Greg Lemond Was Searching for a Bike Fast Enough to Keep Him at the Very Pinnacle of Professional Bike Racing

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In 1991, Greg LeMond was searching for a bike fast enough to keep him at the very pinnacle of professional bike racing. Craig Calfee was busy forging a quiet revolution in carbon A meeting construction. Together they changed the face of cycling Words Matt Walsh Pics Matt Walsh, Graham Watson

t’s 1991 and Greg LeMond should the intersection of carbon technology be on top of the world. He’s at the and practical application. of minds peak of his career, confident and Greg LeMond wasn’t going to try I has a team built around him and and win the Tour de France paddling a ready to serve his every demand. He’s scull up the Alps or Pyrenees. The won the last two editions of the Tour de transformation from boat to bike would France and just two seasons before had require an act of fate — in this case, an taken the rainbow jersey of world errant Pontiac Firebird. Racing downhill champion in Chambéry. at 60kph on an old steel Schwinn He has every reason to think he can Varsity, Calfee is hit head-on by a win a fourth Tour: arch-rival Bernard Firebird running a red light. Hinault is long retired, Laurent Fignon Miraculously, he walks away with hasn’t been the same since coming barely a scrape but the Schwinn is second to him in 1989, and Miguel destroyed. He already knows the Indurain is still an unknown factor as a incredible attributes of carbon — its real GC contender. combination of strength, stiffness and Words Alasdair Fotheringham Pics Andy Jones & Offside/L’Equipe On the other hand, there are lightness. An empty bank account complications and warnings. He still has inspires him in his first efforts to build 37 shotgun pellets in his body; two in the carbon bike. lining around his heart. His body is “I made my own fibre on a braider. It sending him confusing signals he can’t made tubular fabric and then I’d slide quite decode. He’s also begun to notice that over a mandrel. It’s basically the something ominous in the peloton: “The same technology being used today,” races were just getting faster and faster. I says Calfee. “Besides the frame, that didn’t realise what was happening.” was the first all-carbon fork and stem Above Hushovd But more straightforwardly, he needs ever made.” relaxes at his Swiss a bike. He’s interested in carbon-fibre, The finished frame was ugly, lakeside home even though the technology is still in its misshapen and barely aligned, but the infancy for bike frames. Carbon-fibre aesthetics and rough handiwork meant bikes are relatively common, it’s just that nothing. As a concept, as an engineering LeMond wants a better one. Preferably feat, it was the future. The promise and the best one. implications were eye-popping. Calfee didn’t know it at the time but Setting sail he’d just traded the Olympics for the Backtrack a few years to 1987 and Tour de France. He was about to watch Craig Calfee stumble into his life’s become Greg LeMond’s carbon guru. work. Just out of the Pratt Institute in The long-haired 28-year-old punk left “T here’s only one thing New York with a degree in sculpture, Boston to start his own bike company in he’s scraping by on minimum wage as a San Francisco. Calfee worked days as a worse than descending carpenter in Boston when he sees a job carpenter, to make ends meet, and opening at a boat-building company. cured epoxy at night. on a carbon bike — In his imagination, he pictures “It was survival mode. At the time I beautiful curve-linear pieces of wood had three or four employees. We were that’s climbing without one” but soon discovers these boats are making two frames a week, if that,” says carbon-fibre racing shells bound for the Calfee. “We were in a garage alley with Greg LeMond Olympic Games. The workplace is thick a meth clinic down the street. There with the stink of epoxy and he’s hooked were heroin addicts hanging around so I — Calfee suddenly has a new career at got a pitbull to guard the front door.” 128 FEATURE Calfee Design 129

Slowly word got out about the unattainable dream,” says Calfee, still climbs beautifully, but he isn’t sold yet. beautiful frames, the paradigm shock of amazed over 20 years later at the stroke “He looks me in the eye and says the the strength-to-weight ratio. Carbon was of luck. “How could you get someone real test is how it descends because ‘all an unknown, an exotic; if steel was ‘real’ like Greg LeMond to ride your bike?” carbon bikes descend like shit’.” DeVries then carbon was surreal, a freak A fax with LeMond’s geometry stays silent as LeMond decides to bomb material that geek engineers tinkered specs comes through and in four days the bike downhill into Nice. with as a hobby. In the conservative Calfee builds and ships a test frame to LeMond flies down the mountain. world of cycling, few wanted to race on France. Calfee even knocks off the “I’m waiting at the team truck and a carbon bike. To put that in perspective, funky multi-colour Team Z paintjob. Julian is not speaking to me,” Calfee imagine trying to convince Andy “I remember thinking, this is kinda recalls. “Greg wheels up, shakes my Schleck to race on a bike made of the big break staring me in the face. But hand and says, ‘Craig, this is the most bamboo — an irony because these days I’m always calm in tense situations,” amazing bike I’ve ever ridden. It Calfee is a pioneer in bamboo bikes. says Calfee. “I was practical about the descends like a demon.’” LeMond already knew those carbon whole thing.” LeMond heads for a shower and horror stories. His Z team were uneasy The way Calfee tells it, straight out of DeVries ends his cold war. “Craig, you about their TVT carbon bikes. People the box, LeMond was blown away. really did something here because made fun of the ‘plastic’ frames. “Without even riding it, he said, ‘This whatever Greg touches turns to gold,” However, LeMond didn’t doubt the is amazing.’” says DeVries. “If he likes it, you’re gonna material — he’d won his first Tour on a The rest of the team says, “Hey, it do well.” After that the gruff Belgian and Look carbon frame — he simply looks great but it’s way too light — it the scruffy punk from San Francisco thought the engineering and execution can’t possibly be stiff enough.” It’s Greg were friends. needed tweaking. LeMond versus a team of sceptics. A The TVT bikes used carbon tubes long distance call goes out and it sounds “Immediately impressed” joined with aluminium lugs. As Calfee like this: “Hi, this is Greg LeMond. I Over 20 years later, LeMond still has a later explained, those two materials n really like your frames. How fast can we memory of that bike and that day. dislike each other. They have wildly get 18 of them?” “I was immediately impressed,” he different coefficients of thermal For Calfee, it’s a period of says. “Any prototype, you’re nervous expansion — as a structural joint, it’s the exhilaration, momentum, pressure and about going downhill. This was super wrong choice. Sort of like handcuffing triumph. In one week he jets to France predictable. Without hesitation, that was Lance Armstrong to Floyd Landis and and stands at the top of the Col d’Eze the best bike I’ve ridden in my career.” hoping things go well. Top left The bike that outside Nice waiting for Greg LeMond, Understanding LeMond’s On top of that, the bikes suffered Craig built: LeMond’s the best rider in the world, to test that enthusiasm was a simple thing you from galvanic corrosion — salty sweat Paris-Nice machine carbon bike on the final Paris-Nice could measure with a scale. Back then from the riders fell onto the aluminum Above Sign of quality; stage, an uphill 12km time trial. there was no UCI weight restriction on lugs causing corrosion on the surface a champ’s cockpit; The part-time carpenter is jet-lagged bike frames. Most steel race frames and inside, breaking down the bonding DeVries would have and nervous and it doesn’t help his averaged four pounds but Calfee’s sleek agent. Nobody wants to risk becoming something to say confidence that LeMond’s personal carbon model cut that by over 25 per unglued at 80kph on a descent. about that BB mechanic, the famous Julian DeVries, cent. That wasn’t just weight slashed, it Left Campagnolo who tuned bikes for Eddy Merckx, is was physical motivation and Big break Delta brakes still look giving him the silent treatment. psychological edge. The big break is the Frenchman who like the future “Julian is kind of a gruff individual,” Calfee quickly learned about the walks down the alley past the drug Far left Team Z remembers Calfee. “He doesn’t suffer technological arms race at the Tour de addicts and into Calfee’s small shop. JP colour-fade finish is a fools and wasn’t sure about this France and the consequences if the Pascal had seen one of Calfee’s carbon psychedelic touch carbon-fibre stuff. He was the master weaponry was substandard. He mountain bikes; he was also the head of and I was this 28 year old and my hair’s remembers sitting in a hotel room when Time USA, LeMond’s pedal sponsor. too long for his taste.” LeMond explained the harsh reality: “What got his attention was that we Greg jumps off the carbon bike, he’s “Let’s say I’m riding a bike that’s heavier could do custom frames,” says Calfee. grinning, the bike is great, stiff and light, than Indurain’s bike. Assuming that “‘Do you know Greg LeMond is we’re in the same condition and we’re actively looking for a new carbon frame climbing Alpe d’Huez — if Indurain is for his team?’” he asked. I said no. “Without hesitation, that on a lighter bike and I know this, I’m “I had watched the ‘89 Tour when going to give up. I won’t push myself as Greg won by such a slight margin. We was the best bike I’ve hard. I need to have the best bike.” thought our frames would be suitable for LeMond was ready to keep pushing the Tour de France but it was this ridden in my career” on the next design, pumping Calfee 130 FEATURE Calfee Design

He was very smart, the way he thought about design. I knew enough about carbon-fibre to know he knew what he was talking about,” LeMond says. The Paris-Nice frame was a first take, a baseline setting; except for LeMond’s geometry it was off-the-shelf stock. Calfee figured a demanding professional like LeMond would have plenty of personal requirements. “I said, ‘Greg, we can change the stiffness, re-orient the fibre — it’s like a tailored suit. You tell me what you want. There was this pause, you could tell he was really thinking about it. Then he said, ‘There’s nothing I want different.’ I’d developed the perfect bike for Greg LeMond. That was cool.”

Into overdrive LeMond now had the killer bike and the technological advantage — assuming that Calfee and his crew could deliver 18 frames and two spares on a fast track. “I was pretty stoked but I was also feeling the weight of responsibility. I’d only been making carbon bikes for three years,” said Calfee. “We worked around with questions. Where can Above LeMond’s bike the clock. My bedroom was behind the we cut weight? Can we do first proved its worth shop so I slept while the epoxy cured.” carbon bars? at Paris-Nice 1991 “I really liked this blue pearl look — “He had a lot of money at his Left The patronage we called it sapphire. I showed it to Greg disposal and he didn’t care about of a pro raised and he said, ‘Oh, that’s awesome. Let’s cost,” says Calfee. “It was just: ‘I Calfee’s profile go with that.’” Out went the multi-colour want to win the Tour again.’” Below Craig’s dayglo paintjob for an elegant blue that At one point, LeMond asked company is still in the showed off the carbon weave — the him if they could make the frame when it comes bike not only weighed far less, it wasn’t gussets more aerodynamic. to innovation burdened by tacky graphics. “I was about to say well, The final hurdle wasn’t the tight there’s a lot of turbulent air down production schedule but the deep there where the cranks are distrust of everybody besides LeMond spinning but I shut up,” says Calfee, and DeVries. When the bikes were shaking his head. “I realised I’m about to presented, the reaction was universal argue with a guy who won the Tour de — too light and too untrustworthy. France by eight seconds. Greg’s the one That was until the Johan Lammerts guy in the world you couldn’t have that Judgement. The big rider from the argument with.” Netherlands was positive he’d destroy LeMond was always a technically- the flimsy bike — he delivered a heavily minded individual — besides the aero accented, “I will break it”. LeMond bars, he was one of the first riders to insisted he ride it and Lammerts and the jump on aero helmets, clipless pedals bike came back in one piece despite the and heart-rate monitors. He knew that impromptu torture test. Team Z headed he’d stumbled on a master carbon to Lyon and the Grand Départ with fabricator and designer in Calfee. some carbon bikes, while Calfee went “The guy was an out-of-box thinker. home, threw a party with speed 132 FEATURE Calfee Design

metal music and drank some beer. Shortly before the 1991 Tour, LeMond was as confident as he’d been in years: “I had a Vespa and I’d do 80 [kph behind it]. That year I was at 85. I told my wife, ‘I’m going to win the Tour breathing through my nose.’” Unfortunately, he didn’t know the speed in France had also been raised. That Tour marked the terminal point in LeMond’s career. There were six days in yellow but it soon became apparent there was little hope of winning or even making the podium. In the first time trial, a 73-kilometre test from Argentan to Alençon, LeMond received the initial shock. “I was flying that day and I was beat by eight seconds. That was a big blow. I was blown away.” Psychologically he was done before the race hit the Alps, where the final body blow was delivered. “Tourmalet was the day I really wanted the bike. But when you blow like that, it doesn’t matter how light the bike Above The original New bamboo But the star of the show is the bike is,” LeMond says. He limped into Paris creation is back in The original Paris-Nice frame has been that started it all. Calfee has tried to pull in seventh place behind winner Miguel Calfee’s hands down a few roads and through a few the Campagnolo bottom bracket out but Indurain. He had a better race bike than hands but now it’s leaned up against a can’t — they need an old extractor tool Big Mig or Claudio Chiappucci but that wall in Calfee’s shop. The heroin addicts that probably only Julian DeVries still carbon machine couldn’t pull back 13 in the alley have been replaced by a has. The restoration project will have to minutes all on its own. view of the Pacific Ocean a thousand wait for another time. Explanations for the dramatic drop metres away. The two-storey building The surprise is that, as much as in performance are still a debated. It was just South of Santa Cruz hums with carbon-fibre technology has evolved, it’s the 37 shotgun pellets, a heart problem, activity and Calfee, who just turned 50, still just first steps. Hold up Calfee’s chronic fatigue, too many kilos, a is still a renaissance bike geek jumping entry-level Luna frame to the Team Z disease of the muscle tissue. from project to project with restless model and the resemblance is strong. The suspicious and cynical point to enthusiasm for the challenges thrown up “Metalworking has been going on for doping in the mid-1990s and wonder by each new mission. 6,000 years. That’s a huge amount of how much earlier the secret sauce went The back ceiling is hung with development for a craft,” says Calfee. into effect. LeMond never finished Calfee’s bamboo bikes from Africa, the “Carbon-fibre tubing has been around another Tour and retired two years later. Bamboosero venture he launched in since the early 50s. We’ve got some To compound the loss, a year later Ghana and Nigeria. Craftsmen are catching up to do — there’s plenty of LeMond’s bike company also ran into busy repairing carbon bikes made by room for innovation.” difficulties. Calfee lost his licensing deal every bike manufacturer in or out of LeMond never got his fourth Tour de and had to scramble to buy back the existence. He’s keen to show off his France victory but things worked out intellectual property and equipment. latest crazy idea: a motorcycle just fine for Calfee. “I was disappointed. I thought with helicopter that looks like something “I walked away with an awesome Greg’s marketing power and our straight out of a Mad Max movie. story,” says Calfee. “I got some new technical knowledge carbon-fibre would investors and kept going.” dominate the market. It was a lost Calfee is still friends with LeMond opportunity,” says Calfee. “Carbon-fibre has been and continues to build bikes for the “I said at the time: ‘Every rider in the former champion. The latest request is Tour will ride carbon-fibre bikes because around since the 50s. for a fast bike, lightweight and if they don’t, they won’t be competitive’. responsive — only in bamboo and this Ten years later that was the case.” We’ve catching up to do” time around, a tandem.