In 2020, three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond relaunched his eponymous bike brand and released two new models in 2021: the Prolog and the Dutch.
This was the first time we’d seen the LeMond name on a range of bikes since 2008, with quite a change in direction as well. Instead of the race-oriented LeMond bikes of the 1990s and early 2000s, the new LeMond range is commute-focused and electric.
LeMond started his foray into the bike manufacturing business in 1986, after he won the Tour de France on a carbon fiber frame. Initially, LeMond Bicycles developed race machines which LeMond would use in competition himself and which would then also be marketed and sold to the public. From 1995 onward, LeMond Bicycles licensed the brand name to Trek, who believed the name cachet and unique geometry of the LeMond bikes would increase business. The relationship went sour, however, and the two companion split ways.
Today, the steel LeMond Tourmalet bikes as well as the carbon LeMond Zurich are still a common sight on U.S. roads, but with the exception of 300 TIME-manufacturer frames in 2013, LeMond hadn’t produced any new bikes until the e-bikes launch in 2021. A modern, high-performance, all-carbon road bike named the Lemond 8 was slated for launch this summer, but has been indefinitely delayed after LeMond was diagnosed with Leukemia in June.
According to LeMond Bicycles, the ebikes launch support the brand’s aim of “reshaping the future of e-bikes by expanding their accessibility to all riders. This can only be accomplished by ensuring the entire build is lightweight.”
I doubt many will consider a $4,795 bike “accessible”, but there is no denying that the bike is lightweight, a joy to ride and, let’s be honest, arguably the sleekest, best-looking bike on the e-bike market today.
(Image credit: Anne-Marije Rook)
Carbon Fiber Everything
Ahead of relaunching his bike brand, Greg LeMond started a new brand, LeMond Carbon, a carbon fiber manufacturing company that specializes in the production of low-cost carbon fiber and manufacturer-ready intermediate composite materials. The company was formed in 2016 to commercialize proprietary technologies developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Deakin University’s Carbon Nexus, located in Geelong, Australia.
The Prolog is a collaboration of both LeMond companies, LeMond Carbon and LeMond Bikes, and the result is carbon everything.
The Prolog features a carbon fiber…