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

126 127 feature 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.

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