Steel Cervélos, LeMond Forks and the Final Hours of a Vintage Bike Contest

The final hours of the Fredline contest bring a familiar cycling question into focus: what makes an old bike worth keeping? The latest entries offer steel frames, unusual forks, period components and enough mechanical history to make the bikes more than display pieces. Submissions close at 12 p.m. New York time, and the field is already strong.

The contest deadline is here, though anyone unsure of the local time will need to check. The invitation comes with a wink about the competition’s stiffness: perhaps laterally stiff and vertically compliant, as the old frame-design shorthand goes.

One entry is a steel Cervélo, a combination that may surprise riders who know the brand chiefly for its later reputation as an aggressive design pusher. The owner’s lightly used 2003 Superprodigy was bought in 2009. It arrived with a period-correct Ultegra 2×9 group, then received a Force 2×10 upgrade. The reason was practical: the rear tire clearance is so tight that a 23 mm tire barely fits, while the frame’s 1-inch headset gives the front end a notably slender look.

The post recalls that Cervélo may have been the last professional team to race a steel bike at Paris-Roubaix, though the writer flags that memory as uncertain. The contrast is part of the appeal. A maker associated with pushing design boundaries also produced a steel frame, while the Soloist later helped shape the modern aerodynamic road-bike look.

Trek’s longer attachment to steel provides another thread. The post links that history to the end of the LeMond bicycle line, which Trek discontinued while investing in a different racing direction. The distinction matters: the joke is about a bicycle brand and its commercial choices, not Greg LeMond himself.

A circa-2000 LeMond Zurich makes the older-bike tradeoffs more tangible. Its owner lists a Reynolds 853 frame and a Trek Air Rail fork, along with 9-speed Dura-Ace levers. The verdict on those controls is mixed: beautiful mechanics, poor ergonomics and mediocre braking. A combined Dura-Ace and Ultegra drivetrain gets warmer praise for its appearance, quiet operation and dependable function, but its very large gearing leaves the owner wondering how hills ever got climbed.

The post pushes back on the lever assessment, pointing out that comfort and braking impressions are subjective. But the fork prompts a more useful reminder for anyone riding vintage equipment: inspect older components. The owner’s notes refer to a discussion of how long bicycle parts remain safe to use. Age alone doesn’t establish a component’s condition, but regular checks matter as bikes and their riders grow older.

Forks recur in another entry, whose owner jokes that the fork has a checkered past after appearing in an earlier bike-photo contest. That contest did exist: the old post is still online. The current writer reframes the suggestive photo as a steel fork inspecting a carbon one for signs of failure—a gag that fits the post’s blend of bike-shop humor and mechanical scrutiny.

The original photo contest was intended to parody the work of Andy White at Fyxomatosis. A throwaway reference to Knog lights then opens a side story: Knog liked the “Hipster Cyst” joke enough to have the writer produce catalog copy, which the post recalls as dating to 2010. The writer questions whether making fun of the brand before writing for it crossed into shilling, then undercuts the thought with an old image and a joke about smoking. The post ultimately states plainly that smoking is harmful and shouldn’t be encouraged.

A link to a later post and more archival images keep the digression moving before the contest returns to bikes. Commenter “sbarner” submits a 2004 LeMond Zurich with a hard-used history: its previous owner was riding through a local park when a squirrel entered the front wheel. The impact snapped both carbon fork blades. The rider was unhurt, according to the account, and later showed the bike, wheel and animal in a photograph. It’s a grim anecdote, and a reminder that fork damage can have serious consequences.

The owner describes the LeMond’s “spine” construction as a mix of steel and carbon, and jokes that the design sounds tailor-made for marketing copy. The same entry’s author asks not to win the boutique chain lube, citing a collection of oils and lubes already on hand and a tendency to misplace them. The contest host welcomes the advance forfeit.

That mention of product copy leads to an analog cycling computer. Its description calls it mechatronic: digital internals paired with a mechanical display. It shows speed, elapsed time and elevation climbed, aiming to keep the rider’s view limited to a few metrics. The writer questions the tradeoff. A conventional electronic computer can show selected fields, while this unit offers fewer functions; pairing it with an electronic drivetrain that needs charging seems an odd mix of priorities.

The post ends where its bike-photo jokes began, with another fork image and a note that the color would be appealing on a custom build. An embedded Instagram post follows, capped with one final suggestion: it just needs an analog computer.

For riders weighing an older frame’s charm against its age, the entries offer a clear takeaway: enjoy the history, but give forks and other aging parts a careful inspection before the next ride.