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timo2.0 schreef:

Sebo schreef:

timo2.0 schreef:

According to a 2007 forum posting by former Merlin designer Tom Kellogg:

“At Greg’s request, I designed and Merlin built the Team Z Titanium frames for the ’91 season. The team paid Merlin and me for the work we did, a very unusual turn of events in the pro world. That was 11 months before the first butted titanium frames were made (March of ’92). At the end of the ’91 season, which was not very good for Greg, his company, through his father, approached Merlin in an attempt to find a supplier of titanium frames that could be marketed under the LeMond name. At that time, Merlin was working on what would eventually become the Extralight. Merlin offered LeMond Cycles the exclusive rights to the Extralight for five years but Merlin was turned down because of the price. That was the end of any talks between LeMond Cycles and Merlin. In the end, it worked out beautifully for Merlin since the Extralight became the state of the art for racing frames by mid ’92 and remained there for some years. For at least a year after that LeMond Titanium frames were made by Sandvik.

“Merlin sent the raw Team frames to us on April 2, 1991 and we shipped them over to Paris on the 29th. I painted them to match the then current LeMond Z paint jobs; Red, Yellow, Blue along with what was the current state-of-the-art for forks (SR aluminum). Each frame had the rider’s name painted into the finish near the rear of the top tube and Greg supplied all of the LeMond decals. As part of the deal, Merlin DID get a decal on the frames. They were the Merlin tubing badge applied at the top of the seat tube just below the top tube. Once the frames were in France, the team mechanic used a small Campagnolo decal to cover up the Merlin decals. In some of the photos from that year, you can see a little bit of the Merlin’s wing showing out from under the Campy decal. Campy gave away components, Merlin didn’t. In the end, the relationship between Greg and Merlin was always good. I have always gotten along well with Greg as well.”