vs. 0.8mm thick in SL. After the tubes are cut to length, the weight difference is probably half of that original 265g depending on frame size. Cromor is made of cold drawn crhome-molly steel just like SL so the strength should be the same. It should be slightly stiffer laterally across the BB because of the thicker down tube but may not ride as smooth for the same reason.

verktyg

Chas.

Steve Whitlatch 

Mine is stamped SILVO under the brake bridge. That must be the old man made mine?

puckett129

Thank you for the detailed lesson.

Stev8del8

Seems reasonable to me. I've not seen anything that would say when Silvio stopped brazing frames.

I have done a fair amount of web searching Billato bicycles, Billato brothers, Silvio Billato and such. It seems that Billato bicycles were (are) much more than just a contract builder.


Do some web searching and you will see what I mean.

verktyg 

Read contract builder for the best....

I have some bridge front property for sale cheap to anyone who believes that the top Italian marques like Cinelli, Masi, Colnago and many others built all of their own frames. De Rosa is the only one that I haven't heard of farming out work!

verktyg

Chas.

Stev8del8

This may be a little off-thread, verktyg, but I have two Benotto track frames.

Both have a heart shaped cutout in the bottom bracket. They also have "diamante" chain-stays and heart shaped cutouts in the seat and head-tube lugs. They show a heavy De Rosa influence.

I've often wondered if De Rosa themselves did contract work. Maybe I'll start a new thread as I don't want to hijack this one.

c_c_rider

nice frame, like the white paint. TSX model? looks exactly like the one i just picked up... NOS from '93 (with original warranty card too). Same decals as yours. Earlier 90-92 models had slightly different decals.

c_c_rider

Definitely a Bilato built LeMond. It's a Cromar tubing model... you can tell by the seat stay and bottom bracket clusters. The nicer SL/SLX/TSX models had a bit fancier seatstay caps (like the white one posted in this thread) and nicer/lighter bridgeless bb lug. It's a good quality frame, not high end but still quality steel. Since it has been repainted it's not worth that much, maybe $175-200 for the frame. If it had it's original paint then maybe $300-325. the nicer SLX / TSX models are worth significantly more.

c_c_rider

take a closer look and you'll see that it is stamped 'SILVA'. Silva was a company that made frame bits for many builders back in the 80's and 90's.

Steve Whitlatch 

Thank you for the information. I sold the frame to a friend and fellow forum member that is planning to do a restoration project on it. I will pass this information along to him.