Lance Armstrong 1995 Merckx Team Bike

As some of you might know, I have 

been selling quite a lot of my collection over the 

past year or so.

Well the reason for this radical downsizing is quite

simply that I have decided to develop my historic 

collection to a far higher level.

This has called for some hard choices I can tell you.

However I have made a pretty clear set of my own

guides as to what is worth displaying, or even if

not displaying now, then preserving in dry 
storage for either displaying, or if needed restoring 

at a later date.

 So to cut a long story short, the first bike I have acquired

through the painful disposal of some of my collection is this 

Lance Armstrong 1995 Team Motorola/Caloi Eddie Merckx.

Columbus SLX New 
Frame No:

F 9016

  The bike as it arrived from the States yesterday, much

to my relief. The process of getting it here had turned out 

to be quite time consuming and costly.

The person I brought it off, brought it in 1998 from

a cyclist who purchased it from the annual Motorola 

postseason sale in Wisconsin. 

He brought it less wheel set, and changed the bars

and stem to suit himself, well why wouldn't you?

 The frame is in remarkably good condition, I suspect

that  this frame didn't see a lot of action with Lance, as

Columbus MX Leader was also available to the riders 

that year, and I think a titanium frame(?).

Columbus SLX New frame decal.

I know that the team also had 753 frames that year decaled

as Columbus..apparently Merckx was quite fond of 

recommending 753 to pro teams. 

The paint finish on the bike it really quite outstanding, 

far better than I was expecting, even the Caloi decals

have a thin gold key line that you can't really make out in 

the photos, but make the red text 'pop' quite nicely.

 

 Now the next step will be to find and fit the original

components to the bike before I put it on display. 

 The all important top tube decal, obviously printed on a

1990's Gerber Edge Printer.

You can tell this by the slightly translucent finish of the

white on clear decal, screenprinted decals are opaque.  

I know this because I have a Gerber Edge 2 printer that

I have been trying to get going for the past couple of years

so I can make reproductions for certain bikes from this period

with these Gerber printed decals (Mitchell's for instance).

Unfortunately I haven't quite got there yet, but you will

know when I do, because I have at least 5 Mitchell's

stripped and waiting for their Gerber printed decals. 

  Gerbers were also used to make the metal foil 

decals as well.

Gerber printed Clear 'Mitchell' and foil

World Champion strips.

 So even though parting with several of my precious bikes

to purchase Lance's bike was at times quite painful, in

the end I am glad I did. This is a serious historical piece.

Whatever your thoughts around Armstrong and his legacy,

there can be no doubt that he popularized cycle racing

to a level that was beyond anyone's widest dreams. 

He was also a great rider, and pretty funny on his postcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor7iBP3INw

Here is some great footage of Lance and the boys in action
Tour du Pont 1995